Those interested in finding out more about the project might want to have a look at our recent progress report which describes some of the observations and reflections emerging out of the initial stages of the project, focusing on how participation is organised and the roles and understandings of the institutions and facilitators of participation.
For those interested in changing trends in volunteering and more broadly in how people are participating, you might want to have a look at an interesting discussion that is take place on the NCVO website about micro-volunteering, i.e. ‘volunteering in bite size chunks – from your own home and when you want to’.
Reactions to micro-volunteering have been somewhat mixed, but on the whole there is recognition that it responds to a need and addresses a gap in the ‘market’.
Do you think this new form of volunteering can make a difference? Join the conversation.
The Pathways through Participation project has just completed a literature review on participation which is now available for download.
The project, by NCVO in partnership with the Institute for Volunteering Research (IVR) and Involve, looks at participation in a very broad sense and considers the act of taking part in a wide range of social or civic activities. This broad approach to participation has informed our literature review, which brings together different bodies of literature on participation, including literature on community development, volunteering, public participation, social movements, everyday politics and ethical consumption.
The second section of the review looks at the policy and practice drivers of participation:
Chapter 1 which focuses on the impact of the financial crisis on pensions looks particularly interesting and has been summarised in a media briefing. Another media briefing summarises current trends and policy topics in retirement-income provision in OECD countries.
On the same webpage you can download short country profiles. Unfortunately the one on Britain is still to come.
The Generations Together programme has just announced that “it will fund 12 projects across the country where young and older people can engage with each other on equal terms, break down barriers and challenge negative stereotypes”. The prospectus for the fund, the application form and a question and answer document can be found on the OTS website .
For those interested in intergenerational practice, you might want to have a look at the write-up of the NCVO/Carnegie seminar on intergenerational connections which took place last October.
New forms of governance and partnership working across the globe have brought new opportunities for civil society organisations. However these opportunities have also brought new challenges in relation to autonomy, legitimacy and resources.
Both the opportunities and challenges vary from country to country according to: the welfare mix, the nature of democratic processes and the political culture.
Participatory spaces are increasingly professionalised and this may move civil society representatives further away from their communities
Participation is complex: the more we understand it the better chance we have of successful participation. However, we must not assume that participatory procedures are enough to ‘deliver’ results.
Participatory processes that have been successful in a specific context cannot just be replicated elsewhere.
Engagement requires resources: investments are needed to match the UK government’s ambitions.
I have found this whole discussion really fascinating.
I was particularly interested in Dal’s comment about his own engagement. It’s really relevant to a research project that NCVO
along with IVR and Involve will be working called Pathways through Participation which aims to explore people’s pathways into participation and of the factors that shape this over time.
We will be looking at participation in a very broad sense, to consider the act of taking part in a wide range of social or civic activities, such as volunteering, being a member of a local community group, purchasing fair-trade goods, attending a PTA meeting, acting as a representative on a local strategic partnership, responding to a consultation and voting. Rather than just focus on one of these forms of participation, we will explore how people get involved in all these different ways over their life times.
The research will focus on the following four questions:
• How and why does participation begin, and continue?
• Can trends and patterns of participation be identified over time?
• What connections, if any, are there between participation in different forms of activism and what triggers movement between them?
• How can policy-makers and practitioners enable and encourage different individuals and communities to participate in activism?
The project, funded by BLF, is due to start beginning of April. Each organisation is currently recruiting a researcher to work on the project. Recruitment details are on the organisations’ websites.
According to Jacqui Smith the Bill has a number of benefits including to enable a new approach to citizenship:“Earned citizenship provisions will ensure that migrants earn the right to stay – implementing our new path to citizenship and requiring all migrants on that path to speak English and obey the law. We will speed up the path to citizenship for those who actively contribute to the community”.
What will be the role of the sector in demonstrating that people have actively contributed to the community?
This report is just the first in a series of activities bringing together organisations working on the issues of poverty and the environment to try and encourage coordinated thinking and to show that the right policies can and must advance both causes at once.
The report explores how the principles of social networks intersect with the interests of traditionally structured organisations and examines how organisations are responding to the increasing importance of social networks.
The organisational case studies in the book look at the challenges and opportunities that new social networking technologies offer. These organisations were faced with a range of dilemnas including questions around the right mix of online and offline networking; the tensions between managerialism and organisational ‘looseness’ and the blurring boundaries between professional and personal.
