Ethical consumerism; a new ‘political’ trend or just an artefact of a post-materialist society?

Like many other Western European democracies, in general, fewer people in Britain are choosing to become members of traditional civic organisations like political parties, churches and trade unions. At the same time, there has been a rise in activities that require less networking and place fewer demands on the individual. Examples of these include signing petitions, boycotting products and buying products for political/ ethical/ environmental reasons (buycotting).In 2003 the European Social Survey (ESS) found that 40% of British respondents had signed a petition in the last 12 months. The number of people who had ‘bought products for political, ethical or environmental reasons’ is 32.3 % and those who boycotted certain products within the last 12 months is 26 %. In a country where the percentage of people working for a political party or action group is just 3.4 %, these relatively high figures have rightly awakened the curiosity of many political analysts.Do these numbers indicate a new rise in citizens’ engagement? Do 21st Century citizens express their political will through signing petitions and buycotting and boycotting, rather than through traditional institutional politics? And above all, how much of these activities undertaken by the individuals can be really grouped as political activities? Whilst signing petitions fits easily into the classical definition of political activities, i.e. makes a political demand and addresses the government, it is questionable how much an isolated act of ethical consumerism (boycott and buycott) can be called a distinct political behaviour?There are a number of scholarly articles which argue that ethical consumerism is, in essence, a political act. Examples of these activities include World Trade Organisation (WTO) protests, fair-trade advocacy, and anti-sweatshop activism. However, most of the cross-national surveys (including the ESS) do not investigate ethical consumerism in detail. Without more information it is hard to distinguish whether buycotting and boycotting is a sporadic or a persistent type of engagement. In order to group this activity as a clearly political activity, there needs to be more research to establish how much ethical consumers act as ‘political consumers’ and to what extent they use this behaviour as an instrument to bring about political and social change?Drawing on the method of multiple correspondence analysis, results from the cross-national European Social Survey 2002/2003 suggest that buying and boycotting products are more closely associated with ‘civic’ engagement than with ‘political’ actions. In particular, those who are engaged in ethical consumerism are closely associated with people who are involved in egalitarian organisations such as humanitarian, environmental, peace and animal rights organisations. On the other hand, activities such as contacting politicians or government officials, working in a political party or action group, taking part in public demonstrations and donating money to a political organisation or group appeared clearly as forms of political engagement.The results of this quantitative analysis are very limited and reveal only how the numerous types of political and civic activities are related to each other. It does not shed a light on the motives of buycotters and boycotters nor to what extent they act as political actors.The question therefore is; where to place such low-type activities within the discussion of civic and political engagement and how much weight should be given to them in the discourse of political participation? Can ethical consumerism replace traditional forms of political activities or are they just artefacts of an individualistic post-materialist consumer society with no real political substance?Necla Acik-Toprak is working on a PhD project on civic engagement across Europe at University of Manchester in cooperation with Unlock Democracy.