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Michele Martha MichelettiProfessor emerita

About me

Michele Micheletti is Professor in Political Science at Stockholm University.

Research

  1. collective action and democracy;
  2. multicultural democracy;
  3. democratic auditing;
  4. political consumerism and individualized forms of political participation and responsibility-taking,
  5. creative participation,
  6. sustainable citizenship,
  7. communication as political action, and
  8. citizenship discourses.

The first period of my research career is characterized by research on collective action problems in Swedish civil society. Among the theoretical approaches involved in this research phase are corporatism and pluralism, decorporatization, conceptions of organizational democracy, organizational waves of development, political opportunity structures, organizational life cycles, industrial society, and postmaterialism. Among the scientific methods are interviews, text analysis, comparisons and case studies. To help conceptualize the collective action and problems and democratic problems involved in corporatism, I coined the term interest inarticulation, see "Toward Interest Inarticulation. A Major Consequence of Corporatism for Interest Organizations," Scandinavian Political Studies 13, No. 3 (1990): 1-22. I have studied civil society in terms of various relationships: organizations and their members; organizations and the state; relationships among organizations; organizations and the mass media and public opinion; organizations and globalization.

The second phase, multicultural democracy, overlaps with my more extensive involvement as a teacher. Some of my time as a fellow at the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study in the Social Sciences (SCASSS) was used to develop ideas for this research phase. Its general research aim was to understand how multiculturalism challenges democracy. The short-term project "Struggles with Dominant Society" studied attempts by subordinated groups to become respected in western democracies and reactions of dominant society to these attempts. The theoretical framework involved deliberative democracy, participation, toleration, multiculturalism, and democratic self-defense. A representative publication for this research phase is the Swedish publication "Den skandinaviska demokratins toleransgräns," Tidsskrift for samfunnsforskning 1 (1997): 3-31 ("Scandinavian Democracy's Limits of Toleration").

Research phase three is entitled democratic auditing and reflects my involvement in the SNS Democratic Audit of Sweden (SNS Demokratiråd). For information on this audit in see: (in Swedish) and (in English). Much of my time at SCASSS in spring 1995 was devoted to this project. Together the five members of the research unit formulated a model to audit mature democracies. The model is different than many political science conceptualizations of democracy because it includes three criteria: popular; constitutional, and effective government. We published four reports, of which two were translated into English and one into Vietnamese. The reports are lists in my publications.

One of my on-going research interests is political consumerism, the use of the market as an arena for politics. An important aim of my first research project on political consumerism was to demark it as a phenomenon worthy of interest for social science research. Political consumerism interests political scientists in two ways. Students of organizational studies and bureaucracy find political consumerist institutions (e.g., eco-labeling schemes and Forest Stewardship Certification) of interest because they are market-based new regulatory schemes. Students of political action find political consumerism interesting because it is a way for people to become involved in and take responsibility for social, political, and world affairs. My special focus concerns the role of citizens and newer trends in citizen involvement in politics and the market as an arena for politics. Research from the SNS Demokratiråd, on social capital, and citizen involvement in democracy shows that citizens are interested in politics but less interested in conventional forms of political participation that are based on what I have termed collectivistic collective action. They are becoming more active in what I term individualized collective action. This concept is discussed the Political Virtue and Shopping: Individuals, Consumerism, and Collective Action (New York: Palgrave, 2003). Other publications in this field are included in my list of publications.

The book Creative Participation: Responsibility-Taking in the Political World presents the theory and practice of innovative forms of political participation. Citizens as consumers engage in political shopping; capitalists can build green developments; UK Muslim youth search the internet; Sicilian housewives take on the Mafia; young Evangelical ministers become concerned with social change; vegetarians make a olitical statement; individuals may swarm like honeybees. It’s all part of a new politics f participation; citizens cooperate in public action to achieve a common good.
Read more about the book »

