Description
Book SynopsisProtest Politics in the Marketplace examines how social media has revolutionized the use and effectiveness of consumer activism. In her groundbreaking book, Caroline Heldman emphasizes that consumer activism is a democratizing force that improves political participation, self-governance, and the accountability of corporations and the government. She also investigates the use of these tactics by conservatives.
Heldman analyzes the democratic implications of boycotting, socially responsible investing, social media campaigns, and direct consumer actions, highlighting the ways in which such consumer activism serves as a countervailing force against corporate power in politics. In Protest Politics in the Marketplace, she blends democratic theory with data, historical analysis, and coverage of consumer campaigns for civil rights, environmental conservation, animal rights, gender justice, LGBT rights, and other causes. Using an inter-disciplinary approach applicable to politic
Trade Review
Heldman builds on studies by historians and sociologists to look at market activism as a political phenomenon.... A fruitful area for political science research, and her book should be widely read.
* Choice *
Caroline Heldman's Protest Politics in the Marketplace successfully accomplishes her goal to argue how and why consumer activism in the United States should be considered by academics as empirical indicators of a healthy democracy, rather than the predominant perspective that Americans are becoming less civically and politically engaged.
* American Journal of Sociology *
Table of ContentsList of Illustrations
Preface
List of Abbreviations
Introduction
1. A Consumer Revolution?
2. "We Are the 99%"
3. "We Are Not a Mascot"
4. "600,000 Bosses Telling Me What To Do"
5. "Stop Servibng Gay Chickens"
6. "Yes to Jesus Christ, No to JC"
7. Who Rules?
Conclusion
Notes
