As processes of economic globalization are regarded to be accompanied by harmful externalities and tremendous social costs, e.g. in the fields of environmental or employment protection, civil society protest is not confined to addressing the role of national governments or transnational political organizations but addresses also the role of corporations as ‘driving forces’ of globalization. Within so-called Anti-Corporate Campaigns single NGOs or broad coalitions of civil society organisations target corporations or industries with the intention to influence corporate policy or institutional structures. In this context, mobilizing consumers as political actors plays an important role. Consumers are expected to act as responsible citizens and to demand or promote labour or environmental issues within transnational production cycles. Moreover, Anti-Corporate Campaigns provide consumers with multiple alternatives to participate in an expressive and lifestyle-oriented way. Some campaigns, however, expand that new mobilization strategy and do not only address individual consumers but also institutionalized political actors. Particularly at the local and regional level state actors are addressed to participate as collective political consumers in order to become ‘fair cities’ or ‘sustainable communities’. Drawing mainly upon the German Clean Clothes Campaign the paper compares the individual and collective approaches of mobilizing political consumers. In doing so, it analyzes their democratic potential. To what extent lifestyle-oriented individuals are able to serve as a new backbone of social movements and to enforce universal norms in transnational political arenas? Does the consumer role empower state actors to regain scopes of action on a local or regional level?
