Consumer citizens and the Cities for Climate Protection campaign

Introduction
Scholars of citizenship have noted a neoliberal shift in Western democratic nations
whereby citizens are now addressed as c`onsumers'. Some have cautioned against
relying on this passive subject as the basis of legitimate democratic institutions
(Benhabib, 1999; Eisenstein, 1998; Friedmann, 1998; Jenson and Phillips, 1996). Others
suggest that a more nuanced reading of the consumer may reveal this subject's
progressive political potential (Beck, 1994; Featherstone, 1991; Rose, 1999). In this
paper I address the debate over the nature of citizenship in the neoliberal era by using
the literatures above to explore the production of citizens via the Cities for Climate
Protection (CCP) campaign.
Specifically, I address the question of what sort of subject the campaign produces.
I propose that the campaign, emanating from the neoliberal local state, produces a
subject, which I will call the consumer citizen, and that this subject has problematic
and progressive elements. Moreover, I also ask what are the possible political effects
of the campaign's consumerist bent combined with its lack of a large involved
constituency. I suggest that because of these elements, the campaign may undermine
democratic institutions but that its politics do not end there: consumer subjects and
others will reshape this subject position and the campaign. In addition, I advocate
seeing the partial truth in different visions of the campaign. The paper reveals two
perspectives that are both relevant to understanding the campaign. I argue that
the pragmatic administrators, who met many difficulties as they tried to protect the
climate at the city scale, must be heard when they explain what led them toward
the consumer angle and the bottom line. At the same time, their approach cannot
be taken at face value: it must also be understood as a consequence of the cam-
paign's relationship to the discourse of neoliberalism and as productive of consumer
citizens.
The CCP campaign is a worldwide effort to change urban energy use, and practices of
waste-production and transportation that produce greenhouse-gas emissions. The paper
Consumer citizens and the Cities for Climate Protection
campaign
Rachel Slocumô
Department of Geography, Syracuse University, 144 Eggers Hall, Syracuse, NY 13244, USA
Received 16 June 2003; in revised form 24 August 2003
Environment and Planning A 2004, volume 36, pages 763 ^ 782
Abstract. The Cities for Climate Protection campaign, an effort to lower greenhouse-gas emissions
at the city scale, operates within the neoliberal state. Two features characterize the interaction of
the state and the public via this campaign: a lack of public involvement, and the construction of the
citizen as a passive consumer. The author emphasizes a tension that exists between two readings of
the consumer citizen: the pliable figure who listens to neoliberal bottom-line arguments, and the
political economic actor who identifies not with consumerism but with political change. Citizens
thus cannot be wholly embodied by constructions such as the consumer, and consumerist activism
has potential. Citizens, though often interpellated as consumers, can position themselves as reasoning
publics who see climate change, their cities, and themselves in relational perspective. The author
enlists Foucauldian and deliberative-democracy theory to explore the making of citizens through the
Cities for Climate Protection campaign.
DOI:10.1068/a36139
ô Contact: e-mail: rachel slocum@hotmail.com

is based on 135 in-person, confidential, interviews I conducted between 1997 and 2000 in
Minneapolis, MN, Tucson, AZ, and Seattle, WA, as well as telephone interviews with
campaign administrators in twelve other cities involved in the CCP campaign. The
analysis is also based on data from local action plans and other campaign materials,
in addition to participant observation of meetings in the three cities.
The paper begins with a literature review covering neoliberalism, the state, and the
citizen consumer. I examine the campaign by way of Foucault's vision of how power
works via discourse to normalize subject positionsöin this case, the consumer citizen. I
also use Foucault to propose that the state, in order to govern, arranges state ^ public
interaction and responses to climate changes such that they occur within a limited range
of possibility. This section ends with a discussion of the positive and negative aspects of
consumer citizenship. Then, using my interview data, I reveal the range of troubles met
by the city administrator advocates of the campaign which are important to consider in
an examination of how the campaign constructs urban citizens. Next, I show how the
campaign's regulatory gaze produces passive consumer citizens and normalizes a cost-
saving/efficiency approach to climate action. The discussion that concludes the paper
confronts the partial truths in the narratives the paper explores. I turn to deliberative
democratic theory to comment on the political project of the CCP campaign as an effort
to bring about change in a democratic society and, specifically, to address the lack of
publics in the CCP campaign. It is possible that the campaign can be criticized for low
participation and for addressing citizens as consumers, but it is also true that possibilities
for change exist in the consumer citizen and in the CCP campaign itself.
Neoliberalism, the state, and the citizen consumer
My analysis begins conceptually with the discourse of neoliberalism. This discourse
shapes how the state and the public spheres interact in the form of the consumer
citizen and the reduction of valuable actions to, principally, those that save money.
There are two important elements: one is the discourse of neoliberalism and the other
is the fact that the campaign is part of the state.
States are political apparatuses deploying regulatory practices (Foucault, 1978).
Rather than the imposition of laws, to govern a state means to `` arrange things in a
certain way'' to met aims (Foucault, 1978, page 95). The modern administrative state is
`` persistently curious'', seeking to bring the public under its regulatory gaze (Pratt, 1999),
following Foucault's (1979) Discipline and Punish. The state's tactics, consisting of
`` education, persuasion, inducement, management, incitement, motivation and encour-
agement'' may compete with each other (Rose and Miller, 1992, page 175 cited by
MacKinnon, 2000, page 294) but, importantly, they seek to affect conduct (Rose,
1999). Subjectivities are built through which programs can be implemented (Raco,
2003), and these programs work because of connections `` established between the
aspirations of the authorities and the activities of individuals and groups'' (Rose and
Miller, 1992, page 183, cited by Raco, 2003, page 77). `Governmentality', as these
competing methods to arrange things is called, works through what becomes taken
for granted rather than through force, and `` constitutes subjects in ways that make them
amenable to government control'' (Dryzek, 2000a, page 63; Gordon et al, 1991).
Democracy, in this view, is the latest phase of governmentality (Dryzek, 2000a). Others
argue that governmentality works by ` e`nabling citizens actively to deploy their freedoms
in order to realize the (disparate) goals of the neoliberal state''.
(1)
Thus grade-school
children are taught about the value of energy conservation and bring that wisdom
(1)
A comment made by the first referee of this paper.
764 R Slocum

