The Political Marketing of Broken Trust

Abstract

This paper investigates how political marketing as a practice and theory works and if it can be applied in a social and political environment of broken trust. The topic is usually the opposite; that is, if political marketing acts as an accelerator for undemocratic sentiments and as a cruel, soul-less instrument that breaks the trust in democratic societies. But here we look at how political marketing and its fundamental concept of “exchange” work when the general climate is one of political and social discontents. The starting point of the research is a simple observation that during 23 years of post-1989 Romanian democracy the parties and coalitions winning the elections have very often collapsed or got into large scandals very soon after the election moment; it is also the case for opposition parties losing elections. The paper is asking whether the cvasi-permanent political “conflict” is not in fact a denial of a consumer-oriented political marketing approach. The paper follows participation, election, and polling results as indicators and outputs of both political trust and political marketing processes. A strong emphasis will be put on the electoral system background which is the foundation for political marketing strategies. The consumer approach of candidates and parties will be examined from macrodata and analysis of how electoral campaigns were put in place in previous years. This is not a paper on ethics. It is an instrumental and practical exploration of the relation between social and democratic trust on one side and political marketing as a discipline and practice on the other.