Consumerism revisited: The emergent roles of new electronic intermediaries between citizens and the public sector

Abstract

An important transformation of the welfare state of today is the marketisation reforms many times strengthening the role of citizens' preferences in their choice of public services. Another important transformation is the new electronic intermediaries between citizens and the public sector that have emerged during the last few years. This paper focuses on intermediaries between citizens and the public sector when viewed in a quasi-market perspective. Our objects of study are Swedish patients' online communities and public portals for educational opportunities representing different forms of ownership. The aim of the paper is to problematize the capacities to act that citizens are provided with by means of the new intermediaries. We argue that the forms of citizens' influence induced by the marketisation reforms and the new electronic intermediaries provide capacities to act that have previously only to a limited extent been discussed in a systematic manner. In this paper the supplementary role of consumerist activities compared with e.g. representative and deliberative democracy is acknowledged. However, we conclude that the intermediaries are sophisticated instruments in a learning process that support the citizens' development into active consumers of public services.