Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grant: Consumer Protection and Citizenship in China

印第安纳州大学博士生埃里卡·库弗将在理查德·威尔克博士的指导下，研究后社会主义国家消费者行动主义与公民身份之间的关系。这将促进学术界对公民是否以及如何利用国家资助的机构挑战国家权力的理解。这项研究将集中在中国国家支持的消费者组织，尽管它们起源于国家本身，但它们是公民寻求纠正市场中遇到的不公正的主要渠道。研究人员将采用混合方法的社会科学方法。这将包括消费者协会的参与观察员，在那里她将与协会雇员和消费者进行访谈，并与分层抽样的消费者进行后续访谈，这些消费者的投诉已被协会成功调解。她还将采访其他负责消费者保护的机构的官员，调查和分析媒体报道，举办消费者焦点小组，并跟踪国家消费者的关键问题。这项研究很重要，因为它将记录个人如何与国家资源互动，以保护他们的家人免受危险产品的伤害，同时也有助于对地方政治和全球消费者安全之间的相互作用的社会科学理解。资助这项研究也支持社会科学家的教育。

Indiana University doctoral student Erika Kuever, under the supervision of Dr. Richard Wilk, will undertake research on the relationship between consumer activism and citizenship in post-socialist countries. This will advance scholarly understandings of whether and how state-sponsored institutions can be used by citizens to challenge state power. The research will focus on state-sponsored consumer organizations in China, which, despite their origins in the state itself, serve as the primary channel for citizens seeking redress for injustices encountered in the marketplace. The researcher will employ a mixed-methods social science approach. This will include participant observer in a consumer association, where she will carry out interviews with association employees and consumers, and conduct follow-up interviews with a stratified sample of consumers who have had their complaints successfully mediated by the association. She will also interview officials in other agencies charged with consumer protection, survey and analyze media accounts, hold consumer focus groups, and follow-up key national consumer issues.This research is important because it will document how individuals interact with state resources to protect their families from dangerous products, while also contributing to social scientific understanding of the interaction between local politics and global consumer safety. Funding this research also supports the education of a social scientist.