My research on political consumerism and interest in more individualized forms of political responsibility-taking has evolved into a new research endeavor. Currently I am finishing a project entitled Sustainable Citizenship: Opportunities and Barriers for Citizen Involvement in Sustainable Development. This project uses common consumer goods as a lens to study citizen understanding of the risks to sustainable development involved in everyday consumer practices and the role that individual citizens play in sustainable development processes. The project studies how knowledgeable individual citizens are about sustainable development, how well they accept its underlying values, and how well they apply them in their consumer practices. It also studies differences among citizens on these issues and the role that institutional communication on sustainable development plays in citizen choice of consumer goods. By investigating different groups of individual consumers (toys, fashion, and food) targeting different age groups, the project will be able to assess levels of citizen ability and willingness to engage in sustainability practices. These common, highly-purchased consumer goods are chosen because they are easily imported into Sweden and readily offered on the Swedish market. They represent areas where it is impossible for the state to completely create policy to ensure that the products are produced and consumed according to the tenets of sustainable development. The project focuses on an area of citizen activity (consumption) traditionally and commonly seen as part of private life and, thereby, difficult to regulate fully without infringing on citizens' rights and freedoms. Therefore, citizens themselves must exercise good (sustainable) judgment in their consumer choices. An important contribution of the project is its use of a variety of methods in its analysis of individual citizens' understanding of the relationship between consumption and sustainable development.

This research finding is leading me into the idea that communication and developing a personal political understanding (enlightened citizenship) is a form of political action. An initial attempt to sketch a research field regarding political understanding and communication as political action is published in the commemoration book (festskrift) for Professor Diane Sainsbury, emerita Lars Hierta Professor of Political Science at Stockholm University. Communication and political understanding as political participation (211 Kb)

The general topic of citizenship is increasing as an important research focus of mine. This research interest is inspired by the conference “Citizenship in the Post-Political World” that we held at the department in 2010 and other citizenship-focused activities. This focus involves a broad view of citizenship norms, relationships and practices. My particular interest concerns citizenship discourses about the different expectations involved in citizenship and how they are included in institutional policy and practice, discussed in civil society and among individuals and practiced by a wide variety of political actors. A special focus is on “corporate citizenship” and how corporations relate to citizenship expectations in their policies and practices. An emerging research focus of mine is citizenship discourses in the MENA region, with a central concern being the relationship of the youth to citizenship expectations and their practice. For information on what this research is entailing see  “Sustainable Citizenship and the New Politics of Consumption,” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, vol 644 (Michele Micheletti and Dietlind Stolle, forthcoming November 2012) and my article “Citizenship after the citizen’s year 2011” for the Forum Society for International Development.
 

Research projects

Creative Participation - book on innovative forms of political participation

The book Creative Participation as Responsibility-taking in the Political World (78 Kb) explores theoretically and empirically how people from different walks-of-life in the mature democracies in the Western world develop their politically productive capacities into creative activities to take responsibility for the common good of their immediate community and societies at large. It discusses how people in Europe and North America seek ways to take political responsibility for wrong-doings in politics. In some cases, the injustices they seek to right are perpetrated by the state itself through its own actions, incorrect actions, and even inaction. In other cases, foreign governments and transnational corporations are the targets of political action. The studies in this volume show that these concerned individuals participate and, at times, even invent creative forms of political involvement. They turn to the marketplace, the Internet, and use their personal networks and everyday routines to influence societal developments and events. They adopt an entrepreneurial and personal lifestyle that makes political action an integral part of their lives, and they use a variety of societal roles outside the citizenship role (voter, party member, etc.) to make their mark politically.

Whether in North America or Europe, emerging and surging forms of creative political action are characterized by individuals redefining the meaning of politics and taking politics in their own hands. Important features are the de-emphasis of the parliamentary or governmental arena as the only central sphere for political action, the blurring the division between public interest and private conduct, the infusion of politics into daily lives, and the way in which creative participation allows individuals to combine their own life courses and self-seeking goals with service to the common good.

Sustainable Citizenship

The project Sustainable Citizenship studies the barriers to and opportunities for sustainable action on the part of individual consumers in Sweden. This choice of subject matter is motivated by research showing the importance of consumer behavior as a key factor behind climate change, the role of private consumption in perpetrating environmental and social injustices, and the general problems that governments and civil society have had in convincing individuals to exercise constraint in their consumer practices. “Barriers to action” have been found to inhibit the incorporation of the tenets of sustainable development in important common practices like shopping for oneself and one’s family in high-income countries.

The project investigates how individual citizens think about sustainable development in relation to private consumption and if concerns for sustainable development affect their consumer choices and practices. Its general research questions are: (1) Do Swedish citizens have the necessary prerequisites to be sustainable consumers? (2) Do they think about the consequences of their consumer choices and practices for sustainable development? (3) Do they exercise sustainable judgment in their consumer choices and practices? (4) Why/why not is this the case?

