Scholars increasingly argue that the vegan lifestyle reflects a broader pattern of how political behavior is becoming more individualized and private. Veganism is particularly viewed as an unconventional form of political participation, as it is conducted to address ethical concerns and to change market practices. However, this argumentation lacks detailed empirical data. By means of an original standardized survey of a purposive sample of 648 vegans in Switzerland, this study shows that (1) a vast majority of vegans is politically motivated and aims to induce change in society at large; (2) they are highly engaged in a broad variety of political activities; and (3) politically motivated vegans live vegan more strictly and are more politically active than vegans motivated by personal concerns. This study contributes to the understanding of political participation in current times, and the insights gained may prove useful to vegan movement groups or the food industry.

Research on political consumerism documents a persistent reversed gender gap, as women boycott and buycott products more often than men. Previous efforts to explain the reversed gender gap rely on classical theoretical models developed to illuminate gender differences in political participation in general. Accounting for socioeconomic and situational factors as well as socialization leaves a significant amount of the reversed gender gap unexplained, though. Adhering to recent empirical evidence of personality as an important factor influencing political behavior, we argue that gender differences in personality traits could provide an alternative explanation to account for gender disparities in political consumerism. We use original survey data specially designed to measure political consumerism in Switzerland, which also include the Big Five model of personality. We find empirical evidence that gender differences in personality traits, in particular agreeableness, explain a significant portion of the reversed gender gap in political consumerism.

In most Western democracies, non-institutionalized political activities such as political consumerism often represent the only accessible means of political expression for foreign residents. However, the few studies available to date show that foreign residents consume significantly less politically than national citizens. This study examines how the key political resources education, political interest, and organization membership may account for this gap. By means of original survey data from Switzerland, I find that (i) organization membership is the strongest predictor for political consumerism but does not explain the participation gap; (ii) political interest is the most important resource to explain why foreign residents consume less politically than Swiss citizens; and (iii) the three resources work similarly for both groups, whereas political interest and education act as partial mediators. The results of this study suggest that political resources mediate rather than moderate political consumer differences based on citizenship status.