Political Consumerism and New Forms of Political Participation: The Gruppi di Acquisto Solidale in Italy

Political consumerism has become one of the most promising research fields in social movement and political participation studies. However, most research has focused mainly on the more personalized and less collective version of such forms of action, leaving largely unexplored the nature and dynamic of some new local grassroots organizations (such as the so-called Gruppi di Acquisto Solidale, or Solidarity Purchasing Groups [SPGs] in Italy). The influence of such forms of political participation in contemporary democracies has been scarcely investigated. The aim of this article is to provide an in-depth exploratory case study of SPGs in Italy, which more specifically focuses on the main definitional, organizational, and sociodemographic features of SPG participation. The article shows that the Italian SPGs are locally based hybrid pressure movements that go beyond conventional forms of political consumerism by adopting innovative organizational and participatory tools.