home, or the state encourages citizens to recycle thereby normalizing the integration of
personal environmental responsibility and cost effectiveness (see Darier, 1996).
Foucault wrote that `` Discourses are practices that systematically form the objects
of which they speak'' (1972, page 49). Discourses are instrument and effect of power,
but they may also oppose it (Foucault, 1978, pages 100 ^ 102). For Foucault, discourses
become taken for granted, but subjects may also consent to their worköthus, what is
taken for granted can be changed (Dryzek, 2000a). Foucault was interested in what can
be thought, based on the determination of what is truth and who is authorized to
speak (Rose, 1999, pages 22 ^ 29). He was convinced of the `` awesome materiality'' of
language (Foucault, 1972, page 216).
Specific technologies of power produce discursive practices that enforce social
regulation by establishing norms (Ong, 1991). Neoliberalism is a normalizing regime
(Ong, 1999); normalization proceeds through the popular belief that neoliberalism is
`` the only economics in town'' (Massey, 2000, page 281). It disciplines state employees as
much as citizens. Neoliberalism forces policy debate `` to be discussed within the imper-
atives of the market'' (Bloch, 1988, page 3, cited by Harvey, 2000). It is deployed through
cost ^ benefit analyses and other means that aim to maximize efficiency. Neoliberal
strategies address themselves to other sources of discourse, such as local government or
professionals in the bureaucracy, in order `` to limit the forms and possibilities of resist-
ance'' (Rose, 1999, page 147). Neoliberalism runs through the state and the public sphere.
Neoliberalism heralds a change in the relationship of the state to citizens (Jenson
and Phillips, 1996). The consumer citizen is an outgrowth of classical liberal theory
that universalizes the logic of the market for all institutions.
(2)
Neoliberalism changes
the character of the public by constructing people as ` c`onsumers, profit maximizers
and rent seekers'' (Dryzek, 2000a, page 76). Citizenship is gained through working and
shopping practices (Rose, 1999). Neoliberalism constricts the realm of the possible for
personhood (Hacking, 1986) and for society.
The CCP campaign, a state effort, is a means by which the state can direct its regu-
latory gaze onto the public. Although the state is not the only site of power, it manages
debate around climate change by engaging publics through what are now normalized
understandings of what is of valueösaving moneyöand of who they areöconsumers.
Neoliberalism rises through administrators' practices and their determination of what
is possible. The production of truth and the administrators' authorization to speak is
shaped by the understanding that the bottom line is the most likely way to motivate
people to act on energy use and thereby lower greenhouse-gas emissions. The subject,
consumer citizen, is an outcome of this awesome materiality of language. He or she is
constituted by neoliberal discourse. I explore the production of normalized understanding
in the section A`rranging things', below.
Dangerous possibilities in consumer citizenship
I now turn to the ways in which consumer identity interacts with citizenship in ways that
could undermine or promote democratic society. I cite three arguments: the consumer in
relation to ideal citizenship, legitimate government, and progressive politics.
First, passivity, the hallmark of the consumer (Friedmann, 1998, page 29; Gibbs,
2000), is antithetical to what legitimate democracy requiresöactive, reasoning, publics.
Democracy is a `` form of organizing our collective life'' in which citizens who are moral
and political equals deliberate matters that affect all (Benhabib, 2002, page 105). Legiti-
macy is gained if decisions are open to a process of reasoning or deliberation (Benhabib,
2002, page 105). This process of deliberation is proposed as a better alternative to the
(2)
S Benhabib, 1997, ``Political theory and the public sphere'', class taught at Department of
Government, Harvard University, attended by the author.
Cities for Climate Protection campaign 765

market democracy of consumers (O'Neill, 2001). Citizenship, properly constituted,
embodies an active subject who consents to the institutions of government (Benhabib,
1997). Citizenship is a practice. For instance, Benhabib speaks of an `` enlarged mentality''
(1997, page 29), that is, the willingness to `` think and reason from the standpoint'' of
others (2002, page 139) as a key component of the ideal citizen. Others frame the ideal
in terms of the pursuit of a civil life (rights to work, housing, health) for oneself in
association with others (Friedmann, 1998), or `` participation in collective purposes''
(Prior et al, 1995, page 17) that expands, for example, the meaning of equal rights
(Benhabib, 2002). Citizenship involves a process of engagement by which civil society
is strengthened by citizens interacting with other publics and the state (Graham and
Phillips, 1998).
The second concern is that consumerism as the basis for citizenship poses a danger
to legitimate democratic governance. By institutionalizing consumer advocacy (Burgess,
2001; Parker, 1999), the state constricts the scope of governance by catering to the
`` privatized concerns of our privatized society'' (Burgess, 2001, page 114). State legiti-
macy, rather than being derived from the rule of law and the consent of a reasoning
public (Dryzek, 2000b), is conferred on those institutions which ``voice the complaints
or meet the demands of the consumer'' and so their authority is `` highly conditional''
(Burgess, 2001, page 113). Moreover, policy that considers only the impact of its
application on consumers may mean that it does not consider its effect on citizens
and on democratic values, practices, and institutions (Sclove, 2000, page 11). Yet
the consumer and the citizen are not the same, and democracy `` is not just another,
ordinary consumer good (like corn chips or underarm deodorant) [nor is it] an arbitrary
lifestyle option'' (Sclove, 2000, page 11). In addition, one unfortunate implication of
the privatization of services, ostensibly to make service provision more accountable to the
consumer (Keat et al, 1994, cited by Michael, 1998), is that citizens can hold accountable
private enterprise better than they can hold accountable elected governments.
Consumer advocacy is not a sound basis from which to address injustice. Con-
sumer rights of individual protection and choice do not confront exploitation of human
and nonhuman life and resource distribution in society as a whole (Sassatelli, 1995,
page 2, cited by Burgess, 2001). Consumerism relies on a radical separation between
consumers and production, whereby consumers do not have to know where and how
things are made (Wilhelmsson, 1998). The aims, then, of environmental protection and
consumer interests may be opposed as consumers' interest in the `right' to cheap, safe,
goods lacks the longer term vision required for environmental protection (Wilhelmsson,
1998). Moreover, consumer politics appeals to a `` morally minded middle class'' which,
as a strategy, may mask class relations (Johns and Vural, 2000). Consumerism, beyond
individual boycotts, tends to be capricious and so may not lead to a sustained and
organized progressive politics (Burgess, 2001; Parker, 1999). Because consumerism is
market based, its radical potential is suspect and cannot substitute for government
regulation (Parker, 1999).
Redeeming possibilities in consumer citizenship
It is also possible that the consumer citizen has redeeming elements. First, at the very least,
consumer politics may serve as an intermediary strategy to alert publics and governments
to the need for regulation or oversight (Parker, 1999), or to spur them to immediate action.
Graham and Phillips (1998) note that the idea that citizens are consumers of government
services has led local government to be more responsive to people. Thus, consumption is a
way of communicating with the more powerful (Featherstone, 1991; Urry, 1995) and has
made political leadership reevaluate its relationship with the public (Graham and Phillips,
1998).
766 R Slocum