I remembered seeing Natalie’s post quite a few months ago when I read last week media comments on the latest immigration figures published by the Office of National Statistics.
Andy Travis from the Guardian wrote in the article Immigration falls and set to decline further in recession: A decline in immigration is starting to accelerate as the recession bites, with a 36% fall in the number of Poles and other east Europeans coming to work in Britain recorded so far this year.
Apparently 59,000 Polish people and other east Europeans registered to work in Britain between July and September 2007, and only 38,000 over the same period this year. This is the lowest level since Poland joined the EU in 2004.
I’m really pleased that individualism has been integrated to the 3s4 list of drivers. It’s very helpful to look at individualism when trying to understand how people engage. The new version of the Voluntary Sector Strategic Analysis and particularly the chapter on changing participation shows how individualism is impacting on patterns of participation.
Regarding individualism and the personalisation of services, the debate is open as how things will evolve. The House of Commons Children’s Committee has been trying to find out how personalised learning has progressed over the last 4 years. The BBC article Let’s not get personal that refers to this is telling. It concludes that personal learning “was more of a symbolic gesture than a real turning point in education policy”.
If you’re interesting in finding out more about what was said on diversity and social cohesion at this seminar and you were unable to attend, the presentations of both speakers have now been uploaded on the NCVO webpage on social capital.
JRF are hosting a series of debates to further explore the issues discussed in their report What are today’s social evils?.
The events will look at 5 themes: A decline of values; Distrusting and fearful society; The absence of society; Individualism and Equality. Each of these events will be broadcast live on the JRF social evils website with recordings of the debate available to download afterwards.
NCVO and the ESRCNGPA programme is organising an event similar to the one I was talking about in my last post on public participation in decision-making.
The event is on 9 October. It’s a lunchtime seminar at NCVO focusing on changing governance and how voluntary and community organisations and other civil society organisations in the UK and several aborad are experiencing the shift from government to governance.
The speakers are:
Taylor and Jo Howard (University of the West of England) who will explore the ways in which third sector organisations experience and ‘navigate the tensions’ of working in new governance spaces in Bulgaria, Nicaragua and the UK.
Heather Blakey (University of Bradford) who will review a range of municipal innovations in public participation and policy-making in Latin America and the UK.
For those interested by this agenda, NCVO and Carnegie are organising on 29th September a free seminar on social cohesion and diversity. It’s the third seminar in a series of seminar on bridging social capital. So far the seminars have been really stimulating and provided a good opportunity for practitioners, academics and policymakers to share insights. This is reflected in the report for the first seminar on building bridges, now available online.
Speakers for this seminar will be:
Nick Johnson (Institute of Community Cohesion) who will present the current policy context and review how debates around social cohesion and multiculturalism have evolved in recent years.
Nick Acheson (University of Ulster) who will summarise what the research evidence says about the relationship between diversity and social cohesion. For more information and to book
You’re absolutely right, Richard. I’m really interested in considering how organisations could tap into the enthusiasm and motivation of ethical consumers. Ethical consumerism is clearly a fantastic opportunity for organisations in the sector, even though many people who buy fair-trade or organic products may not want to engage more. I guess for me it’s about linking individualised forms of action to more collective ones.
Complex engagements are probably mostly seen as a threat by organisations, partly because this challenges their existing approaches and processes. I guess more sophisticated citizens and activists mean that organisations need to be really flexible and offer a range of options. But in terms of management and planning this is of course very challenging and demanding. It would be great to learn from people’s experience and the responses of their organisations.
Really pleased that this seminar is happening. I think the discussion around implications for society and the VCS should be fascinating. There’s so much happening at the moment around migration that I’m sure people will have plenty to say. On people’s radar should be today’s launch of the government’s new points-based system for migrants. and the worrying Green Paper Path to Citizenship. Already a number of VCOs have critised the idea that volunteering could be made compulsory, as shown in this recent article from Third Sector magazine.
