IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/anname/v644y2012i1p191-206.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Buying In to Social Change

Author

Listed:
  • Lucy Atkinson

Abstract

Drawing on depth interviews with eight socially conscious consumers, this study explores the way socially conscious consumer orientations can help to foster the kinds of prosocial orientations, such as a concern for others, that facilitate civic and political engagement. The data suggest that these consumers reap several private benefits from their socially conscious choices (authenticity, social embeddedness, empowerment, and self-actualization) while also helping to secure broader public virtues, such as a clean environment or workers’ rights. In so doing, they face certain costs (such as inconvenience and limited choice), but these sacrifices are reframed as pleasurable. This perspective challenges conventional, republican views of citizenship that see individuals as selfless and sacrificing for the sake of a common, greater good. Instead, these socially conscious consumers embody an alternative kind of citizenship in which the acquisition of private, self-serving benefits is inextricably linked to the pursuit of broader, collective virtues.

Suggested Citation

  • Lucy Atkinson, 2012. "Buying In to Social Change," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 644(1), pages 191-206, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:anname:v:644:y:2012:i:1:p:191-206
    DOI: 10.1177/0002716212448366
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0002716212448366
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0002716212448366?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Young Min Baek, 2010. "To Buy or Not to Buy: Who are Political Consumers? What do they Think and How Do they Participate?," Political Studies, Political Studies Association, vol. 58, pages 1065-1086, December.
    2. Webster, Frederick E, Jr, 1975. "Determining the Characteristics of the Socially Conscious Consumer," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 2(3), pages 188-196, December.
    3. Russell J. Dalton, 2008. "Citizenship Norms and the Expansion of Political Participation," Political Studies, Political Studies Association, vol. 56(1), pages 76-98, March.
    4. Craig J. Thompson, 2007. "A Carnivalesque Approach to the Politics of Consumption (or) Grotesque Realism and the Analytics of the Excretory Economy," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 611(1), pages 112-125, May.
    5. Michele Micheletti & Andreas Follesdal, 2007. "Shopping for Human Rights. An Introduction to the Special Issue," Journal of Consumer Policy, Springer, vol. 30(3), pages 167-175, September.
    6. Brooker, George, 1976. "The Self-Actualizing Socially Conscious Consumer," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 3(2), pages 107-112, Se.
    7. Thompson, Craig J & Locander, William B & Pollio, Howard R, 1989. "Putting Consumer Experience Back into Consumer Research: The Philosophy and Method of Existential-Phenomenology," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 16(2), pages 133-146, September.
    8. Russell J. Dalton, 2008. "Citizenship Norms and the Expansion of Political Participation," Political Studies, Political Studies Association, vol. 56, pages 76-98, March.
    9. Young Min Baek, 2010. "To Buy or Not to Buy: Who are Political Consumers? What do they Think and How Do they Participate?," Political Studies, Political Studies Association, vol. 58(5), pages 1065-1086, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jennifer Oser, 2017. "Assessing How Participators Combine Acts in Their “Political Tool Kits”: A Person-Centered Measurement Approach for Analyzing Citizen Participation," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 133(1), pages 235-258, August.
    2. Jennifer Oser & Jan E. Leighley & Kenneth M. Winneg, 2014. "Participation, Online and Otherwise: What's the Difference for Policy Preferences?," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 95(5), pages 1259-1277, December.
    3. Hilde Coffe & Catherine Bolzendahl, 2011. "Gender Gaps in Political Participation Across Sub-Saharan African Nations," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 102(2), pages 245-264, June.
    4. Kwangho Jung & Seung-Hee Lee & Jane Workman, 2018. "Purchasing Counterfeits and Citizenship: Public Service Motivation Matters," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(1), pages 1-15, December.
    5. Jennifer Oser & Marc Hooghe & Zsuzsa Bakk & Roberto Mari, 2023. "Changing citizenship norms among adolescents, 1999-2009-2016: A two-step latent class approach with measurement equivalence testing," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 57(5), pages 4915-4933, October.
    6. Tore Ellingsen & Benedikt Herrmann & Martin A. Nowak & David G. Rand & Corina E. Tarnita, 2012. "Civic Capital in Two Cultures: The Nature of Cooperation in Romania and USA," CESifo Working Paper Series 4042, CESifo.
    7. Jae Young Lim & Kuk-Kyoung Moon, 2020. "Examining the Moderation Effect of Political Trust on the Linkage between Civic Morality and Support for Environmental Taxation," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(12), pages 1-15, June.
    8. Piatak Jaclyn, 2023. "Do Sociocultural Factors Drive Civic Engagement? An Examination of Political Interest and Religious Attendance," Nonprofit Policy Forum, De Gruyter, vol. 14(2), pages 185-204, April.
    9. Carolin V. Zorell & Mundo Yang, 2019. "Real-World Sustainable Citizenship between Political Consumerism and Material Practices," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 8(11), pages 1-22, November.
    10. Sofie Marien & Marc Hooghe & Ellen Quintelier, 2010. "Inequalities in Non‐institutionalised Forms of Political Participation: A Multi‐level Analysis of 25 countries," Political Studies, Political Studies Association, vol. 58(1), pages 187-213, February.
    11. Li, Xuan, 2020. "The critical assessment of the youth policy and youth civic engagement in Denmark and three Danish municipalities," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 110(C).
    12. Nuno Tiago Baptista & Ricardo Gouveia Rodrigues, 2018. "Clustering consumers who engage in boycotting: New insights into the relationship between political consumerism and institutional trust," International Review on Public and Nonprofit Marketing, Springer;International Association of Public and Non-Profit Marketing, vol. 15(1), pages 87-104, March.
    13. José Javier Pérez-Barea & Ricardo Espantaleón-Pérez & Peter Šedík, 2020. "Evaluating the Perception of Socially Responsible Consumers: The Case of Products Derived from Organic Beef," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(23), pages 1-24, December.
    14. Jesús Granados-Sánchez, 2023. "Sustainable Global Citizenship: A Critical Realist Approach," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 12(3), pages 1-22, March.
    15. Piotr Koc, 2021. "Measuring Non-electoral Political Participation: Bi-factor Model as a Tool to Extract Dimensions," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 156(1), pages 271-287, July.
    16. Roberto Foa & Anna Nemirovskaya, 2014. "State Formation And Frontier Society: An Empirical Examination," HSE Working papers WP BRP 13/PS/2014, National Research University Higher School of Economics.
    17. Georgios Kyroglou & Matt Henn, 2022. "On Measuring Political Consumerism: An Exploratory Study Among Young People in the UK and in Greece," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 163(3), pages 1191-1220, October.
    18. Cato Waeterloos & Peter Conradie & Michel Walrave & Koen Ponnet, 2021. "Digital Issue Movements: Political Repertoires and Drivers of Participation among Belgian Youth in the Context of ‘School Strike for Climate’," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(17), pages 1-19, September.
    19. Susan L. Prescott & Alan C. Logan & Glenn Albrecht & Dianne E. Campbell & Julian Crane & Ashlee Cunsolo & John W. Holloway & Anita L. Kozyrskyj & Christopher A. Lowry & John Penders & Nicole Redvers &, 2018. "The Canmore Declaration: Statement of Principles for Planetary Health," Challenges, MDPI, vol. 9(2), pages 1-18, July.
    20. Gail Pacheco & Barrett Owen, 2015. "Moving through the political participation hierarchy: a focus on personal values," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 47(3), pages 222-238, January.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:anname:v:644:y:2012:i:1:p:191-206. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.