Page 68 - Contemporary Political Sociology Globalization Politics and Power

54 Politics in a Small World

increasingly crucial to structuring social relations between individuals and
collective forms of life.
On Lash and Urry ’ s account, the form of politics most pertinent to the
restructuring of disorganized capitalism would seem to be consumer poli-
tics. Consumer politics, though it has a long history, has, indeed, become
a good deal more prominent in the last few decades (Micheletti et al.,
2004 ; Sassatelli, 2007 ). New terms that have entered our vocabulary,
“ ethical consumption, ” “ citizen - consumer, ” are indicative of new prac-
tices and identities (Micheletti et al., 2004 : xiv). In large part, this is due
to the revolution in advertising from the mid - 1980s when, as Naomi
Klein puts it, management theories realized “ that successful corporations
must primarily produce brands, as opposed to products ” (Klein, 2000 :
3). Brands are designed to symbolize value to consumers: to assure us of
the quality of a range of products, but also to help us (safely) experiment

with, or to re - confirm, our identity by buying and using them. Advertising,
sponsorship, and logos are vehicles that are intended to convey the
meaning of a corporation for our lives, and, at the same time, the meaning
of our actions and who we are in consuming the corporation ’ s products.
Brands make corporations hugely successful; as Klein argues, in some
cases the products hardly seem to matter at all any more. But they also
make huge, sprawling transnational corporations extremely vulnerable at
the same time. If consumers can be successfully mobilized to boycott a
brand, or even if leaders of corporations fear that there might be a sharp
fall in purchases of branded products, they can be brought to change
their practices. Through activities such as boycotts, demonstrations, court
cases (e.g., McLibel), culture - jamming (subverting advertisements with

graffiti), and even Internet rumor (see Lury, 2004 : 144 – 5; Perretti and
Micheletti, 2004 ), corporations such as Nike, Gap, Calvin Klein, and
McDonalds have been brought to change certain of their practices,
from employing child labor to production processes that damage the
environment.
There are certainly limits to this kind of politics. Changing buying
habits relies on relatively high levels of disposable income and/or careful
budgeting, and it may therefore be marginalizing and disempowering for
some (Micheletti et al., 2004 : xv). It is controversial where it affects labor
practices in the developing world; those involved in boycotts may not be
aware of the difficulties faced by people involved in producing branded

products if they lose their jobs (Spivak, 1999 : 415 - 21). Finally, unless
consumer politics is quite organized and systematic, it may be rather
capricious in its effects, ultimately removing any incentive for corpora-
tions to change how they act. On the other hand, ethical consumption