I went to a workshop at the NCVO annual conference on intergenerational working. The workshop set out to explore how intergenerational practice could help close ‘the growing chasm between youth and elders’ and build social cohesion. Alan Hatton-Yeo from the Beth Johnson Foundation chaired the session and noted that intergenerational work had been around a long time, but had recently become more prevalent in policy debates. From the practical examples given during the session by organisations such as Age Concern Kingston-upon-Thames and Magic Me, it was clear that intergenerational practice was able to bring generations closer together, challenge negative perceptions of both old and young people and strengthen solidarity across generations. But to me what was really interesting was to see that although the different initiatives that we looked at were about bringing the young and the old together, it was also about bridging across other potential boundaries, including cultural identities, and capitalising on what people shared in common. The art projects at Magic Me on beauty or the home showed this particularly well. Clearly in the current context of growing diversity the experience and knowledge of intergenerational practitioners could benefit many communities and organisations. A wealth of information on intergenerational practice is available at the Centre for Intergenerational Practice.
For those interested in participation and governance, you might like to have a look at the latest publication of The Development Research Centre on Citizenship, Participation and Accountability which summarises the contents of an international learning event on engaging citizens in local governance. The event brought together 44 people (24 from the UK and 20 from 14 other
countries)who looked at the challenges local governments face in responding to growing demands for citizen engagement and more participatory forms of governance. Chapter 5 is particularly interesting because it considers the implications for different actors (government, appointed officials, locally elected representatives, communities and civil society and donors).
I facilitated one of the group discussions at the seminar and we ended up having a fascinating conversation on the implications of localism. The group was asked to reflect on the risks and opportunities of the ‘Charity begins at home’ scenario in which public and political engagement is more likely to take place on more local and personal levels within an environment of relative affluence. In this scenario the emphasis of people’s involvement is more on the safety and quality of their own neighbourhoods than the future of society as a whole.
As the majority people in the group were from larger charities there were quite a few comments on the impact of localism on national charities. While participants saw more local volunteering and community spirit as an opportunity, they also felt that national organisations would need to adapt and make the case that national working was still important. For organisations like theirs more local action would probably mean having to provide more diverse services, being more transparent and employing more project-based specialists.
I have written several posts on human rights lately and here is another one. I spoke to Chris Stalker, who is head of Campaigning Effectiveness following the event he organised with his team, on human-rights based approaches to campaigning. I wanted his feedback on something which I thought was relatively new and which probably had scope for development. Chris felt there was definitely a growing interest amongst organisations, large and small but it was early days. In terms of future development, he saw some exciting and significant opportunities as well as some challenges. The three main opportunities he identified for campaigners are as follows:
1. The language of human rights is very powerful: it is based in the law, but it also moves the emphasis from ‘needs’ to ‘rights’.
2. Human rights based approaches can help campaigners link successfully the local to the global.
3. They provide a framework which has the potential to really encourage the participation of users and beneficairies.
On the downside, there are still important barriers. Cultural barriers essentially. The general public opinion is still quite negative and this can represent a reputational risk for organisations, especially for the large and well-established ones.
Following this event, Campaigning Effectiveness are planning to put together with BIHR a resource that will provide some guidelines for campaigners. So watch this space!
In the meantime, you might like to have a look at this new Charity Commission publication: Charities in the field of human rights
For those interested in both campaigning and human-rights approaches the Campaigning Effectiveness team at NCVO is organising an event Monday 10 December on this very topic. The programme includes workshops/sessions with the British Institute of Human Rights, Amnesty International and Scope.
Have just come across this article which asks some really thought-provoking questions about ethical consumerism. It is written by Necla Acik-Toprak who is working on a PhD project on civic engagement at University of Manchester in cooperation with Unlock Democracy.
Basically: Where do you place such low-type activities within the discussion of civic and political engagement and how much weight should be given to them in the discourse of political participation? Can ethical consumerism replace traditional forms of political activities or are they just artefacts of an individualistic post-materialist consumer society with no real political substance?
In the article, Necla highlights the current lack of research evidence and understanding: “Most of the cross-national surveys (including the ESS) do not investigate ethical consumerism in detail. Without more information it is hard to distinguish whether buycotting and boycotting is a sporadic or a persistent type of engagement. In order to group this activity as a clearly political activity, there needs to be more research to establish how much ethical consumers act as ‘political consumers’ and to what extent they use this behaviour as an instrument to bring about political and social change?”
Véronique
Third Sector ForesightA little while ago I posted something about the 'Pathways through Participation' publication Understanding review: a literature review.
We have now completed 4 summaries outlining the review's key points:
Those interested in finding out more about the project might want to have a look at our recent progress report which describes some of the observations and reflections emerging out of the initial stages of the project, focusing on how participation is organised and the roles and understandings of the institutions and facilitators of participation.
