The Rise of Political Consumerism
In 1995, 123 nations convened to make the world one large entwined political economy. They set up the World Trade Organization (WTO), which since then has been promoting an unpreceded eradication of national barriers to trade and the interweaving of economies worldwide. Half of all goods and services traded today forms part of global value chains in which raw materials may be sourced on one continent, assembled on a second, and sold and consumed on a third (World Trade Organization 2015, 18). This process has furnished a progressively expanding range of consumption alternatives and material comfort all over the world. Yet also, complexity is growing, and as production chains stretch over several countries, the associated problems become of transnational concern as well.
In this context, political, economic and societal concerns have become inextricably intertwined. Decisions taken as a consumer in Europe, for instance, can sustain or impinge on human rights abuses in Bangladesh and environmental pollution in Brazil. Similarly, everyday behaviours such as driving a car, drinking a coffee ‘to go’ or disposing of waste can make life convenient in one moment, while having severe implications on the quality of life of oneself and others in the long term. The development of the internet, internationalised media and digital communication devices allow for the global diffusion of such concerns. This has transformed political participation considerably.
Spreading material prosperity has given rise to individuals desiring to define identity, values and norms by their own actions and practices. In addition, to address and express their political concerns, citizens can—and do—use a multiplicity of digital and analogue forms of participation (Bennett 2012; Dalton 2017; van Deth 2016; Theocharis 2015; Theocharis and van Deth 2016). Rather than relying on election-centred political participation alone, across democratic countries, citizens resort to a customised inclusion of ‘politics’ in everyday life (Bennett 1998, 2012; Dalton 2006, 2010; Lindén 2005, 208; Norris 2011; Papadopoulos 2013; Stolle et al. 2003; van Deth 2012).
These citizens now encounter a setting where the sphere of influence of national governments is narrowing. Some of the most fundamental societal problematics today—plastic islands in the oceans, rising temperatures and sea levels due to ongoing increases of CO2 emissions, human rights abuses in blurry multinational production chains, to name a few examples—are of global character and relate to prevailing consumption patterns and production practices. With this, transnationally operating organisations and firms have become key actors and additional addressees for political concerns. Interactions with firms are yielded with political weight. And more and more, individuals appear to recognise the political power therewith resting in their roles as consumers (Bossy 2014; Micheletti 2003, 4; Micheletti and Føllesdal 2007, 169; Neilson 2010, 214; Sassatelli 2008; Spaargaren and Martens 2005, 30).
This has created the basis for the rise of the ‘political consumer’. A citizen who, being aware of the political embeddedness of consumption, deliberately decides to buy or not to buy a certain product for ethical, environmental or societal reasons (Micheletti 2003, 19). The number of politically motivated consumers has steadily increased in the past 20 years and inspired an expanding range of surveys to record its diffusion. In Germany, for example, a study series on ethical consumerism conducted by Otto Group charts this rise well. In 2009, 26 per cent of the surveyed individuals claimed to buy based on ethical motivations on a regular basis. In 2011, this fraction reached 46 per cent, and in 2013, 56 per cent (Otto Group 2013). Equally in the UK, this figure rose from 27 per cent in 2000 to 42 per cent in 2012 (Co-operative Group 2012). Similar tendencies are visible worldwide: a study conducted in 2014 surveyed 30,000 people in 60 countries. On every single continent, around half of the respondents declared they had based purchases on the responsible conduct of a firm (Nielsen 2014). The consistent growth in sales of ‘ethical’, ‘sustainable’ and ‘organic’ goods, in spite of economic turmoil (Co-operative Group 2012, 2016; Fairtrade International 2014, 2015; Nielsen 2014; Sabbati and Katsarova 2015; Willer and Lernoud 2015), and their more rapid expansion compared with conventional products (Nielsen 2014), further endorse the trend upwards.
Likewise, boycotts of corporations such as Nestlé or Shell, and widely expressed consumer disaffection with companies such as H&M and Monsanto, have noticeably affected the policies of these and other firms. Equally, they have stirred attention in politics. Product labelling schemes, production regulations, and consumer information and protection measures have proliferated in recent years; companies worldwide engage in self-regulation (Stolle and Micheletti 2013). Clearly, the political backgrounds and consequences of production and consumption have become mainstream political concerns. Moreover, it is a phenomenon not only of wealthy, individualistic and saturated democracies, but apparently of widespread and continuously expanding relevance (e.g. Echegaray 2015).
The escalating relevance of ‘political consumerism’ has stirred attention in political science. As recent research points out, rather than being the extension of protest modes of action or civic involvement, political consumerism constitutes its own new mode of political participation (Acik 2013; Teorell et al. 2007; Theocharis and van Deth 2016; but see also Dalton 2008a, 2008b; Ekman and Amnå 2012; Ohme et al. 2017). Besides, it has become one of the by far most popular participation modes next to voting (see e.g. Micheletti et al. 2012; Stolle and Micheletti 2013; van Deth and Zorell 2018). Thus, the relevance of political consumerism on the repertoire of political participation forms is considerable. Nevertheless, the understanding of it continues to be very limited.
As distinct from ‘ordinary’ consumerism, political consumerism is considered to become an act of political participation if this intention is explicitly expressed. From this perspective, it can be classified as an expressive mode of political participation (van Deth 2014) which encompasses two varieties of action: the first is ‘negative’ political consumerism, that is, the ‘boycotting’ of buying a product with the intention of expressing discontent with particular practices (Jensen 2005); the second variety is ‘positive’ political consumerism, that is, the deliberate buying or ‘buycotting’ of products to approve of a conduct considered as being ‘good’ (Boström et al. 2005; Stolle et al. 2003). In both buying and rejecting the purchase of particular products, a key aim of the political consumer is to express certain values, norms or preferences of a political nature with which the respective products are associated (Koos 2012a, 38; Micheletti et al. 2003; Newman and Bartels 2011; Stolle et al. 2003, Stolle et al. 2005). Thus, if political consumerism is depicted as an expression of values, a distinction between the positive and negative variety is not necessary.
Nonetheless, various observations suggest that viewing political consumerism only as a way of expressing values is too simplistic. Postmaterialist value orientations, for instance, do not appear to be very different for involvement in political consumerism than for other modes of political participation (e.g. Copeland 2014b). Other perspectives advocate that values might rather be the outcome of a political consumer moment than its driver, or even of only little relevance. Quintelier and van Deth (2014), for example, discern a bond where political consumer behaviour appears to more strongly influence attitudes, than attitudes to influence behaviour. While Mazar and Zhong (2010) find that people feel good when purchasing products that are ethically and environmentally considerate. As an alternative explanation, Boström and Klintman (2009) s...