Governance, Citizens and Consumers

This is the first book to bring together a focus on governance with that on cultures of consumption. It asks about the changing place of the consumer as citizen in recent trends in governance, about the tensions between competing ideas and practices of consumerism, and about the active role of consumers in the construction of governance. The book seeks to expand the debate about consumers and governance and to raise the possibility of new conceptions and policy agendas.

MARK BEVIR is Professor of Political Science, University of California, Berkeley. FRANK TRENTMANN is Professor of History, Birkbeck College, University of London.

Acknowledgements * Notes on Contributors * Introduction: Consumption and Citizenship in the New Governance–M.Bevir & F.Trentmann * PART 1: INTERPRETING GOVERNANCE * The Construction of Governance–M.Bevir * Governance as Cultural Practice: Texts, Talk and the Struggle for Meaning–J.Newman * Consuming Social Science–C.Donovan * PART 2: CONTESTED CONSUMERS * ‘It’s Not Like Shopping’: Citizens, Consumers and the Reform of Public Services–J.Clarke * The Governance of Health Policy in the UK–I.Greener, M.Powell, N.Mills & S.Doheny * Regulating Markets in the Interest of Consumers? On the Changing Regime of Governance in the Financial Service and Communications Sectors–P.Lunt & S.Livingstone * PART 3: NEW PERSPECTIVES * After Modernism: Local Reasoning, Consumption, and Governance–M.Bevir & F.Trentmann * Political Consumerism Between a Marketized Polity and a Politicized Market–H.P.Bang * Problematizing Choice: Responsible Consumers and Sceptical Citizens–A.Malpass, C.Barnett, N.Clarke & P.Cloke * CONCLUSION * Reflections on Governance from an International Perspective–B.Morgan * Index