Véronique
Third Sector ForesightFor those interested in changing trends in volunteering and more broadly in how people are participating, you might want to have a look at an interesting discussion that is take place on the NCVO website about micro-volunteering, i.e. ‘volunteering in bite size chunks – from your own home and when you want to’.
Reactions to micro-volunteering have been somewhat mixed, but on the whole there is recognition that it responds to a need and addresses a gap in the ‘market’.
Do you think this new form of volunteering can make a difference? Join the conversation.
Véronique
Third Sector ForesightThe Pathways through Participation project has just completed a literature review on participation which is now available for download.
The project, by NCVO in partnership with the Institute for Volunteering Research (IVR) and Involve, looks at participation in a very broad sense and considers the act of taking part in a wide range of social or civic activities. This broad approach to participation has informed our literature review, which brings together different bodies of literature on participation, including literature on community development, volunteering, public participation, social movements, everyday politics and ethical consumption.
The second section of the review looks at the policy and practice drivers of participation:
For more information on the project or to subscribe to our newsletter visit the website http://pathwaysthroughparticipation.org.uk/
Véronique
Third Sector ForesightThe OECD has just published Pensions at Glance.
Chapter 1 which focuses on the impact of the financial crisis on pensions looks particularly interesting and has been summarised in a media briefing. Another media briefing summarises current trends and policy topics in retirement-income provision in OECD countries.
On the same webpage you can download short country profiles. Unfortunately the one on Britain is still to come.
Véronique
Third Sector ForesightThe Generations Together programme has just announced that “it will fund 12 projects across the country where young and older people can engage with each other on equal terms, break down barriers and challenge negative stereotypes”. The prospectus for the fund, the application form and a question and answer document can be found on the OTS website .
For those interested in intergenerational practice, you might want to have a look at the write-up of the NCVO/Carnegie seminar on intergenerational connections which took place last October.
Véronique
Third Sector ForesightThe summary report of the seminar on changing governance, jointly organised by NCVO and the ESRC NGPA research programme, is now available.
These are some of the key findings in the report:
Véronique
Third Sector ForesightI have found this whole discussion really fascinating.
I was particularly interested in Dal’s comment about his own engagement. It’s really relevant to a research project that NCVO
along with IVR and Involve will be working called Pathways through Participation which aims to explore people’s pathways into participation and of the factors that shape this over time.
We will be looking at participation in a very broad sense, to consider the act of taking part in a wide range of social or civic activities, such as volunteering, being a member of a local community group, purchasing fair-trade goods, attending a PTA meeting, acting as a representative on a local strategic partnership, responding to a consultation and voting. Rather than just focus on one of these forms of participation, we will explore how people get involved in all these different ways over their life times.
The research will focus on the following four questions:
• How and why does participation begin, and continue?
• Can trends and patterns of participation be identified over time?
• What connections, if any, are there between participation in different forms of activism and what triggers movement between them?
• How can policy-makers and practitioners enable and encourage different individuals and communities to participate in activism?
The project, funded by BLF, is due to start beginning of April. Each organisation is currently recruiting a researcher to work on the project. Recruitment details are on the organisations’ websites.
Véronique
Third Sector ForesightOn 15 January 2009 the Government published the Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Bill.
According to Jacqui Smith the Bill has a number of benefits including to enable a new approach to citizenship:“Earned citizenship provisions will ensure that migrants earn the right to stay – implementing our new path to citizenship and requiring all migrants on that path to speak English and obey the law. We will speed up the path to citizenship for those who actively contribute to the community”.
What will be the role of the sector in demonstrating that people have actively contributed to the community?
Véronique
Third Sector ForesightThe report by a new coalition of leading UK environmental and social justice groups Tackling climate change, reducing poverty is worth looking at too:
This report is just the first in a series of activities bringing together organisations working on the issues of poverty and the environment to try and encourage coordinated thinking and to show that the right policies can and must advance both causes at once.
Véronique
Third Sector ForesightDemos have just published Network citizens: power and responsibility at work which looks at the growing power of networks and online communities.
The report explores how the principles of social networks intersect with the interests of traditionally structured organisations and examines how organisations are responding to the increasing importance of social networks.
The organisational case studies in the book look at the challenges and opportunities that new social networking technologies offer. These organisations were faced with a range of dilemnas including questions around the right mix of online and offline networking; the tensions between managerialism and organisational ‘looseness’ and the blurring boundaries between professional and personal.
