Journal ArticleDOI
Politics in the Supermarket: Political Consumerism as a Form of Political Participation:
TLDR
The authors found that political consumerism is primarily a tool of those who are distrustful of political institutions, and political consumers have more trust in other citizens, and they are disproportionately involved in checkbook organizations.Abstract:
Both anecdotal and case-study evidence have long suggested that consumer behavior such as the buying or boycotting of products and services for political and ethical reasons can take on political significance. Despite recent claims that such behavior has become more widespread in recent years, political consumerism has not been studied systematically in survey research on political participation. Through the use of a pilot survey conducted among 1015 Canadian, Belgian, and Swedish students, we ascertain whether political consumerism is a sufficiently consistent behavioral pattern to be measured and studied meaningfully. The data from this pilot survey allow us to build a "political consumerism index" incorporating attitudinal, behavioral, and frequency measurements. Our analysis of this cross-national student sample suggests that political consumerism is primarily a tool of those who are distrustful of political institutions. However, political consumers have more trust in other citizens, and they are disproportionately involved in checkbook organizations. They also tend to score highly on measures of political efficacy and post-materialism. We strongly suggest including measurements of political consumerism together with other emerging forms of activism in future population surveys on political participation.read more
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Journal ArticleDOI
Rising Tide: Gender Equality and Cultural Change Around the World
TL;DR: Rising Tide: Gender Equality and Cultural Change Around the World as discussed by the authors is a recent book about gender equality and cultural change around the world, focusing on women's empowerment and empowerment.
Journal ArticleDOI
Citizenship Norms and the Expansion of Political Participation
TL;DR: The authors argue that the norm shift is altering and expanding the patterns of political participation in America, rather than the erosion of participation, and trace their impact on political participation using data from the 2005 survey of the Center for Democracy and Civil Society (CDACS).
Journal ArticleDOI
Political participation and civic engagement: Towards a new typology
Joakim Ekman,Erik Amnå +1 more
TL;DR: In this paper, a typology for political participation and civic engagement is developed, highlighting the multidimensionality of both concepts and making a clear distinction between manifest "political participation" (including formal political behaviour as well as protest or extra-parliamentary political action) and less direct or "latent" forms of participation, conceptualized here as "civic engagement" and "social involvement".
Journal ArticleDOI
The citizen-consumer hybrid: ideological tensions and the case of Whole Foods Market
TL;DR: In this article, a case study of Whole Foods Market (WFM), a corporation frequently touted as an ethical market actor, is used to investigate the relationship between consumerism and citizenship.
Journal ArticleDOI
INTERNET AND SOCIAL MOVEMENT ACTION REPERTOIRES: Opportunities and limitations
Jeroen Van Laer,Peter Van Aelst +1 more
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present the state-of-the-art literature on action repertoires of social movements in an internet age and build a strong case in favour of the internet as it has given social movements new and improved opportunities to engage in social and political action.
References
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Book
Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community
TL;DR: Putnam as mentioned in this paper showed that changes in work, family structure, age, suburban life, television, computers, women's roles and other factors are isolating Americans from each other in a trend whose reflection can clearly be seen in British society.
Book
An Economic Theory of Democracy
TL;DR: Downs presents a rational calculus of voting that has inspired much of the later work on voting and turnout as discussed by the authors, particularly significant was his conclusion that a rational voter should almost never bother to vote.
Book
Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity
Ulrich Beck,Mark Ritter +1 more
TL;DR: In this article, Scott Lash and Brian Wynne describe living on the VOLCANO of CIVILIZATION -the Contours of the RISK SOCIETY and the Politics of Knowledge in the Risk Society.
Journal ArticleDOI
“Bowling Alone: America’s Declining Social Capital”
TL;DR: Putnam as discussed by the authors showed that crucial factors such as social trust are eroding rapidly in the United States and offered some possible explanations for this erosion and concluded that the work needed to consider these possibilities more fully.