John Carroll University Carroll Collected Sociology 2008 An Analytical Framework for Studying the Politics of Consumption: The aC se of the National Consumers' League Wendy A. Wiedenhoft urM phy John Carroll University,
[email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://collected.jcu.edu/soc-facpub Part of the Politics and Social Change Commons, and the Work, Economy and Organizations Commons Recommended Citation Wiedenhoft urM phy, Wendy A., "An Analytical Framework for Studying the Politics of Consumption: The asC e of the National Consumers' League" (2008). Sociology. 15. http://collected.jcu.edu/soc-facpub/15 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Carroll Collected. It has been accepted for inclusion in Sociology by an authorized administrator of Carroll Collected. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. An Analytical Framework for Studying the Politics of Consumption: The Case of the National Consumers’ League Wendy A. Wiedenhoft Department of Sociology, John Carroll University, Ohio, USA ABSTRACT Consumption is not often addressed in the literature on social movements even though consumer organizations and consumer tactics have been successful in achieving social change. This paper offers an analytical framework for studying the politics of consumption, which suggests that consumers can be conceived of collectively as active agents rather than passive individuals. I capture this active agency through four concepts: mobilization, problematization, identification, and contention. I focus on one consumer organization, the National Consumers’ League, and its three consumer tactics, white lists, white labels, and legislation, in order to demonstrate how the analytical framework I construct can be applied.