Second, it is important to situate consumer politics within the constellation of
forces in which it has developed, including greater awareness of the relationship
between personal and environmental health; mistrust of the way that science, capital,
and government seem to work together; and skepticism of the notion that people can
make a difference by way of formal political means. This constellation contributes,
alongside neoliberalism, to the production of the consumer citizen.
Third, there are many dimensions to the consumer citizen, and c`onsumption' may
represent a different activity by gender, class, race, and ethnicity in different cultures
(Michael, 1998). In the USA, personal wellbeing may be at the heart of much consumer
action, but it is doubtful that people only think of themselves when they consider the
safety of food, water, and other goods: they think of kids, family, and even community.
Fourth, in an even more positive light, some analyses of the politics of ethical
consumption (for example, the slow-food movement, family farm support ventures,
divestment campaigns, and boycotts of products) posit consumers as a positive political
force (Klein, 2000). Rather than being a dupe of commodity fetishism, mesmerized by
the corporate image machine, these accounts position consumers as newly informed and
conscious of their rights (Berry, 1999, cited by Burgess, 2001), empowered by choice
(Michael, 1998), and radical agents of change (Beck, 1994). Consumers are part of a
politics of ethical self-formation that encourages individual responsibility for choices
(Rose, 1999). Organized consumer politics such as the Stop the Sweatshops Campaign
have been, according to Johns and Vural (2000, page 1210), useful as ``the most
sophisticated effort to eliminate worker abuses in the apparel industry'' in recent times,
although they cite problems as well. In another example of progressive consumerism,
the news media claim that, c`onsumer groups' have united to challenge the recent US
Federal Communications Commission's decision to expand the degree to which corporate
giants can control the types of media in a given area. Green consumerism, moreover, is
promoted as a sound means by which to engage destructive capitalist production and
consumption processes (Wilhelmsson, 1998). In the USA, politics around the labeling of
organic foods and recombinant bovine growth hormone in milk (Bellow, 1999) are good
examples of this.
These accounts cite a difference between consumers acting to `save a buck' and
consumers like those in the antisweatshopping campaign who care about the relations
in goods. Neither a dismissal of consumer politics nor its celebration is warranted. I
now move to the case study to show the work of the campaign as a pragmatic response
to the challenge of a city-scale climate politics and as productive of consumer citizens.
The CCP campaign: pragmatic responses and the normalization of passive politics
The CCP campaign was launched in 1991 by the International Council for Local
Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI), a nongovernmental organization (NGO) that works
with local governments. The ICLEI has enlisted 403 cities worldwide to claim that
climate change is a problem and that cities can do something about it. In the USA 139
cities are part of the effort. The cities range from Los Angeles, CA, and Dade County,
FL, to Burlington, VT, and Tucson, AZ. Most US cities commit to a 20% reduction of
their 1990 levels of carbon dioxide emissions by the year 2010. To participate, cities
must pass a resolution, conduct an emissions inventory, and design a local action
plan to address carbon dioxide emissions. Most emissions in cities derive from energy
useöparticularly from the combined energy use of the industrial and commercial
sectorsöand transportation via single-occupancy vehicle use.
My research indicates that the process of commitment involves the ICLEI contact-
ing a mid-level bureaucrat and a city council member who take on the responsibility of
convincing the mayor and city council to take part in the campaign. Actions such as
Cities for Climate Protection campaign 767

