Moralising Markets, Marketizing Morality. The Fair Trade Movement, Product Labeling and the Emergence of Ethical Consumerism in Europe

ABSTRACT

In this paper, I argue that the historical change in the organizational logic of the Fair Trade movement, embodied by Fair Trade labeling, has had an important effect on the emergence of ethical consumption in Europe. By establishing Fair Trade labels, the initial movement logic of political influence through education was supplemented and partly abandoned in favor of a market logic. Fair Trade movements in Western Europe differ in the way they organize and market fair traded goods. Drawing on organizational institutionalism and social movement theories of economic opportunity structures, it is elaborated how the emergence of a new organizational form and its underlying logic shape consumption patterns. Hypotheses are empirically tested using a quantitative multilevel design. Organizational data on national Fair Trade movements compiled from an organizational survey of the European Fair Trade Association are combined with individual-level survey data of the 1997 Eurobarometer for 12 European countries. Logistic hierarchical regression models reveal the crucial importance of the Fair Trade labels once diffused into consumer markets, controlling for organizational communication efforts as well as the number of distribution channels for individual Fair Trade consumption. Thus, adopting a market logic has been a powerful force in rendering Fair Trade successful.

KEYWORDS:

• Political consumption
• institutional logic
• fair Trade
• social movement
• organization

Acknowledgments

This paper has benefitted from the helpful comments of the reviewers and the editors of this special issue, to whom I am very thankful. A different German version of the paper has been previously published in the Berliner Journal für Soziologie (Koos, 2016).

Disclosure statement

This is to acknowledge that no financial interest or benefit has arisen from the direct applications of my research.

Notes

1. Analyses were also conducted including the Netherlands and controlling by a dummy for its unique effect. Results then proved to be consistent with the results presented here.

2. I also ran analyses excluding Luxembourg and results remained consistent.