Putting the Money Where Your Mouth is: Political Consumerism and Global Responsibility Taking

Political consumerism captures the creative ways in which consumers and political activists use the market to express their political views and attempt to pressure corporations to change their practices. In her talk, Dietlind Stolle will discuss her latest book on the topic and other new research, which theorizes, describes, analyzes, compares, and evaluates the phenomenon of political consumerism to capture the use of market choice to solve globalized problems. With her co-author Michele Micheletti she investigates theoretically and empirically how and why consumers have become important political actors and shows how political consumerism is opening up new ways of doing cross-national business, changing politics and particularly citizen engagement.  The talk offers a candid discussion of the limitations and weaknesses of political consumerism.