installing energy-efficient light bulbs and windows, that can both lower emissions and
save money, are most favored by the city administrators and politicians leading the
campaign. The emphasis is placed on the savings to be gained and on energy efficiency.
The different groups that the campaign addresses with the cost-cutting angle include
politicians, businesses, and residents. Administrators work to demonstrate the cost
effectiveness of light emitting diode traffic signals and other retrofits in order to get the
city council resolution necessary to join the CCP campaign and be added to the map
of cities that care about the climate.
Methodology
The three case study cities (Minneapolis, Tucson, and Seattle) were chosen on the basis
that they were at different points in the campaign but were representative in that they
had all signed on. The interviews I draw on were both written and recorded and are
reproduced here verbatim. I spoke with representatives of local NGOs, city bureau-
crats, politicians, business leaders, and active citizens. The majority of interviews were
conducted within the first three categories. I interviewed heads of city departments and
NGOs that would have some connection with climate change, such as environmental,
energy, and transportation organizations.
The quotes I use indicate general themes found in the interviews. I have used
method (different sources of data) and source triangulation (quotes from different
respondents) (Baxter and Eyles, 1997) to strengthen the credibility of my argument.
The notion that climate was being or should be `sold' by addressing the cost-saving
benefit of energy efficiency was expressed by approximately 90% of my respondents
and was particularly prevalent among those in city government. And it was evident in
the emphasis of most local action plans on efficiency and cost. An analysis by the
ICLEI corroborated the reliance on energy-efficiency measures as the primary means
to achieve reductions (Jessup, 1997). Questions that elicited the responses on cost and
energy efficiency included: what means did the city use to promote actions to protect
the climate; what was the process whereby the city council and mayor signed on to the
campaign; how do you approach global climate change at the city scale; and how will
you encourage the residential and business sectors to make changes that will lower
emissions; among others.
I explained my concerns about the bottom-line approach to my respondents
butmany, particularly those in administration, disagreedwithme.Even thoughmy respon-
dents' interpretation differs from my analysis, neither is a less trustworthy account. To
resolve the discord between my interpretation and that of many of my respondents
the following section (Pragmatic acts) is devoted to the difficulties respondents met
and that perspective is included in the overall analysis. This satisfies Baxter and
Eyles's proposal that the researcher find ways to `` ensure that the other's voice is heard
alongside that of the researcher'' (1997, page 510).
Pragmatic acts: lack of a public and climate trouble
In this section I reveal some of the hurdles to climate action at the city scale faced by
very committed administrators. I organized these difficulties into three categories: first,
the problem of who is designated to promote the campaign in cities; second, the lack of
a process to involve a wider community, despite the claim that city representatives are
more available to the public; and third, the difficulty of communicating climate change
to the public because of its scientific complexity, uncertainty, and future nature.
First, the mid-level city government administrators enlisted to move the campaign
forward do not have the authority to allocate time or money to the initiative. They
often do not receive any direction from higher up to pursue calculations to show
progressömuch less to implement programs. They are overburdened with their own,
768 R Slocum

preexisting, work. In the case of Minneapolis, the original city councilor was voted out
of office and the administrator was moved to a different position in city government
after advocating the campaign. The campaign was reintroduced as The Energy Plan
(City of Menneapolis, 1996), without any reference to climate change, by savvy employ-
ees of the Inspections Department who told me that the savings of energy-efficiency
measures would sell the plan to the city council and move the campaign forward. This
second group of Minneapolis administrators did not receive directives from the city
council or the mayor to pursue these calculations.
Second, when I conducted my interviews, the three case-study cities had very
minimally involved the greater public in the campaign. Based on my interview respon-
ses, in Tucson only a small group of people in city government and within an NGO
hired to write the action plan had heard about the campaign. Minneapolis ^ St Paul's
original plan (City of Minneapolis and City of Saint Paul, 1993) was put together via
meetings among the Center for Environment and Energy (hired to draft the local
action plan), the Isaac Walton League, Northern States Power, 3M, Minnegasco, and
Honeywell. However, beyond this group, the plan did not extend into other city
departments or farther into the business and nonprofit communities. The Northwest
Council on Climate Change (NCCC), a nonprofit, brought the issue to the Mayor of
Seattle, while Seattle City Light led with an energy-efficiency effort for businesses called
Climate Wise, promoted jointly by the ICLEI and the US Environmental Protection
Agency. Knowledge of the city's participation in the CCP campaign was limited to a few
people, mostly from Seattle City Light and the NCCC. Many city councilors with whom
I spoke were also not aware of the campaign or of its progress in the three case-study
cities, nor did members of other city departments know of it. No nonprofit was actively
working with the cities on the campaign, with the exception of those hired by Tucson
and Minneapolis to write the action plan. The NCCC was trying to educate Seattle's
mayor about climate change, but doing so independently of the campaign. Direct
participation of individual citizens was notably absent. When I asked a neighborhood
representative if she had heard of the local action plan, she replied:
‘‘I am sure it is kept in a vault some place where nobody knows about it and I am
sure that it has good meaning and that there are some great ideas. But I am fairly
active in grassroots politics and I don't know a thing about it ... . I am sure it is well
meaning. It would be nice if we had more exposure to it'' (neighborhood activist,
Tucson).
The minimal participation stands in contrast to the claim from those inside or
outside city government that climate action in cities is a good idea because the local
state is closer to the public. A typical response is as follows:
‘‘I think local government is close enough to people in the community that you can
enlist the support of people to do stuff. City government can talk about ride your
bike weeköwe can deal with individuals who can come in to talk about it. The
state and national level are too far away. Here people can see that their actions
could make a difference'' (city administration, Santa Cruz).
My respondents also claimed they were interested in public participation because
they saw it as a vital part of the success of the initiative. A respondent from Ann Arbor
claimed it is the second most important element of a successful campaign (after having
a champion of the cause), and the Santa Cruz respondent argued that community
involvement would make residential energy conservation more effective.
Some respondents had good ideas on how to involve the public, and thought that
neighborhood buy-in would push elected officials to act. For instance:
Cities for Climate Protection campaign 769

