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1. Introduction

In Chapter 6, the actions, methods, processes and intended outcomes of political consumerism were considered on the country level. However, in face of the continuous definitional expansion of political participation it is critical to delimit the single varieties of political consumerism to be examined in this thesis, or else we bear the risk of evolving into a ‘theory of everything’ (van Deth, 2014), whereby every market-oriented action could be considered as a form of political consumerism, eventually trivialising its ‘political’ character. Besides, the findings of the thesis are likely to vary depending on the definitions used. A concise delineation of the main concepts on which the ensuing examination will be based therefore is indispensable if we want to avoid misleading comparisons and inaccurate conclusions.

This chapter, intends thus to provide a precise definition of the varieties of political consumerism and shed light on their underlying character. It will commence by a) discussing some of the numerous terms which have been used when referring to politically-oriented purchasing behaviour and will consider their meaning. It will suggest that, instead of being understood as distinct varieties of politically-oriented behaviour, they all are parts of a wider concept; that of ‘political consumerism’. The chapter will proceed by suggesting that, b) when studying political consumerism as a form of political participation, the emphasis should predominately lie on the double expression of the phenomenon, namely positive (buycotting) and negative (boycotting) consumption of products and services. It will discuss buycotting and boycotting independently from each other, in order to demonstrate that the use of the general term ‘political consumerism’ fails to capture the differing underlying motivations, attitudes and values of each. Ultimately, it will posit that examining only the behavioural elements of political consumerism, runs the risk of overseeing the breadth and depth of the phenomenon. The final section of the chapter therefore, c) will advocate for the creation of a Political Consumerism Index (PCI) which not only attributes additional weight when one engages in both buycotting and boycotting, but it also captures the responsibility and frequency of the said behaviour within a single index. The PCI will then be used in Chapter 12 of the present thesis, to analyse the political consumerist behaviour of young people in the UK and Greece.

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2. Varieties of Political Consumerism

The variety of approaches, aims and motivations which comprise political consumerism in the various forms it has assumed across countries and throughout history, has already resulted in an extensive literature on the subject. However, the focus of enquiry varies from one publication to the other. The main distinction in the relevant literature extends in two dimensions. Firstly, some scholars focus their research on the content of political consumerism.

In other words, they are trying to trace the variety of motivations, attitudes and aims behind the phenomenon. Secondly, other scholars emphasise instead the “shape of the action” (Zorell, 2018, p. 41); that is, the different ways through which these motivations, attitudes and aims of the first dimension, are being expressed through actions. It is this second dimension that includes the distinction between positive and negative consumerism.

Within the first dimension, several terms have been used. All of these terms however, intend to capture the differing motivations, attitudes and aims behind the more general term

‘political consumerism’. Along with the different terms used, the conceptual understanding attached to them also varies. Some scholars will thus examine a specific aspect of political consumerism in isolation, and hence use a specialised term (Lekakis, 2013a; Mazar and Zhong, 2010), whereas others will use the same issue-specific term but in its general context (Atkinson and Kim, 2015). As a result, terms such as ‘sustainable consumption’, ‘ethical consumerism’ or

‘green buying behaviour’ (Andorfer, 2013; Atkinson and Kim, 2015; Rumpala, 2011; Young et al., 2010) have often been used interchangeably. Nevertheless, a closer look at the differing use of issue-specific terms within the relevant literature “reveals that, ultimately, all these terms are rather specialised sub-concepts which allude to the characteristics of a product, but they are not truly distinct types of actions used to communicate a political preference” (Zorell, 2019b, p. 41, 42).

In other words, the deliberate purchase of a product based on ethical, sustainable or green considerations, emphasises on the underlying motivations behind such a purchase, which could be categorised alongside general drivers of conventional purchases such as price, quality or brand loyalty (Zorell, 2019b). In a similar way, voting for example, may be equally driven by environmental, ethical, or green considerations (as well as conservative, liberal or nationalist

117 | P a g e ideological orientations). However, unless one is examining a specific driver behind voting decisions, voting is generally perceived as a single mode of political participation.

The use of such issue-specific terms (whether with regards to voting, or to political consumerism) therefore, involves the risk of shifting the focus of enquiry from the actual act of political participation to its underlying content. Instead, the more general term ‘political consumerism’, presents the benefit of being able to accommodate all the various motivational sub-categories into one. In this way, political consumerism may stand alongside other types of political participation, such as voting, signing a petition, or demonstrating. Therefore, when studying political consumerism as a form of political participation that falls within the various political participation repertoires, the general term ‘political consumerism’ appears to be the more accurate option.

