Sustainable Consumers and the State: Exploring How Citizens' Trust and Distrust in Institutions Spur Political Consumption

This article addresses the role of institutional trust in motivating political consumers—i.e. people who use their consumer power to spur social change and buy goods on political, ethical and environmental grounds. In contrast to previous research, this article takes into consideration the domain-specific character of institutional trust and seeks to examine (a) the effects of trust in institutions working in the policy domain of sustainable development and (b) evaluations of state performance in issues of sustainable development. Data from a national survey conducted in Sweden in 2009 show that political consumers are characterized by a selective trust and selective discontent rather than indiscriminate feelings towards the state and its public authorities. More precisely, the level of general trust for national representative institutions had no effect at all on the level of political consumerism. However, dissatisfaction with governmental performance in the environmental human rights and combating of poverty areas mobilize people to shop politically at the same time as high trust in public agencies dealing with environment, and sustainable development also seems to promote political consumerism.