‘‘The community is very open to this sort of thing [climate action] but elected
officials are not ... . We don't have a strong environmental attitude ... . Tucson
thought it was the right thing to do. But it was not taken further than the
environmental subcommittee. That reflects our attitude, and the support maybe.
How to reach out? ... We need to get the neighborhoods to buy in. I think a lot of
people would make commitments if asked'' (politician, Tucson).
Respondents consistently noted education as necessary to further action on climate
change in order to get the public to spur political leadership to act, but the quote below
reveals that the education process had not yet begun.
‘‘Education. [You need to] educate residents on how important the issue is. They
have to say this is important and we want the mayor and council to address this.
It's not on the radar screen yet. If constituents don't put it on the council's radar
screen, it won't get there ... . We need a holistic approachöin the schools, city of
Tucson, the county, not one agency with 100% of the responsibility ... . I hope kids
are talking to their parents'' (politician, Tucson).
Portland and Fort Collins were the only cities that had actively sought to involve
the greater public, either through informational fora or the drafting of the local action
plan. Both noted how difficult it was to talk about climate change and get the public's
attention. Said my Portland contact,
‘‘It's really hard since it's the future ... we did a series of forums with the state energy
office. We talked about climate change first and all these other benefits ... . We see
great value in [the forums] but that's only because there are enough council
members who don't laugh'' (city administration, Portland).
Fort Collins pulled together a citizen committee with representatives from business,
technical experts, residents, and nonprofits. The respondent and colleagues had made
presentations to the Kiwanas, the Lions Club, and the Chamber of Commerce. They
mailed the draft local action plan to over 100 people and sent out 500 invitations to
attend an open house to talk about the plan, but not many people came. Graham and
Phillips (1998) point out that, although low turnout does not indicate that efforts to
involve people have failed, a participatory process is expected at the local level and
should involve some degree of public empowerment.
Part of the difficulty in reaching people with respect to the cities' efforts to abate
greenhouse-gas emissions is that there are different publics. My respondents in city
government expressed frustration over their lack of knowledge about how to commu-
nicate the complexity of climate change to different city residents in order to inspire
their interest in personal and community acts to lower emissions. Some felt they had
not received adequate support from the ICLEI on how to reach a differentiated public
on climate change. Said one administrator:
‘‘If you meet twice a yearöthat's not organizing. It assumes that if I get a tidbit of
information, get a pat on the backöthat's enough, you're part of mother earth ...
every city is not the same. No one strategy that will work ... . Because of politics,
lots of times energy conservation is seen as a whole, middle class issue. We have a
large African American population and there is no organizing around this issue. If
there is no organizing from below, why would anything happen? The CCP cam-
paign is just an effort from one or two people inside government. This is not how it
usually gets done ... . You can only do instrumental things if you're trying to change
from just within city government'' (city administration, Atlanta).
Many respondents emphasized that people respond to different reasons, so flexibility
should be applied in the effort to reach the public on climate change.
770 R Slocum

Not only is the identity of various publics a consideration, but the geography is as
well. In Boulder, discussing the risk of sea-level rise, for instance, will not induce
people to act.
‘‘It's just really hard for people to get their arms around what it meansösea level
rise doesn't impact us. So you have to give them something to focus on that matters
to them. We need to figure out different things because it won't be the same
everywhere. ICLEI needs different outreach tools. We need to tie actions to bigger
global impacts. We need to keep [climate change] in the background and have
things to measure'' (city administration, Boulder).
I turn now to the third difficulty: scientific complexity, uncertainty, and temporal
distance. City administrators were stymied in their efforts to reach the public by media
portrayals of climate change as `scientifically uncertain'. When I conducted my inter-
views in late 1997 and early 1998, respondents noted public disbelief and a media
campaign by the conservative Global Climate Coalition militating against local climate
action. Some told me that it was more possible to talk about climate in 1997 ^ 2000 than
in 1991 when the first cities signed on.When I finished the interviews in 2000, the reality
of climate change was more accepted, but it was still not a burning issue, as the
Portland respondent points out below. General public apathy about many issues that
are closer to home than climate change has been acknowledged (Bloomfield et al, 2001;
Graham and Phillips, 1998).
‘‘... Most of the bureau heads know it exists and half care about it since they see it is
related to sustainability. That's a big difference from 1993öthen it was just an
energy thing. Then they saw it in the popular press so they knew it was a problem
... . In the past we had the CO
2
reduction strategy as the name, but if it wouldn't
work, we'd focus on transportation, air quality, and energy ... . Enough people on
the street know what global warming isösix years ago it seemed too loony. Now
people think it's real, but they don't care'' (city administration, Portland).
Most action plans begin with the grave scientific facts of global warming: how it is
happening, what causes it, and what it will do. The emphasis on facts proved danger-
ous when some administrators were stung in public fora by their own lack of
scientific knowledge. A Fort Collins administrator had prepared a presentation for
the local Chamber of Commerce, but could not answer the questions its members
drew from a Scientific American article. This respondent and others citied scientific
complexity as a reason to approach climate change from the angle of energy savings,
asthma rates, and water pollution associated with the proximate causes of climate
change (single-occupancy vehicle transportation, energy production, and consumption).
‘‘From what I've experienced, I have to go with other problems like air quality or
focus on local benefits ... . We haven't really focused on [climate change]. Lots of
people think it's being to dramatic and pessimistic and crying wolf ... . At CCP
meetings the question of whether to delve into the issue of climate change was
discussed.We heard [from ICLEI] that it is best to focus on benefits. I now think it
would have been better when we first went to the Chamber of Commerce to tell
them what we were doing'' (city administration, Fort Collins).
Administrators also have to respond to the public's perception that the ills of
climate change and the benefits from changes to confront it will affect only the lives
of future generations, not theirs. According to the respondent below, energy efficiency
is one of `` many buttons'' that may make climate change more immediately relevant to
people.
‘‘For most people, if you say global warming, they think first of all it's somewhere
else, it's off in the future. If you can bring the issue closer to home, in terms of
energy efficiency ... basically I think climate change is a metaphor for changes we
Cities for Climate Protection campaign 771

