Political consumerism in contemporary China : boycotts, buycotts and motivations for participation

Bai, Xue and Chubb, Andrew and Zhao, Xin (2026) Political consumerism in contemporary China : boycotts, buycotts and motivations for participation. PhD thesis, Lancaster University.

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Abstract

This thesis explores the origins, nature, and motivations of political consumerism in China. Although more than 210 boycotting and buycotting cases occurred in China between 2000 and 2024, the phenomenon has received little attention in the political consumerism literature. My research addresses four key questions: 1) What is the historical development of China’s political consumerism? 2) Who engages in contemporary political consumerism in China? 3) How does political consumerism relate to political participation in China? 4) What motivations drive individuals to engage in nationalist political consumerism in China? I adopt an eclectic, question-driven approach drawing from the historical documentary sources, contemporary online observation, semi-structured interviews, and previously overlooked survey data to argue that political consumerism offers Chinese people, especially the under-represented groups, a limited alternative channel for political participation within a tightly controlled regime. Boycott participation, I find, is a supplement for contentious participation, and a substitute for institutionalised participation. Counterintuitively however, although most cases of political consumerism in China involve patriotic or nationalistic themes, participants’ decisions are not always predominantly driven by political considerations. To capture this complexity, I distinguish a fourfold typology of consumer motivations – political, ethical, self-related, and economic. This gives me a structured lens for analysing political consumer behaviour. These diverse motivations undermine the dominant view of China’s political consumerism as simply an exclusionary instrument of top-down policy.