Die politische Repräsentation der Konsumenten nach dem Ende des Ersten Weltkrieges

As urban populations in Europe experienced unprecedented material want during the First World War and its aftermath, political communication increasingly centred on the interests of consumers. At issue was not only how to provide for their basic needs, but also, and more importantly, whether it was legitimate and feasible to represent their interests at an institutional level in order to counter-balance the power of producers. Ultimately, although the point of view of consumers promised to recast the relationship between the political and the economic, the impact at the institutional level turned out to be limited. The article examines this debate at the point of its greatest prominence during the formative years of the Weimar republic. Its main actors, issues and effects are then compared to parallel struggles for consumer rights in Great Britain and France. It will be argued that similarities outweigh national differences and that these similarities should be attributed to the pervasive effects of the First World War and to the difficulties inherent in representing consumer interests

Ereignishaftigkeit und Rechtsentwicklung in der Verbraucherpolitik: eine historische und rechtswissenschaftliche Annäherung an den Umgang mit Krisen und Skandalen seit den 1970er-Jahren

Markierten Verbraucherskandale und Krisen des Marktvertrauens einen Bruch in der Rechtsentwicklung sowie politischen Institutionalisierung des Verbraucherschutzes? Und welche Bedeutung kam dabei den vorherrschenden Regulierungstraditionen sowie den sich wandelnden Akteurskonstellationen zu? Anhand von vier Beispielen werden zum einen die zeithistorischen Begleitumstände, zum anderen die verbraucherrechtlichen Folgen der ereignishaften Enthüllungen untersucht: den beiden größten Gesundheitsskandalen in der Geschichte der Bundesrepublik - Contergan und BSE -, dem Brustimplantate-Skandal um die Firma PIP sowie der Finanzkrise, die den Erlass der Wohnimmobilienkredit-Richtlinie 2014/17/EU beförderte

Politicizing Consumption: On the Contested Role of the Consumer in the Weimar Republic

In the Weimar Republic, consumption served as a vanguard point from which to redefine the relation between politics and economics. This paper traces the way the figure of the consumer was conceptualized in different discursive settings. It is shown how the political prominence of the consumer was strongly invoked in the debate that took place in the period of reconstruction about consumer representation. This failed attempt to institutionalize the consumer interest was superseded by competing visions of consumer society ranging from a co-operative utopia to national socialist ideas of German autarky. The consumers’ rights and duties were of crucial importance to these approaches, however differently they defined them

Konsum und Politik in der Weimarer Republik

Torp C. Konsum und Politik in der Weimarer Republik. Kritische Studien zur Geschichtswissenschaft. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht; 2011

Die vielen Wege der deutschen Konsumgesellschaft

Haupt H-G, Torp C. Die vielen Wege der deutschen Konsumgesellschaft. In: Haupt H-G, Torp C, eds. Die Konsumgesellschaft in Deutschland 1890-1990. Ein Handbuch. Frankfurt: Campus; 2009: 9-26