Véronique
Third Sector ForesightI remembered seeing Natalie’s post quite a few months ago when I read last week media comments on the latest immigration figures published by the Office of National Statistics.
Andy Travis from the Guardian wrote in the article Immigration falls and set to decline further in recession: A decline in immigration is starting to accelerate as the recession bites, with a 36% fall in the number of Poles and other east Europeans coming to work in Britain recorded so far this year.
Apparently 59,000 Polish people and other east Europeans registered to work in Britain between July and September 2007, and only 38,000 over the same period this year. This is the lowest level since Poland joined the EU in 2004.
Véronique
Third Sector ForesightI’m really pleased that individualism has been integrated to the 3s4 list of drivers. It’s very helpful to look at individualism when trying to understand how people engage. The new version of the Voluntary Sector Strategic Analysis and particularly the chapter on changing participation shows how individualism is impacting on patterns of participation.
Regarding individualism and the personalisation of services, the debate is open as how things will evolve. The House of Commons Children’s Committee has been trying to find out how personalised learning has progressed over the last 4 years. The BBC article Let’s not get personal that refers to this is telling. It concludes that personal learning “was more of a symbolic gesture than a real turning point in education policy”.
Véronique
Third Sector ForesightIf you’re interesting in finding out more about what was said on diversity and social cohesion at this seminar and you were unable to attend, the presentations of both speakers have now been uploaded on the NCVO webpage on social capital.
For those who consider themselves ‘cohesion practitioners’, Nick Johnson, our first speaker, mentioned that his organisation The Institute of Community Cohesion has a practititioner network which people can join. The purpose, remit and aims of the network are to:
seek out, share and disseminate good practice
Véronique
Third Sector ForesightJRF are hosting a series of debates to further explore the issues discussed in their report What are today’s social evils?.
The events will look at 5 themes: A decline of values; Distrusting and fearful society; The absence of society; Individualism and Equality. Each of these events will be broadcast live on the JRF social evils website with recordings of the debate available to download afterwards.
The first event took place last week. Podcast and accompanying think-pieces from Anthony Browne, Baroness Julia Neuberger and Professor AC Grayling are already available for download.
Véronique
Third Sector ForesightNCVO and the ESRC NGPA programme is organising an event similar to the one I was talking about in my last post on public participation in decision-making.
The event is on 9 October. It’s a lunchtime seminar at NCVO focusing on changing governance and how voluntary and community organisations and other civil society organisations in the UK and several aborad are experiencing the shift from government to governance.
The speakers are:
For more information and to book a place
Véronique
Third Sector ForesightFor those interested by this agenda, NCVO and Carnegie are organising on 29th September a free seminar on social cohesion and diversity. It’s the third seminar in a series of seminar on bridging social capital. So far the seminars have been really stimulating and provided a good opportunity for practitioners, academics and policymakers to share insights. This is reflected in the report for the first seminar on building bridges, now available online.
Speakers for this seminar will be:
For more information and to book
Véronique
Third Sector ForesightYou’re absolutely right, Richard. I’m really interested in considering how organisations could tap into the enthusiasm and motivation of ethical consumers. Ethical consumerism is clearly a fantastic opportunity for organisations in the sector, even though many people who buy fair-trade or organic products may not want to engage more. I guess for me it’s about linking individualised forms of action to more collective ones.
Véronique
Third Sector ForesightComplex engagements are probably mostly seen as a threat by organisations, partly because this challenges their existing approaches and processes. I guess more sophisticated citizens and activists mean that organisations need to be really flexible and offer a range of options. But in terms of management and planning this is of course very challenging and demanding. It would be great to learn from people’s experience and the responses of their organisations.
Véronique
Third Sector ForesightReally pleased that this seminar is happening. I think the discussion around implications for society and the VCS should be fascinating. There’s so much happening at the moment around migration that I’m sure people will have plenty to say. On people’s radar should be today’s launch of the government’s new points-based system for migrants. and the worrying Green Paper Path to Citizenship. Already a number of VCOs have critised the idea that volunteering could be made compulsory, as shown in this recent article from Third Sector magazine.
