Consumers and Citizens

If citizens are consumer citizens, what does this suggest for the quality of democracy? As the previous chapters have shown, appealing to people as consumer citizens can increase their political knowledge, increase their trust in government, and lead them to sign up for health insurance. In this chapter, guidance for policymakers is offered, and a new approach to civic education, modeled on the lessons of this book, is outlined. Ultimately, citizens must balance their obligations as citizens with the ubiquity of consumer life. The chapter also discusses implications for models of attitude formation.

The Consumer Citizen, Politicians, and Policy

This chapter studies the relationship between consumer fairness, political preferences, and policy uptake. Americans who support Donald Trump are especially likely to believe the government should be judged by the standards of private companies. New experimental evidence documents that, when politicians of both parties use consumer rhetoric, co-partisans of those leaders subsequently come to view politics in strikingly consumerist terms. In another experiment, results show that voters with low levels of political knowledge look most positively upon a hypothetical political candidate who promises cost-benefit alignability, compared to a candidate who promises more benefits than costs. The chapter then describes a field experiment administered in cooperation with a health insurance cooperative funded under the Affordable Care Act (ACA). A message that framed the cooperative as meeting the standards of cost-benefit alignability caused people to enroll in the cooperative.

The Consumer Citizen and Consumer Fairness

Consumer fairness matters for public opinion. Taxpayer receipts, despite the hopes of those who championed them, do not improve trust in government nor affect attitudes toward taxing and spending. Instead, consumer fairness can be used to change attitudes toward government. This chapter introduces the idea of “alignability”; this idea proposes that people want either (a) the amount they pay government, in the form of taxes, to roughly align with the value of the benefits they receive in return (cost-benefit alignability), or (b) the use of their tax money to align with the source of its collection (source-use alignability). Multiple experiments, conducted online and once in person, make clear how alignability can affect attitudes toward taxation. Alignability can affect attitudes toward taxes in general, as well as attitudes toward earmarked taxes specifically.

Introduction

This chapter blends insights from political science, behavioral economics, history and psychology to lay out the theoretical proposition of the book. The consumer citizen approach has implications for attitudes toward government and government spending, levels of political knowledge, and even whether people sign up for government-sponsored health insurance. Empirical evidence about the incidence of consumer and political decisions is offered. The comparative ubiquity of consumer decisions, I argue, explains why consumer decision-making tools come to be used in political contexts. Ultimately, viewing citizens as consumer citizens means viewing their political behaviors and attitudes as they are, not as some might wish them to be.

The Consumer Citizen, Trust, and Operational Transparency

This chapter examines the consumer citizen and trust in government. Approaching citizens as consumer citizens can affect trust in government. Increases in trust can be obtained by using “operational transparency,” a concept from social psychology and management. Higher levels of operational transparency can make consumers more loyal and supportive of companies. An experiment conducted with the consumer psychologists who pioneered operational transparency makes clear that a similar dynamic can affect trust in government. When people see a computer simulation of the construction of a generic American town dubbed “Anytown” that meets the standards of operational transparency, their trust in government shoots up. However, as an additional experiment shows, when applied to governmental processes, operational transparency can reduce trust in government.

The Consumer Citizen, Political Knowledge, and Political Attitudes

This chapter investigates the consumer citizen’s relationship with political knowledge and political attitudes. A survey experiment in the United States shows that taxpayer receipts can increase knowledge; evidence from a field experiment conducted in the United Kingdom, about the U.K. government’s nationwide distribution of taxpayer receipts, reaches similar conclusions. Yet the receipt is unable to affect a host of attitudes, including toward redistribution. But the consumer citizen’s attitudes toward redistribution can be changed—not just through alignability, but because of the everyday pressures of consumer life. This is illustrated by an experiment that finds that reminders of consumer debts can lead people to become more supportive of higher taxes on the rich.