Citizens, Consumers and Animals: What Role do Experts Assign to Public Values in Establishing Animal Welfare Standards?

Abstract

The public can influence animal welfare law and regulation. However what constitutes 'the public' is not a straightforward matter. A variety of different publics have an interest in animal use and this has implications for the governance of animal welfare. This article presents an ethnographic content analysis of how the concept of a public is mobilized in animal welfare journals from 2003 to 2012. The study was undertaken to explore how experts in the discipline define and regard the role of the public in determining animal welfare standards. Analysis indicates that experts in animal welfare constitute different types of citizen and consumer publics around specific types of animal use, framed by different theories of value. These results suggest a need for greater clarity about the roles and responsibilities of experts and publics in animal welfare reform processes. Clearly citizens and consumers can both contribute to promoting higher welfare standards, but an over-reliance on market mechanisms and consumer behaviour to assign value is beset by moral hazards, foremost being the risk of disarticulating the concept of animal welfare from the public good. INTRODUCTIONUnprecedented public interest in animal welfare over the last decade has prompted governments in many Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development [OECD] countries to review their animal welfare standards and guidelines (Webster 2008, Broom 2011. Because most members of the OECD are also liberal democratic states, the public is thought to have a legitimate role in determining the outcome of these processes.

Addressing Animal Welfare through Collaborative Stakeholder Networks

“…Many country members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) have responded by reviewing their animal welfare standards and guidelines. Efforts by governments to reach a consensus for animal welfare standards have been particularly challenging, given that the value sets of specific individual stakeholders and interested parties tend to dominate the discourse [6].…”

Consumers’ Concerns and Perceptions of Farm Animal Welfare

“…To address the farm animal welfare issue is not simple, and it is considered by some authors as a "wicked problem" [2] since it involves many aspects of a complex nature and many stakeholders' have different interests in relation to decisions and policymaking [37].…”

Me, my family or the public good? Do inter‐role conflicts of consumer–citizens reduce their ethical consumption behaviour?

“…Whereas consumers are only responsible for a rather small group of people, holding the citizens’ role goes beyond this perspective and requires broader responsibilities (Aberbach & Christensen, ; Gjerris et al, ; Rokka & Moisander, ). Even though citizens take more into account than just prices (Micheletti & Stolle, ), personal interests are not absent but rather expressed sustainably (Ricci et al, ), such as maintaining public goods (Degeling & Johnson, ). Prothero et al () term this focus microlevel (e.g., family) vs. macrolevel concerns (e.g., environmental constraints).…”

“…For example, retailers and politicians are interested in citizens buying locally to maintain local jobs, which ultimately strengthens the community as a whole (Memery, Angell, Megicks, & Lindgreen, ). In general, citizen role behaviour is expected to comply with the norms shared by the role set, the society's interest and the greater good (Degeling & Johnson, ).

H1b : Norms that are relevant to the citizen induce ethical role expectations.

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“…This shortfall in ethical consumption can be ascribed to the existence of two competing social roles: consumer and citizen (Prothero et al, ; Sagoff, ; Vanhonacker, Verbeke, Van Poucke, & Tuyttens, ). While role interactions can influence purchase decisions (Belk, ), striving for sustainability as a citizen and price‐consciousness as a consumer induces tensions between the two roles (Degeling & Johnson, ; Verbeke, ) because both demands cannot be fulfilled simultaneously (Bingen, Sage, & Sirieix, ). Imagine the following: the main buyer in a household having the intention to buy more ethical products is doing the weekly grocery purchase.…”