With regards to the second dimension, that is, the distinction between the positive and the negative forms of political participation, the use of the term also varies significantly. This variation however, differs from the one above insofar it does not relate to the underlying motivations behind which type of products one is buying, but instead to the way that individual is acting; that is, it captures its praxial dimension. This feature refers to political consumerism as a form of political participation which takes predominately two forms: positive (buycotting) and negative (boycotting) political consumerism. But although these two variants are the ones most often found in the available literature, Micheletti et al. (2012) have expanded the conceptual variation of political consumerism even further. They discern thus, two more modes of political consumerism, alongside buycotting and boycotting. These are ‘discursive actions’

and ‘lifestyle choices’ (Micheletti et al., 2012)

‘Discursive actions’ are being defined as “the expression of opinions about corporate policy and practice and even consumer culture in a variety of communicative efforts and venues” (Micheletti et al., 2012, p. 146), whereas under ‘lifestyle choices’ they classify the decision to integrate environmentally, ethically and politically responsible action consistently into one’s everyday life (Micheletti et al., 2012, p. 145). In other words, the expansion of the classification of political consumerism as a discursive action emphasises the extent of

‘openness’ behind one’s political consumerist activities, whereas ‘lifestyle choices’ relate to the frequency or consistency of the said action throughout the individual’s life. In response to the additional classification by Micheletti et al. outlined above however, Zorell (2019b, pp. 42–47) makes the point that notwithstanding if one buycotts or boycotts openly or more privately, and

118 | P a g e whether they decide to do so only a few times a year or more frequently, the act itself essentially consists of either supporting a certain product or firm (buycotting), or deliberately rejecting it (boycotting).

Moreover, each of the two additional types of political consumerism may also involve other forms of political participation in addition to buycotting or boycotting. For example, under discursive actions one may want to decide to openly demonstrate or circulate a petition (Harrison and Scorse, 2010) or even exchange emails (Peretti and Micheletti, 2011) as it happened during the iconic mobilisation against the use of sweat-shops by multinational corporations like Nike in the early 2000s. Similarly, with regards to lifestyle choices one may decide to not only boycott meat and dairy products, but also to grow their own sustainable, organic plants privately, in their backyard (White, 2011) or more openly in urban community gardens (Bendt et al., 2013) as a way of building transitions towards post-capitalist urban commons (Chatterton, 2016). However, this conceptualisation would conflate political consumerism with other forms of political participation, resulting eventually into what van Deth (2014, p. 351) described as a ‘theory of everything’.

To summarise, both ‘discursive actions’ and ‘lifestyle choices’ encompass variable behavioural repertoires, which may move beyond political consumerism (as for example signing petitions, demonstrating or even voting). Therefore, instead of conceptualising them as separate variants of political consumerism next to buycotting and boycotting, they may instead be understood as extra features indicating the breadth (in the case of discursive actions), and the depth (in the case of lifestyle choices) of one’s involvement in political consumerism.

This however, makes them especially difficult to capture in political participation research, as is being evidenced by the general lack of studies presenting empirical data on either discursive actions and lifestyle choices, particularly on a comparative, cross-national level (Micheletti et al., 2012; Zorell, 2019b, p. 43). Therefore, instead of conflating different forms of political participation, at the additional risk of raising comparability issues, concentrating exclusively on buycotting and boycotting seems to be the most helpful approach.

Such an approach will thus be assumed in the present thesis.

Conversely, even though most scholars acknowledge boycotting and buycotting as facets of political consumerism, a great part of research fails to distinguish between the two.

Instead, only a handful of researchers consistently scrutinise buycotting and boycotting in their own rights (Baek, 2010; Copeland, 2014a; Koos, 2012), whereas the greatest part of the

119 | P a g e research on the subject tends to examine political consumerism as a unified concept (Bossy, 2014; Micheletti et al., 2012; Newman and Bartels, 2011). In some of these studies, this practice is unproblematic. For example, if political consumerism is primarily understood as an expression of underlying values, distinguishing between buycotting and boycotting may be not be necessary. For instance, Newman and Bartels (2011), perceive political consumerism as a single unified phenomenon and scrutinise it as a way of achieving policy objectives and expressing political preferences, in comparison to other means of political participation. For Newman and Bartels therefore, the emphasis lies on the positioning of political consumerism as a single-dimensional phenomenon along other repertoires of political participation, rather than on the underlying drivers between buycotting and boycotting.

