Instituting the Self-Regulating Consumer: Fake Fighters, Netizens, and Rights’ Defenders in China

ABSTRACT

The emergence and evolution of the consumer as a socioeconomic figure developed gradually in Western consumer societies. In the postwar period, consumption became associated with democracy as a means of facilitating social change. This article focuses on China as a case study to explore the formation of the Chinese consumer through marketization in an authoritative context. By examining the development of consumer protection policy, this article highlights the way the state instituted the consumer with a responsibility to facilitate national developments. It also examines the evolution of consumer activism and highlights how consumers strived unsuccessfully to become agents for market governance. Illustrating that a specific type of citizen consumer is instituted in China, this article argues that the consumer is instituted by political interactions and the self-regulating consumer has emerged as a political subject that supports a specific type of market society.

KEYWORDS:

• Citizen consumer
• China
• instituted economic process
• self-regulating
• market society

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank two anonymous reviewers’ very helpful comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Chinese Consumer Association (2010). However, the CCA website was renovated in 2014, so the hyperlink does not work anymore. The article is available upon request.

2. See State Department working report in 1989:

http://big5.china.com.cn/guoqing/2012-02/14/content_24632106.htm

And State Department working report in 1990:

http://big5.china.com.cn/guoqing/2012-02/14/content_24632040.htm (access date 4/28/2017).

3. There is an archive explaining each of the year theme, CCA website: http://www.cca.org.cn/web/nzt/newsList2.jsp (Access date: 04/2010).

4. http://baike.baidu.com/view/2078903.htm .

5. See YeGuang’s website for a section on his accomplishments: http://www.yeguang315.com/www/site/show.asp?id=42.

6. Baike wiki page on consumer rights defense: http://www.baike.com/wiki/%E6%B6%88%E8%B4%B9%E7%BB%B4%E6%9D%83.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

I-Liang Wahn

I-Liang Wahn is assistant professor at Graduate Institute of Public Affairs and Social Innovation, Feng Chia University, Taiwan. His research focuses on consumer politics in East Asia. His recent research compares alternative food networks and social economy in China and Taiwan. His work has been published in the International Journal of Consumer Studies and Journal of Consumer Culture.