Consumer choice as political participation

Political scientists are often rather surprised when they first hear that shopping can be participation in politics. We react this way because we are taught that the political system is the focus of citizen involvement in politics. Our defini-tions of political participation reflect this understanding: "those voluntary ac-tivities by which members of a society share in the selection of rulers and, directly or indirectly, in the formation of public policy " (McClosky 1968,252), and "politiskt deltagande innebär deltagande i aktiviteter som har till syfte eller resultat att utöva inflytande på de politiska myndigheternas beslut, antingen direkt genom att påverka beslutsprocessen inom ett bestämt område eller indi-rekt genom att påverka valet av politiska representanter " (Togeby 1997,219). These definitions form the basis of our empirical work on political participa-tion (for an overview see Teorell 2001). This article argues that under certain conditions shopping for services and material goods is political participation. It starts with a definition of political consumerism, continues with a section on historical and contemporary exam