ought to be making anyway. Energy efficiency is good for a lot of reasons besides
the fact that it reduces CO
2
emissions ... . Some people will relate to the global
environmental crisis [on the basis] of personal eco guilt or [some will relate to]
economic opportunities ... or maybe there are many buttons to pushöwhatever
works to get people connected'' (NGO/educator, Seattle).
What they cannot discuss are unimaginable changes to personal lifestyle.
‘‘Talking about lifestyle and consumption limitsöwho can you can talk to? The fear
people have is that the choice is between an abysmal lifestyle where they never get to
drive a car and what they have now. Incremental change is the best. [Energy]
efficiency is key. Otherwise we're going to burn up the planet'' (NGO, Minneapolis).
In sum, it is important to know the significant difficulties which the campaign's
advocates face because their words provide a partial explanation for the practice of the
campaign. Administrators know that capital interests are an obstacle, the media are
unhelpful, and the science is difficult. Many feel at a loss as to how to bring the
message home. When they do discuss the campaign, it is without reference to climate
and `regrets' policies and with reference to local benefits and multiple buttons to push
based on their understanding of what works. The campaign is placed in the hands of a
few people with little authority to make changes. Minimal knowledge of the campaign
exists within and outside city government. Only slight effort has been made to involve
the public despite the invocation of a democratic closeness of the local state to the
urban public.
The difficulties discussed above are the context for what I discuss next: administra-
tor's decisions to sell climate protection through energy efficiency and the construction of
the public as energy or appliance consumers. Administrators portray the shift from
climate to dollar savings via energy efficiency as pragmatic. And they are right: city
councils and mayors do not want to bear the responsibility for costs accrued in the
interests of protecting the climate when there are so many other budget priorities. As
home energy consumption rises (Dortch, 1997), efficiency may be a step in the right
direction. However, a complex debate persists over the possibility that efficiency and con-
servation programs lead to increased energy consumption (see, for instance, Greening
and Greene, 1998; Grubb, 1992; Inhaber, 1997; Joskow and Marron, 1992; Lovins, 1996;
Wackernagel and Rees, 1997). This debate is beyond the scope in this paper, but I note it
as evidence that there are both technical and philosophical reasons against the bottom-
line/efficiency approach. The issue, according to the primary CCP campaign consultant,
is `` how to achieve an environmentally sustainable economy versus a fossil fuel econ-
omyöit's not just about getting the low hanging fruit ... you're not going to change a
few light bulbs and get through this''.
(3)
Even though administrators' decisions may be pragmatic and appear to be reason-
able, their actions are part of larger discourses about how things are valued, what is
possible, and what citizens' roles are in a democratic polity. Emphasizing local benefits
and multiple buttons could be seen as a creative and/or pragmatic response, but it also
amounts to a neoliberal buffet of options that do not address values nor necessarily
lend themselves to structural change. Although it is important to hear these day-to-day,
practical, difficulties, the responses (education, local benefits, energy efficiency) may
also be understood as part of the body of tactics operating through the state that shape
consumer citizens.
(3)
From notes taken at a presentation by R Torrie (of Torrie Smith Associates Inc.) at ``The Heat is
On'', a conference convened by the City of Minneapolis and the City of St. Paul, MN, November
1999.
772 R Slocum

`Arranging things'önormalizing the consumer citizen
The state `` arrange[s] things in a certain way'' (Foucault, 1978, page 95) to meet aims in
a manner that makes the state's actions appear normal. The normalizing gaze of the
CCP campaign transforms very different citizens into consumers for whom anything
that will save them money will appeal. The following quote sweeps three different
groupsöthe `` city council, business and economically depressed people''öinto one
that, uniformly, will respond most readily to saving money.
‘‘We have not tried to reach people on climate change. We have used it in some
literature but climate change won't make the city council, business and economically
depressed people do anything. It is not a personal, day-to-day issue. What is,
is reducing energy [use] and saving money'' (city administration, San Diego).
Voicing the neoliberal mantra, another respondent told me, `` cost-effective that's the
word, that's the buzzword now'' (business, Seattle). A city administrator noted that
`` long-term global warming is not going to be a selling point; it boils down to dollars''
(city administration, Overland Park, KS). An administrator remarked:
‘‘People can get their arms around [energy efficiency]. We can talk to facilities folks
about savings and to department heads. They can't spend more out of their budgets.
It's a very pragmatic approach. It has to be that way. In most municipalities it's that
way'' (city administration, Boulder).
In interviews with city administrators, I was consistently met with the concealment of
climate behind money-saving methods and the `it has to be that way' syndrome. This is
the way that truth and the boundaries of what can be thought are formed. It is the
process whereby a discourse about efficiency and cost saving becomes taken for
granted, and the forms and possibilities of resistance are limited.
‘‘... but like other large issues, I mean, most large issues, if it doesn't hit people in
the pocket book, then you can't do much. How do you make a global issue a local
issueöthat's what you're asking me. You have to attach it to energy savings. By
doing these things you are also helping the environment'' (city administration,
Atlanta).
I asked one respondent, `What are the pros and cons of focusing on cost saving or
energy efficiency as opposed to climate change?' Quite evident in his answer is the
difficulty, discussed in the previous section, of making incontrovertible statements
about climate changeöeven in 2000 when the interview occurred. Also visible at the end
of the quote is the strength of the neoliberal discourse revealed in the path the admini-
strator imagines out of the controversy around the existence and effects of climate
change:
‘‘For energy efficiency, there is no pro and con; it is strictly pro ... . Am I willing to
give up convenience and comfort for the sake of emissions reduction? I should be
concerned, but it won't happen tomorrow. I know it doesn't make sense, but I can
afford to be inefficient. If you talk about climate change, this is a moot question. It
is argued both ways even in our community. The skeptics say climate change is a
natural thing. It's day to day, one to three degree changesöwhat does that mean to
me? This won't be a selling point. Some say the earth has great adaptive ability so
there will be no significant impact on people. The aspect of climate change that will
impact people is smog in cities. It has an impact on health. It might be a selling point
to convince people that emission reductions is good for your health, but how many
people are going to react to that? In the long term, global warming is not going to be
a selling point. It boils down to dollars. You can live a better quality of life and make
contributions to minimize global warming but in the end ... . Energy efficiency results
in dollars, reducing light use results in dollars. This reduces emissions, but you get
dollars too. Money talks'' (city administration, Overland Park, KS).
Cities for Climate Protection campaign 773