However, buycotting and boycotting are based on fundamentally dissimilar motivations. On the one hand, buycotting entails the deliberate decision to buy a certain product or support a specific firm as a means to reward their ethical production process, or their business conduct in relation to environmental concerns. As such, it may be perceived as an investment, or as a form of economic voting (Zhang, 2015). Instead, boycotting entails the deliberate rejection of the business conduct of certain firms and the production processes behind certain products, and as such it may be understood as a form of economic ostracism (Malkopoulou, 2017). As a form of political participation therefore it can be argued that it shares more similarities with demonstrations and generally with the politics of dissent (Pickard, 2018).

In view of the differing underlying motivations behind the two behavioural expressions of political consumerism therefore, one may regard buycotting as an appropriate form of political participation for certain political, ethical or environmental claims, and boycotting for others. For this reason, when the object of analysis is political consumerism in itself (and not in relation to other forms of political participation), using the general term ‘political consumerism’ as a unified phenomenon bears the risk of misinterpreting its significance to its entirety.

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3. Determinants of Political Consumerism

Nevertheless, the findings of a great part of the research regarding the motivations of citizens to consume politically²⁰, are often interpreted as descriptive of a single, archetypical ‘politically consumer’. Instead, distinguishing between the generalised concept’s different praxial varieties, may yield significantly different (or even contradictory) results.

With regards to age, the greater part of research does not distinguish between buycotting and boycotting. Instead, it tends to focus on motivations on the individual level, largely based on distinct phases of one’s life (Kotzur et al., 2017; Lorenzini and Bassoli, 2015;

Ward and deVreese, 2011). Newman and Bartels (2011) find that young people from 16 to 30 years of age are particularly more likely than their older contemporaries to take part in political consumerism – and that unlike conventional political participation, political consumerism is likely to decrease with age. Elsewhere, Gotlieb and Wells (2012) find a strong positive relationship between engagement in political consumerism at a young age and the development of those civic competencies necessary for the engagement in institutional politics as adults. Wicks et al. (2014) demonstrate that the predictors of adult political consumerism do not necessarily coincide with those of youth political consumerism, and they find that parental modelling is a significant predictor for both boycotting and buycotting at a young age²¹.

With regards to gender, significantly more females are political consumers within the same age cohorts (Stolle et al., 2010). These results have been confirmed in several other studies (Lorenzini and Bassoli, 2015; Micheletti, 2004; O’Neill and Gidengil, 2013; Petersson et al., 1998), and have led to a widespread academic perception that political consumerism is a

‘gendered’ form of political participation, which bridges the participation gap of institutional participatory forms (Bateman and Valentine, 2010; Micheletti, 2004; O’Neill and Gidengil, 2013;

Stolle and Micheletti, 2006). One of the latest available studies on the subject (Zorell, 2019e, pp. 131–132), confirms that involvement in boycotting and buycotting has been on a steady

20 These may include their socio-economic characteristics, opportunity structures, the cost of participation, particularised and generalised trust and postmaterialist values among others (see Chapter 3).

21 Nevertheless, their findings also suggest differing effects for buycotting and boycotting. They report that young boycotters are much more likely to be either liberal or conservatives, than moderate. Instead, young buycotters demonstrated support for individualism, and were more likely to also engage in other forms of political engagement.

121 | P a g e rise over the last decade, with more women (63%) than men (60%) being active political consumers, although the gender difference has been declining, compared to older studies.

However, it also reports that out of the subset of active political consumers, almost 81% of men and women have boycotted over the past year, while 85% of women have buycotted over the same period, as opposed to 77% of men.

With regards to class and socioeconomic status, contrary to concerns which perceive political consumerism as an elitist type of political participation (Maxton-Lee, 2020; Micheletti and Stolle, 2014; Tobiasen, 2004) that only a relatively small part of the overall population may be able to access, individual income levels seem to bear only a marginal effect – if any at all - on people’s propensity to engage in political consumerism (Copeland, 2014b; Tobiasen, 2004).

Stolle et al. (2005) even discern a negative effect (albeit a weak one) with students from richer households being less likely to consume politically. When however, the studies are distinguishing between boycotting and buycotting among the general population, the results may be significantly different. For instance, Koos (2012, p. 47) reports that higher household income has a strong positive effect on buycotting, but no effect on boycotting.

