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changes are in the works, while others, such as getting Americans to choose smaller vehicles, are
difficult to imagine. As one commentator said, “What a lot of protestors are missing is that
Americans have a deep psychological connection to the SUV. American automotive life is about
mobility and freedom. SUVs give you freedom, in a psychological sense, one that isn’t
necessarily rational, but is emotional” (Marsden, qtd. in Guthrie 2003, B1).
The anti-SUV campaign is another example of the politicization of private citizen
behavior, a topic recently reviewed by Kersh and Morone (2002) in their analysis of the politics
of obesity. The campaign resembles the public health movements investigated by Kersh and
Morone and with other so-called “moral reform movements” (Hunt 1999). Like the consumption
of alcohol, tobacco, or fatty foods, the consumption of SUVs has been problematized in both
moral and utilitarian terms by a small group of activists who express alarm at the growing
popularity of these vehicles. The political significance of the campaign lies in the fact that, like
other moral reform movements, “it provides for a variety of different social forces to articulate
projects outside the mainstream of official politics and state institutions” (Hunt 1999, 2). Beyond
the mere articulation of grievances, however, the movement has the potential to affect policy,
albeit its impact has been limited to date. Even absent a significant policy impact, the movement
is worth studying for the underlying tensions it uncovers in American politics.
This paper has three goals. First, I provide an overview of the anti-SUV movement. This
discussion is largely descriptive, with some attempt to analyze the origins of the movement and
the windows of opportunity that have led to its expansion. The second goal is to examine the
anti-SUV campaign in light of its similarities and differences with other attempts in American
politics to govern private behavior. I argue that the anti-SUV campaign is a close relative of
other moral reform movements in the United States, particularly those aimed at controlling the
Convention