Boulianne, S. & Hoffmann, C. P. Political Consumerism in Comparative Perspective. Cambridge University Press. https://www.cambridge.org/core/elements/abs/political-consumerism-in-comparative-perspective/B0EB12DA4DA289301CCA1576203AF9A0

Abstract:

Political consumerism is an important form of political participation in which citizens use market choices – boycotting and buycotting – to express political concerns and influence global economic and political institutions. Adopting a comparative perspective, the Element integrates evidence from a meta-analysis (109 studies and 1,300 tests), global survey data (66 countries and 97,000 respondents), and original cross-national research (5 countries and 7,500 respondents). Using each data source, the authors examine the roles of resources (education, income, and information/news), engagement (political interest, ideology, and environmental concern), and mobilization (online group ties and offline organization membership) in political consumerism and how these factors vary across countries in explaining political consumerism. The authors find that organizational membership, group ties on social media, political interest, and political ideology are consistent covariates of boycotting and buycotting, whereas education, information/news, and environmental concern depend on the country, political context, campaign, and activity (boycotting or buycotting).

Visualize the Chapters 

Boulianne, S. (2026). Social media and the perceived efficacy of collective action: Boycotts, marches, strikes, and petitions in four countries. In D. Guzek, J. Labarre, K. Koc-Michalska, D. Lilleker, & U. Russmann (Eds). De Gruyter Handbook of Digital Politics. Berlin: De Gruyter.

Boulianne, S., & Houle, N. (2025). Chocolate and politics: A cross-national, survey-based experiment on recruitment to a boycott campaign. Mobilization: An International Quarterly, 30(1), 73-88. https://doi.org/10.17813/1086-671X-30-1-73 

Preprint

Survey data file, analysis syntax, and SPSS output are available through Figshare

Boulianne, S. (2023). Political consumerism. In M. Grasso & M. Giugni (Eds.). Encyclopedia of Political Sociology. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing.

Boulianne, S., Copeland, L., & Koc-Michalska, K. (2024). Digital media and political consumerism in the United States, Britain, and France. New Media & Society, 26(4): 2110-2130. https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448221083025 

Boulianne, S. (2022). Socially mediated political consumerism. Information, Communication & Society, 25(5), 609-617. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2021.2020872 

Boulianne, S., & Ohme, J. (2022). Pathways to environmental activism in four countries: Social media, environmental concern, and political efficacy. Journal of Youth Studies, 25(6), 771-792. https://doi.org/10.1080/13676261.2021.2011845 

Note: This paper also relates to a line of research about climate change. See this separate project website for more publications: https://sites.google.com/view/climate-change-research/home

Boulianne, Shelley, Mullin, Samantha, Stevens, Leanne, López, José Gonzalo Peña, & Sleptcov, Nikita. (2022). Hashtag Boycott on Twitter in 2020 and 2021. 

Copeland, L., & Boulianne, S. (2022). Political consumerism: A meta-analysis. International Political Science Review, 43(1): 3-18. https://doi.org/10.1177/0192512120905048