Which duties and responsibilities belong to the state, to the business sector and to the citi-zens, and the preferred style in which this allocation is kept in balance differ from country to country. Within each country, certain preferences tend to persist and underlie the citizens’ views on duties and responsibilities and respective mechanisms for ensuring (political) answerability (cf. Inglehart 1988; Kim et al. 2012; Pickel and Pickel 2006; Swidler 1986). Hofstede identifies national patterns or, as he calls it, a “collective mental programming“ according to which citi-zens exhibit similar patterns of behaviour and attitudes depending on the country they come from (Hofstede 1996, 388). This mental programming includes, among other things, their „po-litical culture“, which Almond and Verba defined as „the particular distribution of patterns of orientation toward political objects among the members of a nation” (Almond and Verba 1963, 14-5). It consists of the individuals’ „[…] attitudes toward the political system and its various parts” and their “attitudes toward the role of the self in the system” (Almond and Verba 1963, 13). The particular attitudes are considered to be the result of (political) socialisation during childhood, education, media influence as well as personal experiences with political, economic and social circumstances in adulthood (Almond 1990, 143-4). They develop on the individual level, therein being influenced by society specific events and peculiarities. Simultaneously, they constitute the grounds on which specific attitudes in society as a whole develop (Almond and Verba 1980, 27-8; Eisenstadt 1996, 451; Hofstede 1996, 388; Reisinger 1995, 335). Hence, Almond and Verba delineate a concept which immediately links micro-level conduct with macro-level developments and vice-versa. They explicitly focus on culture in its meaning as a
“psychological orientation” towards socio-political objects and processes (Almond and Verba 1963, 14; emphasis in original). In this vein, they connect individual dispositions with generic patterns, and the dispositions and patterns with institutional processes. Although they demarcate a conception whose underlying idea provides a crucial starting point for studying the citizen-consumer, the particular concept of political culture relates explicitly to the sphere of politics, policy and the polity (cf. Almond and Verba 1963, 12-3; Ersson and Lane 2008). The peculiar encounter of the newly evolving environment though is that it challenges precisely this clear-cut differentiation of the political from other spheres of life when it comes to define individual
behaviour. That is, rather than the structures, actors and procedures of the immediate political system, the crucial ‘object of orientation’ is the state and its relation to firms, and the mode in which duties and responsibilities are solved and shared among them.
A corresponding understanding inspires the idea of the ‘concept of the state’. It refers to citizens’ attitudes concerning the state, the market and civil society and the relationship between the three. That is, it denotes the view about who is responsible for what, how the cooperation between the three actors should look like and which role each of them should take on (Almond and Verba 1996; cf. also Kim et al. 2012; North 1990). Accordingly, the concept of the state also comprises the balance between collaboration and free competition that from an individual’s point of view appears to be desirable (cf. Esping-Andersen 1990, 80). This conception in turn builds the basis of what Swidler calls a “repertoire or ‘tool kit’ of habits, skills, and styles from which people construct ‘strategies of action’” (Swidler 1986, 273), that is to say, preferred ap-proaches to solve socio-political tasks (Swidler 1986, 276-7; cf. also Wahlström and Peterson 2005, 240). Hence, in a context where new tasks are arising and duties and responsibilities in society are reorganised, these preferences guide the establishment of mechanisms that serve to secure political accountability, both as preferences of the individual citizens and in society as a whole.
Along the lines of these thoughts, Hall and Soskice (2001) propose in their theory on the
‘Varieties of Capitalism’ concrete patterns according to which actors in single nations typically solve economic- and socio-political challenges (Hall and Soskice 2001, 8 & 13).19 Hence, in the vein of Almond and Verba, Hall and Soskice describe a certain distribution of patterns of orientation towards how cooperation problems should be tackled among the actors in a country.
In their view, institutional structures condition these patterns according to which actors20 be-have. These structures they view in turn as “nation-specific“, i.e. shaped by national circum-stances like culture, history, etc. (Hall and Soskice 2001, 15-6). Further, the authors assume that this leads to systematic differences across countries and distinguish two main strategies (Hall and Soskice 2001, 8 & 16): in so called ‘coordinated market economies’, non-market forms of cooperation between the three actors state, market and civil society prevail as means to deal with tasks of socio- and economic-political significance. The strategic approach focuses
19 Also Hall und Soskice refer to Swidler and her suggestion that societies develop ‘behavioural repertoires’ that serve as a basis for solving coordination problems concerning society (Hall and Soskice 2001, 13).
20 In Hall and Soskice’s theory, the term ‘actors’ refers to companies (Halls and Soskice 2001, 15). The reason for this is that, in their theory, it is companies that are those central interacting actors which find themselves con-fronted with a coordination problem. Nevertheless, also citizens constitute actors who interact in the framework of specific institutional structures and therein need to coordinate their actions. Correspondingly, the presented ideas may as well serve as point of departure for analysing the behaviour of individuals in the context of coordi-nation problems.
