The Determinants of and Barriers to Critical Consumption: A Study of Addiopizzo

‘Addiopizzo’ (Goodbye protection money) is a grassroots anti-mafia movement based in Palermo that stresses the individual consumer's responsibility for maintaining the Sicilian mafia's pizzo system. If you purchase products from a business that pays the pizzo you are indirectly supporting the mafia. By encouraging Palermitans to buy from ‘pizzo-free’ businesses, Addiopizzo uses the purchasing power of the consumer to fight organised crime. The community of ‘pizzo-free’ businesses is small but steadily growing whilst the number of critical consumers pledging to buy their products appears to have peaked. This article aims to investigate the reasons why consumers may be reluctant to support ‘pizzo-free’ businesses by asking those who have already made public their decision to do so. Whilst critical consumers cannot fully explain why the majority of Palermo's citizens continue to tolerate the pizzo system their attitudes towards them do highlight differences that may help to account for wider non-participatio...