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

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe 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.