on consensus finding and the establishment of and reliance in interfirm networks and sectorial associations. In line with it, corresponding policies centre on further enabling non-market co-ordination and cooperation (Hall and Soskice 2001, 46-7). In contrast, in so called ‘liberal mar-ket economies’, actors rely on free marmar-ket competition as means for coordinating their under-takings. They reject institutional intervention and, instead, rely on formal contracts to ensure successful collaboration (cf. also Nölke and Vliegenthart 2009, 675). At the same time, any policies which are set up are then compatible with the systemic structure when designed such that they “[…] sharpen market competition” (Hall and Soskice 2001, 46). In addition, the au-thors distinguish a third category of countries which appears to be moving in between the two extremes, and they refer to them as ‘Mediterranean’ cluster (Hall and Soskice 2001, 21). The countries in this cluster deviate from both the liberal and the cooperative countries in some aspects and match some of them in other cases. A main common characteristic Hall and Soskice differentiate for this cluster is the prevalence of structures that favour cooperative approaches in corporate relations, and rather liberal approaches in concerns that affect the interaction of firms with other actors in society (Hall and Soskice 2001, 21). They mainly attribute these structures to similar historical backgrounds. Broad influence of the state on the economy pro-vided for structures facilitating non-market cooperation. Besides, several of the countries have only recently left behind autocratic state structures. This has resulted in a large state controlled business sector and the high relevance of family ties and informal networks (see e.g. Hancké, Rhodes, and Thatcher 2009, 290-1). Given the mixed features and to facilitate a straightforward and yet generically applicable understanding, this cluster will in the following be referred to as
‘mixed economies’.
Generally speaking, according to the underlying principle different types of institutional regimes and (political) culture prevail across countries and shape the predominant attitudes in society concerning the roles of the state, the market and the citizenry in matters of socio- and economic-political relevance (cf. Almond and Verba 1996; Kim et al. 2012; Hall and Soskice 2001; North 1990; Pickel and Pickel 2006). On the macro-level, political culture or ‘varieties of capitalism’ constitute a dominant and quite time-invariant response pattern to shifts and newly emerging challenges. That is, they constitute a contextual constant which shapes the mechanisms and approaches developed for coping with ‘coordination problems’ (cf. Hall and Soskice 2001, 6 & 9). These coordination problems involve different actors who enter into a joint interactive relationship. Correspondingly, the classification of countries according to pat-terns of conducting such relationships essentially stems on the conception of how each actor
should behave, including the individual actor itself (Hall and Soskice 2001, 13). Hence, equiv-alent to Almond and Verba (1963, 1980), the concept ties country level patterns to individual level behaviour. With it, these general understandings of preferred individual behaviour would also be expected to directly reverberate on the behaviour of the individuals involved in respec-tive interactions. Breaking down the varieties of capitalism theory to the individual level, it then means that the mode of operation of a country’s market economy may shape the inhabitants’
notion on what balance between the state, the market and civil society is considered to be de-sirable in one of two directions: either they may be pleased with the balance prevailing in the country and therefore regard it as an appropriate mode of operation; or they may rather oppose it, due to perceived weaknesses or injustices for instance, and instead strive for an alternative mode of operation. Additional factors influencing the view may be e.g. political interest or in-dividual social position.21 Yet, assuming that the citizens of countries with a democratic politi-cal system ideally are satisfied with the prevailing system22, citizens who are living in a country with a liberal market economy would be expected to also tend to have a liberal concept of the state; they are used to the general belief that the free market mechanism leads to the optimal outcome, and this general belief may both reflect and resonate on individual behaviour. In con-trast, individuals who are living in and formed by a system founded on cooperation and coor-dination would be expected to rather tend to have a concept of the state which relies upon co-ordination, too. Finally, citizens coming from countries with a ‘mixed’ concept are used to the role of the state as regulating element (Molina and Rhodes 2007, 225), but also to informal networks in subspaces of the economic sphere. Accordingly, citizens may generally perceive less responsibility to get involved, yet where interactions take place, they would be expected to prefer informal, collaborative approaches (cf. Nölke and Vliegenthart 2009, 678; see also Mo-lina and Rhodes 2007, 225ff.).
In sum then, macro- and the micro-levels are tightly entwined in there being “systemic differences in [behavioural] strategy across nations” which “parallel the overarching institu-tional structures […]” (Hall and Soskice 2001, 15). Political culture in general and the varieties of capitalism approach in particular appear as connectors of the two levels (Almond and Verba
21 On the one hand, the politically interested may rather look into the subject and deal with the political system than the disinterested, what in turn increases the likelihood to find weaknesses. On the other hand, an individ-ual‘s social position may be important since the sense of how fair or unfair a system is will vary also with the personal experiences; that is, someone who e.g. cannot find a job and is therefore dependant on welfare aid may compare the own life with that of others who are better off and develop a sense of being treated unfairly. Thus eventually, the individual may perceive the entire prevailing system as being unjust and therefore strive for an alternative.
22 In a democracy, by means of elections and other forms of democratic political participation (e.g. involvement in political parties), citizens are theoretically able to influence the prevalent political system and with it the re-sultant balance between the state, the market and civil society. In the long run, the existing balance should nor-mally correspond to the expectations of a majority of the country’s citizens.
1963, 32; Hall and Soskice 2001, 14): they furnish the concept of the state, which in its guise as a nation-specific conception builds the fundament on which general response-patterns in the country for coping with socio-economic and political matters develop; in its guise as a person-specific conception it builds in turn the basis on which an individual acts in socio-economic and political concerns. In connecting the two levels, the theory of the concept of the state de-lineates the translation of macro-societal developments into individual behaviour and provides a concrete name for the long-term, underlying notion which influences this translation. Besides, stemming on the observation that the conceptions vary systematically across countries yet should be relatively stable among individuals and within a single country, the theory sketches a possible explanation for why boycotting and buycotting behaviour develop differently.