Similarly, one councilwoman told me she got on Tucson City Council's environmental
subcommittee because of environmental problems she saw. The means she advocated to
affect those problemsöcost-saving retrofitsöis illuminating:
‘‘I thought it was a grim situation ... you known, in terms of the environment, because
here, electricity is generated by coal burning plants ... . And that's how we would use
lighting retrofits and all these thingsöyou'll end up saving money on your electric
bill. So, you know, everybody wins in this situation ... we've always looked at it for
not only the environment but for the taxpayer type of thing'' (politician, Tucson).
The normalization of this discourse is evident in the reliance on universalsö
universal means of valuing the environment, universal (undifferentiated) citizen with uni-
versal cost-saving concernsöand options couched in the language of `it has to be that
way'. As the director of an NGO notes below, the strategy avoids dealing with hard
questions and tough choices, but the economic reasons are universally agreeable and so
serve as a strategic means to get beyond the science. Subjects, as Foucault suggested,
may consent to the work of taken-for-granted discourses.
‘‘[Climate change] is still an `in the closet' kind of thing. No one wants to admit that
it is there, but they are willing to talk about so called no regrets kind of strategies.
`Let's do the things that make sense to deal with for economic reasons anyway, we
can agree to disagree on the state of science and still do these things'' (NGO,
Minneapolis).
To summarize, the CCP campaign plays into the hand of the neoliberal faith in the
market as the determinant of value and the wellspring of solutions. The danger of
the bottom-line approach is that a decision made on the basis of cost stops the discussion
by bracketing values, judgment, and responsibility. This approach limits the basis of
democratic decisionmaking to cost, construed narrowly in monetary terms. In this
manner, the principle of protecting the climate is reduced to a commodity (Dryzek, 1997).
The campaign, further, does not simply fail to include: it actively forms citizens as
consumers. Rather than the ideal of a participatory, deliberative, process in which the
power in citizens' differences is confronted and people are encouraged to engage in
reasoned discussion about rising greenhouse-gas emissions, the campaign addresses a
homogeneous consumer public and normalizes one approach. Failure to involve the
public and the formation of citizens as consumers are thus intertwined processes.
Urban citizens are most `present' in this process as consumers of gas, electricity, and
better appliances. The reasoning publics that might expand the basis of city action on
climate change to something beyond saving money are not invited. Intent on avoiding
the active citizen and discouraging publics with the power and get answers to difficult
questions, the CCP campaign pursues a passive politics designed to teach citizens
about more energy-efficient light bulbs.
Urban publics, then, are consumers whom CCP administrators think will purchase
energy-efficient light bulbs on the basis of information, passed down through educa-
tion, as I discussed in the previous section. The respondent below suggests that people
do not act on the basis of information in the case of climate change. He also highlights
the positive face of the consumer citizen who wants `things to do' that protect the
climate. Finally, he advocates the idea that `` the norm can change'' that underscores
an argument of this paper.
‘‘I don't think people base what they do on information. They base it on tradition
and training. And, what the norm is. And the norm can change and tradition can
change and training can change. I think people want technology in the larger sense
of the word ... . Tools and things to do. They want home tours that show homes that
do things differently. They want to go to the car shows that show the different cars.
They want the free bus ride'' (NGO, Tucson).
774 R Slocum

The consumer citizen may work in ways that do not suggest a neoliberal norm. The
possibility of changing normalized understandings is the subject to which I now turn in
the discussion.
Discussion
I began by asking, what sort of subject does the CCP campaign produce and what are
the possible political effects of the campaign's consumerist bent combined with its lack
of a large involved constituency. I have presented two versions of the work of the CCP
campaign relative to urban citizens: one version sees neoliberalism arranging a passive
public, failing to encourage participation, and constricting possibility; the other recog-
nizes potential in the campaign and the consumer. I begin with the first of those,
supported by the critiques in which neoliberalism and the consumer citizen pose a
threat to democracy and the evidence presented in the sections titled `Pragmatic acts'
and A`rranging things'. I then move to the idea of possibility embodied in the consumer
citizen and the campaign itself presented under `redeeming possibilities', which suggest
that this subject derives from a greater awareness and may be part of progressive
politics. However, I add to this notion by using feminist and deliberative democratic
theory about subjects and the relationship of the state and public sphere.
Managing democratic participation
The CCP campaign operates within the neoliberal state. As a product of neoliberalism, the
campaign serves to regulate the interaction of the state and citizens by constructing
the public as passive energy consumersörather than as active citizens. It is possible
that the state may be better able to manage democratic participation by encouraging
the politics of consumer-oriented changeöthat is, individual lifestyle modification
through purchases. There is perhaps some attraction in the constructed unity of this
identity whereby everyone wants to save money. Democratic citizenship requires an
active subject who could be, for instance, a consumer activist challenging the political
economy of the production of greenhouse-gas emissions. But the consumerist focus
on the right of individuals to purchase energy-efficient appliances is not enough to
further the ideal of active involvement in democratic life. From this perspective, the
CCP campaign supports neoliberal market democracy and does not encourage active
citizenship.
My respondents made rhetorical claims about the democratic potential of the CCP
campaign. They pointed to the proximity of city council legislators to urban citizens to
claim that the city was an ideal place to pursue a campaign to protect the climate. They
reflect a recognition that greenhouse-gas emissions are very much a part of local life.
Their perceptions are reflected in the literature. `` Local governments have played long-
standing roles in the institutionalization of public participation and in the development
of innovative ways to engage citizens in policy-making'' in part because the `` politics of
local government is also the politics of everyday life'' (Graham and Phillips, 1998,
pages 1 and 5). Despite the recognition of the closer relationship of local government
with citizens, the campaign has a very small public.
My critique of the minimal CCP public is also based on the ideals of meaningful
popular participation and active citizenship in which reasoning publics interact with
each other and the state to shape just decisions. Meaningful participation in a state-
led effort is constituted by the acknowledgement of different, reasoning, publics;
respect for the right to know; the development of a process that strengthens disen-
franchised civil society groups; and a degree of responsiveness by the state. Graham
and Phillips indicate that public participation is seen by local government and
citizens alike as an integral part of governance that implies reciprocal obligation
Cities for Climate Protection campaign 775

