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Revitalizing the American Dream in the Face of Economic Recessions, 1981-2012 Chapman University Chapman University Digital Commons Business Faculty Articles and Research Business 1-8-2020 Citizen-Consumers Wanted: Revitalizing the American Dream in the Face of Economic Recessions, 1981-2012 Gokcen Coskuner-Balli Chapman University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.chapman.edu/business_articles Part of the American Politics Commons, Behavioral Economics Commons, Civic and Community Engagement Commons, Economic Theory Commons, Growth and Development Commons, Other Economics Commons, Other Sociology Commons, Political Economy Commons, Politics and Social Change Commons, Public Economics Commons, Quantitative, Qualitative, Comparative, and Historical Methodologies Commons, Social Psychology and Interaction Commons, Sociology of Culture Commons, and the Work, Economy and Organizations Commons Recommended Citation Coskuner-Balli, Gokcen. (2020), "Citizen-Consumers Wanted: Revitalizing the American Dream in the Face of Economic Recessions, 1981-2012," Journal of Consumer Research, 47(3), 327-349. https://doi.org/ 10.1093/jcr/ucz059 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Business at Chapman University Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Business Faculty Articles and Research by an authorized administrator of Chapman University Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Citizen-Consumers Wanted: Revitalizing the American Dream in the Face of Economic Recessions, 1981-2012 Comments This is a pre-copy-editing, author-produced PDF of an article accepted for publication in Journal of Consumer Research, volume 47, issue 3, in 2020 following peer review. The version of record is available online at https://doi.org/10.1093/jcr/ucz059. Copyright The author This article is available at Chapman University Digital Commons: https://digitalcommons.chapman.edu/ business_articles/95 1 Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/jcr/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/jcr/ucz059/5698277 by Chapman University user on 15 January 2020 Citizen-Consumers Wanted: Revitalizing the American Dream in the Face of Economic Recessions, 1981-2012 For Review Only GOKCEN COSKUNER-BALLI Forthcoming, Journal of Consumer Research © The Author(s) 2019. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Journal of Consumer Research, Inc. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: [email protected] https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/jconres 2 Gokcen Coskuner-Balli ([email protected]) is an Associate Professor of Marketing, Argyros School of Business and Economics, Chapman University, One University Drive, Beckman Hall, Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/jcr/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/jcr/ucz059/5698277 by Chapman University user on 15 January 2020 Orange, CA, 92866. The author would like to thank Burcak Ertimur, Ashlee Humphreys, and Craig J. Thompson for their feedback on the earlier versions of this article as well as the reviewer team at JCR for their constructive criticisms throughout the review rounds. Supplementary materials are included in the web appendix accompanying the online version of this article. Running Head: COSKUNER-BALLIFor Review Only Editors: Eileen Fischer and Linda L. Price Associate Editor: Güliz Ger https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/jconres 3 ABSTRACT Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/jcr/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/jcr/ucz059/5698277 by Chapman University user on 15 January 2020 This article brings sociological theory of governmentality to bear on a longitudinal analysis of American presidential speeches to theorize the formation of the citizen-consumer subject. The 40-year historical analysis which expands through four economic recessions and the presidential terms of Ronald Reagan, William J. Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Hussein Obama, illustrates the ways in which the national mythology of American Dream myth has been linked to the political ideologyFor of theReview state to create the Only citizen-consumer subject in the United States. The quantitative and qualitative analysis of the data demonstrates first, the consistent emphasis on responsibility as a key moral value albeit meshed with ideals of liberalism and libertarianism at different presidential periods; second, the presidents iteratively link the neoliberal political ideology and the national myth of American dream through a sophisticated morality play myth, where they cast the citizen-consumer as a responsible moral hero on a journey to achieve American dream, and, third, the presidents use three main dispositives – disciplinary, legal and security - to craft the citizen-consumer subject in their response to the economic recessions. The findings extend prior consumer research on consumer subjectivity, consumer moralism, marketplace mythology and politics of consumption. Keywords: citizen-consumer, American dream, neoliberalism, governmentality, consumer subjectivity https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/jconres 4 Our Government is supporting homeownership because it is good for America; it is good for our families; it is good for our economy. One of the biggest hurdles to homeownership is getting money for a down payment. This administration has recognized that, and so today I'm honored to be here to sign a law that will help Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/jcr/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/jcr/ucz059/5698277 by Chapman University user on 15 January 2020 many low-income buyers to overcome that hurdle and to achieve an important part of the American dream. George W. Bush, Remarks on Signing the American Dream Downpayment Act, December 16, 2003 A growing middle class was the engine of our prosperity. … This country offered you a basic bargain, a sense that your hard work would be rewarded with fair wages and decent benefits, the chance to buy a home, to save for retirement—and most of all, a chanceFor to hand Review down a better life Onlyfor your kids. … For the past three decades, however, the engine began to stall … the bargain began to fray. ..It is time to return to policies that focus on the middle class, that build from the middle out, and turn away from the trickle-down policies of the past. It’s not enough to get government out of the way; government must act to strengthen the elements of the American dream. Barack Obama, speech at Knox College, Galesburg, Illinois, December 4, 2013 President Bush and Obama’s articulations of the American Dream myth showcase the role of presidential rhetorics, policies, laws and regulations in shaping the cultural contexts for citizen-consumer subjectivities. While in traditional theorizations citizens and consumers are viewed as opposites, with citizens perceived as civic actors who are in political relationship with government and assumed to embrace a larger public interest and consumers as civicly disengaged actors that are wasteful and concerned with satisfying private material desires, in the last decades scholars study how citizenship and consumption are interlinked. Rather than two distinct entities, citizen and consumers are considered as “ever-shifting categories that sometimes overlapped, often were in tension, but always reflected the permeability of the political and economic spheres” Cohen (2003, 8-9). As Cohen (2003) documents citizen-consumers of the New Deal and World War II eras, for example, expected the market to safeguard their rights and https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/jconres 5 serve the ‘general good’ whilst their participation in the economy ensured much needed growth after Great Depression and the Second World war. During the postwar era, on the other hand, a Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/jcr/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/jcr/ucz059/5698277 by Chapman University user on 15 January 2020 more self-interested citizen-consumer emerged, whose personal material wants nonetheless served the national interest since economic recovery “depended on a dynamic mass consumption economy”. The citizen-consumer subject has been central on how state laws and bills are proposed, government policies are legitimated, morals are constructed in the market as well as how consumers’ lives Forare organized, Review aspirations and Only dreams casted. How is the citizen- consumer created in the aftermath of 1980s? How was the political ideology of neoliberalism put to effect to create distinct subject positions? What kinds of strategies were employed by the state to construct citizen-consumer and towards what end? To address these questions, the paper employs a historical analysis of the presidents’ rhetorical and material strategies between 1981 and 2012, focusing on the presidential terms of Ronald Reagan, William J. Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Hussein Obama. It theorizes the formation of the citizen-consumer subject as a governmentality process that merges national myth and political ideology in a particular rendering of moral values towards addressing the economic and political goals of the state. The longitudinal analysis informs that U.S. presidents used disciplinary, legal and security dispositives to link the broader political ideology of neoliberalism, albeit meshed with ideals of liberalism and libertarianism at different presidential periods, to the national mythology of the American dream to structure the citizen-consumer subject position. While previous consumer researchers have developed highly nuanced accounts of the macro shaping of institutional/cultural contexts of consumers (Holt 2004,
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