Generally, when examining the influence of demographic and socioeconomic characteristics (under the standpoint of the SES model of political participation) on political consumerism as a unified concept, findings indicate that political consumers are more likely to be individuals who are female, young, highly educated, and highly interested in politics (Newman and Bartels, 2011; O’Neill and Gidengil, 2013; Quintelier and van Deth, 2014;

Tobiasen, 2004). However, in many of these studies, several participants indicate that they have either engaged in buycotting only or buycotting only and significantly less will typically respond that they have engaged in both (Stolle and Micheletti, 2005, p. 45). For example, Neilson (2010) examines the underlying motivations behind buycotters and boycotters only, and those who engage in both (dualcotters) and finds that women, and more trusting and altruistic people are more likely to buycott, than boycott. Contrary to the unified conceptualisation of political consumerism therefore, these studies reveal differing demographic and socio-economic determinants for buycotters and boycotters. These differences support the inclusion of independent measures for buycotting and boycotting, in the study of political consumerism.

Nevertheless, even when the studies include separate measures for buycotting and boycotting, but examine only the SES characteristics of the respondents, the findings convey only a partial understanding of the drivers behind the individuals’ decisions to buycott or

122 | P a g e boycott only, or to engage in both. Instead, studies that examine the phenomenon in light of the Social Capital theory, show that having high generalised trust and low trust in political institutions seems to be associated with higher involvement in political consumerism (Baek, 2010; Copeland, 2014b; Micheletti and Stolle, 2005). Moreover, examination of buycotting and boycotting separately provides somewhat more revealing findings. Neilson (2010, p. 220) considers the psychological variations between buycotters and boycotters and reports that, boycotters demonstrate much lower levels of trust in institutions (particularised trust) and in their fellow citizens (generalised trust), when compared to the buycotters. Moreover, whereas individuals with very low levels of particularised trust seem more likely to engage in boycotts than not to consume politically at all, it is only when they have high levels of generalised trust that they will tend to buycott than to not consume politically at all, demonstrating a difference behind their underlying dispositions behind each political consumerist variant when examined separately. Similar findingsare being confirmed also by Baek (2010) and Copeland (2014a, p.

182).

With regards to the rational agency model, buycotts typically involve a greater cost than boycotts, which do not involve a monetary ‘investment’ that entails the risk of a loss.

Consequently, boycotters can more easily observe whether their fellow citizens are also engaging in the same action, and thus do not require them to be so trusting. Moreover, boycotts are intended to influence producers and state regulations to change objectionable features of production processes or company conduct. Boycotts thus, as an expression of political dissent (Pickard, 2018) are expected to be associated with lower levels of institutionalised trust. For the same reason, buycotts will also be expected to have a positive correlation with support for Democracy in principle, unlike boycotts, which as a form of participation that conveys dissatisfaction with the prevailing market economy, may yield the opposite results.

Furthermore, studies emphasising on the macro-level determinants of political consumerism, reveal rather different patterns of boycotts and buycotts across countries.

Political consumerism seems to be much more widespread in Northern European countries (Pellandini-Simányi and Gulyás, 2018) and in the US (Katz, 2011), with engagement rates steadily increasing over the past decade (Copeland, 2014a; Koos, 2012; Micheletti et al., 2012).

However, the distinction between buycotting and boycotting discloses higher rates of boycotting in the US than in Europe as a whole (Copeland, 2014a, p. 180), with marginally lower

123 | P a g e rates in the Western European countries, such as Germany, France, Switzerland and the UK, compared to Scandinavian countries (Koos, 2012, p. 46).

Moreover, the latest comprehensive and publicly available, large-scale, cross-national surveys that include measures for both buycotting and boycotting are rather dated: these include the Citizenship, Involvement, Democracy Study (CID) conducted in 2000 and the 2002/03 wave of the European Social Survey (Zorell, 2019b, p. 47). Nevertheless, both surveys clearly indicate that buycotting is more widespread than boycotting in almost every country under examination. Notable exception is Greece, which is the only country (along with Italy in the ESS, another MME country) which demonstrates higher levels of boycotts instead.

Generally, the percentages for buycotting range between 4 and 11 percent in Southern and Central European countries; and 25 and 48 percent in Middle and Northern European/Scandinavian countries. In turn, when it comes to boycotting only, the percentages are much lower and vary between only 3 to 5 percent in Central and Southern Europe, and 10 to 32 percent in Middle and Northern European countries. More recent studies emphasising in

Generally, the percentages for buycotting range between 4 and 11 percent in Southern and Central European countries; and 25 and 48 percent in Middle and Northern European/Scandinavian countries. In turn, when it comes to boycotting only, the percentages are much lower and vary between only 3 to 5 percent in Central and Southern Europe, and 10 to 32 percent in Middle and Northern European countries. More recent studies emphasising in