(1998, page 13). Dryzek (2000b) argues further that even though the participation of all
in collective decisionmaking is not possible, reasoned deliberation of some is necessary
for a legitimate outcome.
Though participation is not a panacea for the difficulties of decisionmaking, it has
great potential. It is true that participatory measures may ignore difference and serve
as a means to include some and exclude others; to pacify by making people think
that their views are being heard (Fraser, 1997); and may end up being an expensive,
time-consuming, and boring event with unspectacular results (Dryzek, 2000a; see also
Bloomfield et al, 2001; Graham and Phillips, 1998; Keller and Poferl, 2000, on how
to evaluate deliberative participation). Acknowledging liberal democratic realities,
Gramscian possibilities, and the fact that `` all forms of political life fall short of a
perpetual carnival'' (Dryzek, 2000a, page 73), the ideal of a participatory process of
engagement by active publics remains critical to democratic life. Fundamentally, if
participation, as a democratic institution, confronts the key difficulty of inclusion
and exclusion, it ``represents the potential [for people] to alter their own conditions
of existence by means of rational ^ critical discourse'' (Calhoun, 1995, page 248). Partici-
pation, ideally, should not only allow for the expression of legitimate views (Spash,
2001), resolve disputes, and plan actions, but also alter identities (Calhoun, 1995). The
cities, having not engaged the public, do not yet come close to the ideal.
Through the normalization of the citizen as consumer and the lack of public engage-
ment, this state-sponsored campaign could at worst contribute to the erosion of the
public sphere and undermine democratic practice. At best the bottom-line emphasis
allows society to value the environment by monetary cost alone and to focus on the `low
hanging fruit' of energy efficiency rather than making changes, for instance, to the
fossil-fuel economy, that would more significantly affect greenhouse-gas emissions.
These are the dangers that obtain in the work of the CCP campaign.
Possibilities: refiguring consumer identity and the public sphere
The dark vision of a passive citizen, an eroded public sphere, and a managing neo-
liberal state that I have just proposed has distinct cracks in its hegemonic proportions.
The first element that upsets this negative view is the idea that subjects are able to
refigure the discourses that constitute them. Fraser (1997) argues that subjectivity may
be culturally constructed, but it has critical or reflective (Dryzek, 2000a) capacities as
well. Consumer citizens could act progressively: they could refigure how this subject
position is understood and in what type of politics they act. Neoliberalism, working
through the state, may promote a passive consumer identity, but an identity `` remains
the property of the claimant, a creation of collective action'' (Jenson and Phillips, 1996,
page 115). Even though the subject is the product of the neoliberal discourse, among
others, it is capable of resignification. This is `` power's own possibility of being
reworked'' (Butler, 1993, cited by Fraser, 1997, page 214).
It may be that today people are hailed by capital and the media more often as
deodorant consumers than as politically aware subjects. However, interpellating citizens
as consumers of deodorant is different from citizens who, as consumers, refuse to buy
Shell gasoline. In the first case, the citizen so addressed turns and recognizes herself in
the discourse of consumerism; in the second, he misrecognizes himself as an activist and
asks those addressing him to justify their practices (Haraway, 1997, page 50). Some
publics will use their consumer identity strategically (for example, to organize in favor of
apparel workers or locally owned media) as part of a relational analysis of the world.
Further, it may be the case that people deploy the subject position of the consumer
in ways that fit their own legitimate needs. Consumers acting for the well-being
of a collectivity on the basis of a relational analysis of the context and an `enlarged
776 R Slocum

mentality' are capable of actively shaping a progressive politics. Thus, the consumer
may not be such a threat to ideal citizenship as some think.
My second proposal for hope in the subject of the consumer and the politics of the
CCP campaign is the interaction of the public sphere and the state. The public sphere is
a place for discussion among citizens about any matter (Fraser, 1997; Habermas, 1962).
It is where the work of articulating, contesting, and resolving normative discourses takes
place (Benhabib, 2002, page 115). The public sphere is a vehicle of democratic self-
government and an arena of publics, not the sphere of a single public (Calhoun, 1995).
In the ideal public sphere, many publics, not just the consumer public, interact in
opinion making and decisionmaking (Fraser, 1997).
An autonomous public sphere constantly confronting the state is perceived by some
as necessary to avoid the constraint the state would put on discursive contestation
(Dryzek, 1994; 2000a). The state attempts to institutionalize protest so that arguments
based on `fact' can take place (Parker, 1999; Turner, 2001). The state, in this view, is
compromised and needs radical movements to keep it accountable and to bring new
ideas to the fore (Dryzek, 2000a). The ability of the state to `arrange things' and the
productive capacity of power seen in administrator's neoliberal arguments and in
the form of the consumer citizen suggest that Dryzek's call for vigilance is important.
But the idea of vigilance, accountability, and legitimacy is possible because, contrary to
the strong Foucauldian argument, hegemonic discourses like neoliberalism do not
completely constitute both the supporting and the competing views (Dryzek, 2000a;
see also Fraser, 1989).
Others claim that the idea of a separate state and public sphere rests on a faulty
model because these boundaries are permeable
(4)
(Abu-Lughod, 1998; Rose, 1999).
Indeed, a public sphere that requires a sharp separation between state and civil society
will not, in this age of ``inescapable global interdependence manifest in the inter-
national division of labor within a single, shared planetary biosphere'', be up to the
task of `` imagining the forms of self-management, interpublic coordination and political
accountability that are essential to a democratic and egalitarian society'' (Fraser, 1997,
pages 91 ^ 92).
The public sphere is also the site of capacity to change the terms of political
discourse and thereby affect the state (Calhoun, 1995; Dryzek, 2000a; Fraser, 1997).
This capacity exists in the variety of publics (subaltern counterpublics, consumers,
mainstream environmentalists, and so on) who expand the discursive space of the
public sphere (Fraser, 1997). The public sphere, like the state, is home to competing
discourses like cost-efficiency, environmental justice, and green radicalism (Dryzek,
2000a). Its publics interact with state actors and their campaigns and with discourses
like neoliberalism, rather than being engulfed by them. Further, the capacity of the
public sphere lies in ``the communicative power that the public sphere can exert over
the state, [which] is diffuse and pervasive, felt in the way terms are defined and issues are
framed, not in the direct leverage of one actor over another'' (Dryzek, 2000a, page 101).
Dialogue in the public sphere may lead to greater awareness, a broader discussion, and
collective action understood as the creation of new laws (Benhabib, 2002). Subaltern
or competing discourses influence public policy and, even without direct action in
the state, can have social and material effects (Dryzek, 2000a). Given this view of the
political relationship between the state and public sphere, it is probable that other
discourses and efforts, outside the campaign and within the public sphere, will meet
the state's climate effort and positively change both in the process. If evidence from
consumer activist campaigns mentioned in the literature review is any indication, other
(4)
Benhabib's class; see footnote (2).
Cities for Climate Protection campaign 777