New Perspectives on Political Consumerism and Consumption: An Editorial Essay

Abstract

We are honored to be acting as guest editors of this special issue of the Journal of Nonprofit & Public Sector Marketing, in which we introduce studies from authors who come from different countries to contribute to deepen and broaden the understanding of the subject of the political consumerism. Recently, many studies on political consumerism and consumption have been published (Copeland, 2014b; Copeland & Boulianne, 2020; Gotlieb & Cheema, 2017; Gundelach, 2020; Saraiva et al., 2020; Stolle et al., 2013). However, and up to now, the research in the field of business administration and marketing is not very consistent and does not show a coherent picture. Thus, this call for papers was inspired by the following questions: What is the role of both nonprofit and public organizations as well as for-profit companies to harness the individual motivation to become a “political consumer”? And what are the resulting implications? Modern societies are experiencing an increasing trend which sees consumers use the shopping bag to move from being “passive consumers to becoming active citizens [. . .] to becoming rebels with a cause” (Hastings, 2017, p. 231). According to Sassatelli (2009), consumers’ daily actions charged with political meaning and aiming at promoting economic, social and environmental changes are aptly defined by the term political consumerism. We assume that political consumerism refers to consumer behavior patterns that are characterized by stable and conscious ethical or moral motivations. Moreover, and contrary to the mainstream consumer behavior, which is often founded on self-centered egoistic interests, political consumerism is concurrently driven by private and collective motives (Micheletti, 2003; Micheletti & Stolle, 2012). If one takes a simple perspective, political consumerism includes two typical forms of consumer’s actions: Boycotting (i.e., refraining from buying unethical products and