Under the Influence of Commercial Values: Neoliberalized Business-Consumer Relations in the Swedish Certification Market, 1988–2018
研究瑞典认证市场，揭示新自由主义下商业-消费者关系从冲突转向假设商业利益惠及各方，消费者保护变得抽象。
Since the 1990s, a new model for market control organized through tripartite standards regimes (TSR), has expanded globally and affected most market exchanges through standard-setting, accreditation, and certification. This article investigates business-consumer relations under this regime, with a specific focus on the functions of accreditation and certification. In our case study of Sweden, a new picture of consumer protection under late capitalism evolves. Seeing it as a form of neoliberalization, the article uncovers a transition between two regimes of control; from one built on a potential conflict between consumer and business interests, to one based on the assumption that business interests are beneficial for all parties. Although business interest was formulated as pleasing the consumer—or the “customer”—by both certification firms and the Swedish Accreditation Authority, in practice consumer interest as something worth protecting was made abstract in the era of the TSR.