Abstract
This chapter analyses the relationship between political consumerism and political participation in Italy during the current phase of economic crisis. It investigates whether political consumerism is increasing or declining in times of economic crisis; whether it is an alternative to other forms of political participation in the current crisis, such as protest and/or voting; how ‘political’ political consumerism is in times of crisis; and whether there has been some shift in the composition of the Italian political consumerism community in times of economic crisis. The analysis shows that during the economic crisis the share of people who have chosen this form of participation in Italy has drastically increased. Furthermore, it illustrates how citizens who choose political consumerism as a form of political participation show a high level of politicisation according to all the indicators, and it points out that there has been a visible change in the relationship between political consumerism and political participation in Italy during the economic crisis, with the crisis changing the constituency of economic activism and incentivising the involvement of people that participate in politics in innovative ways. Our findings about the increasing relevance of political consumerism in a context of economic crisis suggest that this form of action cannot be understood as an eminently middle-class ethical gesture, but rather as a political choice, typical of contexts characterised by a significant salience of politics in the public debate.
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Notes
- 1.
The European Social Survey data was collected face to face, while the LIVEWHAT survey data retrieval was done through the CAWI (Computer Assisted Web Interviewing) method. The robust methodological standards that were applied, the coincidence of the questions and the application of population weights suggest that comparability is possible between the two datasets. Nevertheless, an instrument effect cannot be excluded.
- 2.
The data on 2015 comes from the Italian sample of the LIVEWHAT survey and refers to the people who have chosen the answer “In past 12 months” to the question “There are different ways of trying to improve things or help prevent things from going wrong. When have you LAST done the following?” in correspondence of the option “Boycotted certain products for political/ethical/environment reasons (online or offline)”. The data on 2002, 2004 and 2012 comes from the Italian sample of the Rounds 1, 2 and 6 of the European Social Survey, and refers to the people who have chosen the answer “Yes” to the question “There are different ways of trying to improve things in Italy or help prevent things from going wrong. During the last 12 months, have you done any of the following?” in correspondence of the option “Boycotted certain products”.
- 3.
The data on 2015 comes from the Italian sample of the LIVEWHAT survey, and refers to the people who have chosen the answer “In past 12 months” to the question “There are different ways of trying to improve things or help prevent things from going wrong. When have you LAST done the following?” in correspondence of the option “Deliberately bought products for political/ethical/environment reasons (online or offline)”. The data on 2002 comes from the Italian sample of the Round 1 of the European Social Survey, and refers to the people who have chosen the answer “Yes” to the question “There are different ways of trying to improve things in Italy or help prevent things from going wrong. During the last 12 months, have you done any of the following?” in correspondence of the option “deliberately bought certain products for political, ethical or environmental reasons”.
- 4.
In this chapter we do not distinguish between active and passive membership, and, thus, we have considered all the positive answers (both “Belong to only (passive member)” and “Belong to AND do volunteer/unpaid work for (active member)”) to the question “Please look carefully at the following list of organisations. For each of them, please tell which, if any, you belong to and which, if any, you are currently doing unpaid work for?”
- 5.
Here we use as an indicator of populist attitudes, as suggested by Anduiza and Rico (2015), the average between the level of agreement shown by respondents, in a range from 1 to 5, to a battery of 8 questions: “The politicians in the Italian parliament need to follow the will of the people”, “The people, and not politicians, should make our most important policy decisions”, “The political differences between the elite and the people are larger than the differences among the people”, “I would rather be represented by a citizen than by a specialized politician”, “Elected officials talk too much and take too little action”, “What people call “compromise” in politics is really just selling out on one’s principles”, “The particular interests of the political class negatively affect the welfare of the people”, “Politicians always end up agreeing when it comes to protecting their privileges”.
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Zamponi, L., Bosi, L. (2018). Political Consumerism and Participation in Times of Crisis in Italy. In: Giugni, M., Grasso, M. (eds) Citizens and the Crisis. Palgrave Studies in European Political Sociology. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-68960-9_6
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