Véronique
Third Sector ForesightI went to a workshop at the NCVO annual conference on intergenerational working. The workshop set out to explore how intergenerational practice could help close ‘the growing chasm between youth and elders’ and build social cohesion. Alan Hatton-Yeo from the Beth Johnson Foundation chaired the session and noted that intergenerational work had been around a long time, but had recently become more prevalent in policy debates. From the practical examples given during the session by organisations such as Age Concern Kingston-upon-Thames and Magic Me, it was clear that intergenerational practice was able to bring generations closer together, challenge negative perceptions of both old and young people and strengthen solidarity across generations. But to me what was really interesting was to see that although the different initiatives that we looked at were about bringing the young and the old together, it was also about bridging across other potential boundaries, including cultural identities, and capitalising on what people shared in common. The art projects at Magic Me on beauty or the home showed this particularly well. Clearly in the current context of growing diversity the experience and knowledge of intergenerational practitioners could benefit many communities and organisations. A wealth of information on intergenerational practice is available at the Centre for Intergenerational Practice.
Véronique
Third Sector ForesightFor those interested in participation and governance, you might like to have a look at the latest publication of The Development Research Centre on Citizenship, Participation and Accountability which summarises the contents of an international learning event on engaging citizens in local governance. The event brought together 44 people (24 from the UK and 20 from 14 other
countries)who looked at the challenges local governments face in responding to growing demands for citizen engagement and more participatory forms of governance. Chapter 5 is particularly interesting because it considers the implications for different actors (government, appointed officials, locally elected representatives, communities and civil society and donors).
Véronique
Third Sector ForesightI facilitated one of the group discussions at the seminar and we ended up having a fascinating conversation on the implications of localism. The group was asked to reflect on the risks and opportunities of the ‘Charity begins at home’ scenario in which public and political engagement is more likely to take place on more local and personal levels within an environment of relative affluence. In this scenario the emphasis of people’s involvement is more on the safety and quality of their own neighbourhoods than the future of society as a whole.
As the majority people in the group were from larger charities there were quite a few comments on the impact of localism on national charities. While participants saw more local volunteering and community spirit as an opportunity, they also felt that national organisations would need to adapt and make the case that national working was still important. For organisations like theirs more local action would probably mean having to provide more diverse services, being more transparent and employing more project-based specialists.
Véronique
Third Sector ForesightI have written several posts on human rights lately and here is another one. I spoke to Chris Stalker, who is head of Campaigning Effectiveness following the event he organised with his team, on human-rights based approaches to campaigning. I wanted his feedback on something which I thought was relatively new and which probably had scope for development. Chris felt there was definitely a growing interest amongst organisations, large and small but it was early days. In terms of future development, he saw some exciting and significant opportunities as well as some challenges. The three main opportunities he identified for campaigners are as follows:
1. The language of human rights is very powerful: it is based in the law, but it also moves the emphasis from ‘needs’ to ‘rights’.
2. Human rights based approaches can help campaigners link successfully the local to the global.
3. They provide a framework which has the potential to really encourage the participation of users and beneficairies.
On the downside, there are still important barriers. Cultural barriers essentially. The general public opinion is still quite negative and this can represent a reputational risk for organisations, especially for the large and well-established ones.
Following this event, Campaigning Effectiveness are planning to put together with BIHR a resource that will provide some guidelines for campaigners. So watch this space!
In the meantime, you might like to have a look at this new Charity Commission publication: Charities in the field of human rights
Véronique
Third Sector ForesightFor those interested in both campaigning and human-rights approaches the Campaigning Effectiveness team at NCVO is organising an event Monday 10 December on this very topic. The programme includes workshops/sessions with the British Institute of Human Rights, Amnesty International and Scope.
Véronique
Third Sector ForesightHave just come across this article which asks some really thought-provoking questions about ethical consumerism. It is written by Necla Acik-Toprak who is working on a PhD project on civic engagement at University of Manchester in cooperation with Unlock Democracy.
Basically: Where do you place such low-type activities within the discussion of civic and political engagement and how much weight should be given to them in the discourse of political participation? Can ethical consumerism replace traditional forms of political activities or are they just artefacts of an individualistic post-materialist consumer society with no real political substance?
In the article, Necla highlights the current lack of research evidence and understanding: “Most of the cross-national surveys (including the ESS) do not investigate ethical consumerism in detail. Without more information it is hard to distinguish whether buycotting and boycotting is a sporadic or a persistent type of engagement. In order to group this activity as a clearly political activity, there needs to be more research to establish how much ethical consumers act as ‘political consumers’ and to what extent they use this behaviour as an instrument to bring about political and social change?”