Creating Citizen-Consumers

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John Clarke - The Open University, UK
Janet Newman - The Open University
Nick Smith - The Open University
Elizabeth Vidler - The Open University
Louise Westmarland - The Open University

Other Titles in:
Cultural Studies | Social Policy | Sociology

January 2007 | 192 pages | SAGE Publications Ltd

Political, popular and academic debates have swirled around the notion of citizen as a consumer of public services, with public service reform increasingly geared towards a consumer society. This innovative book draws on original research with those people in the front-line of the reforms -staff, managers and users of public services - to explore their responses to this turn to consumerism. Focusing on health, policing and social care, it vividly brings to life the contentious and troubled relationships between government, services and users.

Creating Citizen Consumers explores a range of theoretical, political, policy and practice issues that arise in the shift towards consumerism.It draws on recent controversies about choice in public services to bring them in line with the experiences and expectations of a consumer society. It offers a fresh and challenging use of popular understandings of the relationships between people and services to argue for a model of publicness based on interdependence, respect and partnership rather than choice.

Introduction

Changing Times

Perspectives on the Citizen-Consumer

Public Service Reform

The Rise of the Citizen-Consumer

Delivery Problems? Consumerism and Institutional Variation

Unstable Encounters

Users, Staff and Services

Managing Consumerism

From Policy to Practice

Sites of Strain

Consumerism and Public Services

What's in a Name? In Search of the Citizen-Consumer

Beyond the Citizen-Consumer

Recommended text as useful for seminar discussions and essay topic selection.

Dr Margaret-Anne Houston

Division of Public Policy, Glasgow Caledonian University

February 9, 2010

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Sample Chapter

John H. Clarke

Janet E Newman

My recent research has traced what happens at the interface between activist movements and changing governance regimes. Working the spaces of power: activism, neoliberalism and gendered labour (Bloomsbury, 2012) was based on a four-generation study which also formed the basis of journal outputs in Social Politics, Critical Policy Studies and Local Economy. The research continues, and has led to the creation of a Feminist Policy, Practice and Research Forum, convened jointly with Birkbeck Institute for Social Research.... More About Author

Nick Smith

Elizabeth Vidler

Louise Westmarland

My research interests include gender and the police, violence and integrity and ethics in the criminal justice system. I’m also interested in ethnographic research methods, danger, fear and situations where privileged access leads to dilemmas for researchers. In the past I have published articles on police informers and the way they are regulated and the effect of this upon rights and justice. More recently I’ve completed a book about research methods in criminology. My other recent research projects have included studying women bouncers and violence in the context of social control of the night time economy (ESRC Grant reference: RES-000... More About Author

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