Volume 32, Number 3, 245-267, DOI: 10.1007/s10603-009-9108-7

Entrenchment of New Governance in Consumer Policy Formulation: A Platform for European Consumer Citizenship Practice?

Jim Davies

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Abstract

Consumer typologies reveal categories of the consumer that stretch from the vulnerable to the empowered notion of the consumer citizen. At the empowered end of this spectrum, consumers in Europe have a developing, normative, organisational structure that provides channels for the consumer voice to influence consumer policy at the European level. This is an organisational structure with mechanisms for developing an effective consumer empowerment and enforcement framework across all EU Member States. It is a framework that forms a coherent whole with the European-level consumer institutions. This paper examines the integrated nature of these institutions and their role in influencing the development of consumer policy through a multi-level platform of new governance. It discusses the normative processes that, through empowerment and engagement, are encouraging a consumer citizenship practice to exploit these channels of communication in order to influence policy development.

Keywords  Consumer citizenship practice - Governance - Policy - Process

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