Political consumerism and public policy: Good complements against market failures? (original) (raw)

Political Consumerism — Global Responsibility in Action

2013

Political Consumerism captures the creative ways in which citizens, consumers, and political activists use the market as their arena for politics. This book theorizes, describes, analyzes, compares, and evaluates the phenomenon of political consumerism and how it attempts to use market choice to solve complex globalized problems. It investigates theoretically and empirically how and why consumers practice citizenship and have become important political actors. Dietlind Stolle and Michele Micheletti describe consumers' engagement as an example of individualized responsibility-taking, examining how political consumerism nudges and pressures corporations to change their production practices, and how consumers emerge as a force in global affairs. Unlike other studies, it also evaluates whether and how consumer actions become effective mechanisms of global change. Stolle and Micheletti offer a candid discussion of the limitations of political consumerism as a form of participation and as a problem-solving mechanism.

Embedding "Political Consumerism": A Conceptual Critique

This paper develops a theoretically and empirically founded critique of the concept of political consumerism. In the course of the last decade, political consumerism was "discovered" as a new form of political participation, revealing the politics behind products. Surveys show that individuals more and more often use their consumption to voice political concerns, boycotting products or explicitly buying products for a political reason (boycott). I first discuss this concept and its different dimensions. I then offer an encompassing critique thereof, focusing on four main aspects: the conceptualization of consumers and consumption, the question of whether political consumption is new, the universality of the notion, and the articulation between individual and collective forms of political consumption.

The Successes of Political Consumerism as a Social Movement

The Oxford Handbook of Political Consumerism, edited by Magnus Boström, Michele Micheletti, and Peter Oosterveer (forthcoming 2019)

The chapter aims at providing a set of interpretive tools to analyze the outcomes of consumer activism when performed through collective action. In the last years, in fact, we have witnessed a shifting from political consumerism understood as a practice of the individual 'citizen-consumer' to political consumerism performed by a growing number of organized collectives like solidarity purchasing groups, consumer-producer cooperatives, ecological communities etc. This implies that a re-conceptualization of political consumerism should be accompanied by renewed interpretive frameworks and methodologies. Drawing from the literature on social movements and their outcomes, the authors come forth with an interpretive 'compass' composed by six main features (type, domain, nature, target, timing, duration) that help understanding the effectiveness of consumer activism in light of the recent developments. In the second and final part of the chapter, the authors underline the importance of taking into account factors like resources, media outreach and alliances as well as the political, socioeconomic and cultural context.

Political consumerism: An integrative review

2022

Consumers are gradually becoming more conscious of the strength of their consumption, expressing discontent and opinions and demanding improvements in organizations. Due to the extensive theoretical background, this article aims to compile research about political consumption through an integrative review on WOS and Scopus. At the end of the methodological procedures, 36 articles were obtained and analyzed with the content analysis technique. The results show that personal influences and motivations for political consumption are based on sociodemographic situation, political ideology, and internet use. This framework synthesized the phases of political consumption, the main actions, and the main actors involved.

Political Consumerism: Possibilities for International Norm Change

2010

By submitting this thesis, I declare that the entirety of the work contained therein is my own, original work, that I am the owner of the copyright thereof (unless to the extent explicitly otherwise stated) and that I have not previously in its entirety or in part submitted it for obtaining any qualification.

Ambiguous framings of political consumerism: means or end, product or process orientation?

International Journal of Consumer Studies, 2006

For dealing with various societal problems, 'political'/ 'ethical'/'responsible' consumerism is often discussed as an effective democratic and participatory tool. However, political consumerism-along with its tools, such as product labelling-is often conceived and discussed in oversimplified ways. Instead, the tension between scientific complexity, knowledge uncertainty and a codified, standardized label involves extensive political strategy, interest conflicts and simplified framings of the consumers' roles as political decision makers. The purpose of this paper is to analyse how criteria for organic food labelling have been simplified, or framed, within various versions of political consumerism in policy debates. The more general purpose is to examine variations of what consumerism may entail theoretically and practically. Examples are chosen of organic food labelling in the US. The analysis is based on framing theory. The first distinction is made between framings surrounding the extrinsic and intrinsic values of consumerism (i.e. consumer empowerment towards an external goal, or as an overriding principle of democracy). The second distinction is between product-and process-oriented consumerism (i.e. consumer empowerment with regard to the purchased goods or concerning the 'invisible' production and disposal processes). These distinctions may facilitate critical examinations of criteria, processes and communication of consumer-related policies. Keywords Consumer empowerment , ethical consumer , food labelling , framing , intrinsic value , organic food , political consumerism .

Consumer choice as political participation

Statsvetenskaplig Tidskrift, 2002

Political scientists are often rather surprised when they first hear that shopping can be participation in politics. We react this way because we are taught that the political system is the focus of citizen involvement in politics. Our definitions of political participation reflect this understanding: "those voluntary activities by which members of a society share in the selection of rulers and, directly or indirectly, in the formation of public policy" (McClosky 1968,252), and "politiskt deltagande innebär deltagande i aktiviteter som har till syfte eller resultat att utöva inflytande på de politiska myndigheternas beslut, antingen direkt genom att påverka beslutsprocessen inom ett bestämt område eller indirekt genom att påverka valet av politiska representanter" (Togeby 1997,219). These definitions form the basis of our empirical work on political participation (for an overview see Teorell 2001).