Blaming the Consumer? How political consumerism and responsibility theory are linked to each other

Keywords
Loading...
Thumbnail Image
Issue Date
2022-06-24
Language
en
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
Political consumerism is a recently introduced term in literature. It means changing one’s individual behavior regarding one’s political beliefs. It has four base actions: boycotting, buycotting, discursive political consumerism and lifestyle political consumerism. Political consumerism is described as a possibilities to take responsibility in solving global injustices. By linking political consumerism and responsibility theory, this thesis tries to answer whether it would also imply that individuals do have responsibility to change their consumer behavior. Discussing four cases of political consumerism and linking them to three theories of responsibility: collective responsibility, political responsibility and cosmopolitan responsibility, this thesis concludes that individuals indeed do bear responsibility for global structural injustices. However, this does not imply that individuals need to change their consumer behavior in order to help solving those injustices.
Description
Citation
Faculty
Faculteit der Managementwetenschappen
Specialisation