For more information see www.sustainablecitizenship.com

The survey questionnaire translated into English: Survey on sustainable citizenship, english (151 Kb) (pdf)

The survey questionnaire in Swedish: Enkät om hållbart medborgarskap, svenska (119 Kb) (pdf)

The Dynamics of Citizenship in the Post-Political World

This is a research project in conference form that views citizenship as a dynamic and multidimensional concept. In political theory citizenship conjures up normative expectations about designing justice in opportunities, activities, and outcomes. For empirical political scientists, it is a state of political affairs in a continuous state of development and, therefore, in constant need for new field investigations.

This conference focuses on contemporary post-political challenges to citizenship thought, institutions, processes, and practices. It takes its point of departure in two identified important post-political processes—de-politicization and politicization—and explores their impact on citizenship. The process of “de-politicization” entails the decreasing centrality of the state (nation-state parliamentary actors and government institutions) in protecting and providing for its citizens, guaranteeing them social and environmental rights, and regulating the allocation of common values and resources in global society. The process of “politicization” concerns the political responsibility given to non-governmental actors and institutions as well as the political role of personal life and societal roles other than the voter. It also involves the political agency now given to market actors and the increased importance of market forces generally in politics and as social welfare service providers, thus the term “corporate citizenship.” How are these contemporary parallel post-political processes affecting citizenship norms, status, entitlements, and practices in the world today? Are they triggering new notions, locations, forms, and identities of citizenship?

The conference assesses both theoretically and empirically the impact of these processes on citizenship and its core values of political equality, political representation, political participation, and political responsibility. It investigates the effects of the post-political processes on how citizens understand and use their citizen rights, the new locations of politics and their impact on citizenship as a notion and practice, and the development of new citizenship identities.

The conference contains keynote speeches and five workshops on (1) citizenship gaps; (2) post-political participation; (3) human rights and European and global citizenship; (4) global economy and citizenship and (5) citizenship as new notions of belonging and identity.

Funding for the conference is provided by the Swedish Council of Research (VR), Swedish Council for Working Life and Social Research (FAS), Riksbankens Jubileumsfond (RJ), Henrik Granholm Foundation, and the Department of Political Science, Stockholm University.

For more information about the conference, see the conference website »

Research networks

ECPR Standing Group on Forms of Participation

Dramatic changes are now occurring in the field of citizen involvement in politics. Participation is evolving and diversifying not only in terms of the most common forms, but also in terms of the type of actors involved, their reason and targets of actions. Developments in political science show that individuals and groups are increasingly engaging in political activity outside the nation-state and outside the traditional realm of politics (the three branches of government). Since these changes pertain simultaneously various domains and arenas, the traditional division between conventional and unconventional political participation can no longer be adequate as a scholarly platform for studying current political developments at the individual and group level. Micheletti, ECPR participation (27 Kb)

ECPR Standing Group on Forms of Participation had a meeting at the Joint Sessions of Workshops in Lisbon on April 16, 2009.

 

Research projects

Publications

A selection from Stockholm University publication database

  • Political consumerism

    2017. Michele Micheletti. The 21st Century Consumer: Vulnerable, Responsible, Transparent? Proceedings of the International Conference on Consumer Research (ICCR) 2016, 213-223

    Chapter
    Read more about Political consumerism

  • Samhällsplaneringens demokratiska utmaning

    2017. Michele Micheletti. Statsvetenskaplig Tidskrift 119 (3), 465-498

    Article

    How and why does urban planning challenge local governance?

    This article develops a theoretical model for studying the interplay among citizens, politicians and bureaucrats in urban planning processes. It incorporates insights from several research fields and addresses key issues in renewal controversy: citizen participation; government responsiveness, and planning’s political legitimacy. The model is applied in a preliminary study of the renewal of the Slussen area in Stockholm. This renewal controversy shows similarities with other planning controversies in Sweden and abroad. But an important difference is the dominant role played by expert citizens (former high level politicians, civil servants and other professionals) who have employed their work experience and networks to oppose the city’s plan; many continue to protest even after their ideas have been voted down in Stockholm City Council and rejected by courts. Preliminary results show weaknesses in the interplay between expert citizens, politicians and bureaucrats in this case of urban renewal.

    Read more about Samhällsplaneringens demokratiska utmaning

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