Small Donors’ Political Slacktivism: The Relationship Between Contribution Format and Subsequent Political Behaviors

Despite increasing interest in the topic of marketing and politics, scholars have paid scant attention to a growing phenomenon: citizen stakeholders who make small contributions to political campaigns via the purchase of political merchandise. This article demonstrates that purchasing merchandise reduces the likelihood of devoting significant effort to support the campaign in the future (political slacktivism) compared with making a financially equivalent monetary donation. The authors make several contributions: (1) while prior work has examined how political behavior (such as support for a political party) affects consumer purchase decisions, this article is the first to examine how political consumption affects political behavior; (2) the article demonstrates how purchasing political merchandise (vs. making an equivalent monetary donation) reduces the likelihood of engagement in subsequent political behaviors, such as voting; (3) the article offers insights for political operatives and public policy advocates on how to increase citizens’ political engagement through the donation format. To examine this unique phenomenon, the authors focus on four distinct election cycles and use a multimethod approach: analysis of an archival dataset, a longitudinal survey of actual donors, and a set of experiments, including actual consumption of political merchandise.