This article examines two industry sectors-those making and selling fast food and alcoholic beverages or associated products. We examine their role in influencing policy and decision making on the regulation of their products for health reasons. We argue that the food and alcohol industries engage in a very wide range of tactics and strategies to defend and indeed to promote their 'licence to operate'. We focus in on a specific component of these by examining public relations and lobbying strategies and their impacts on elite decision makers. We suggest that lobbying influence is a matter of both communication and action. We go on to outline the vertical and horizontal differentiation of lobbying strategies arguing that policy capture is the ultimate goal of lobbying, though influence is pursued by wide-ranging strategies to capture various arenas of decision making. We examine four key arenas; science, civil society, the media and policy, closing with an examination of two cases of the so-called 'partnership' model of governance.

When it comes to alcohol awareness, is the government under the influence of the drinks industry?

This book examines the ‘web of influence’ formed by industries which manufacture and sell ‘addictive’ products in the EU. The differences between alcohol, food, gambling, and tobacco as consumer products are obvious. However, we explore whether food, alcohol, and gambling industries are merely replicating tobacco tactics or innovating in corporate strategy. Using a new data set on corporate networks formed by the tobacco, alcohol, food, and gambling industries at the EU level, the book shows the interlocking connections between corporations, trade associations, and policy intermediaries, including lobbyists and think tanks. Quantitative data guide qualitative studies on the content of corporate strategy and the attempts of corporations to ‘capture’ policy and three crucial ancillary domains—science, civil society, and the news and promotional media. The effects of these three arenas on policy networks and outcomes are examined with a focus on new forms of policy partnership such as corporate social responsibility and partnership governance. Drawing on our structural data, we show the comprehensive engagement of industry with science-policy issues in the EU, the ways that corporations can dominate agendas and decision making, as well as the potential for popular pressures and public health agendas to be effective. The book concludes by asking what solutions might be possible to the evident public health challenges posed by the addictions web of influence. It proposes key evidence-based transparency and public health reforms that have the best chance of minimizing the burden of disease from addictions in the medium to long term.

In the case of addictive substances and behaviours, well-being is predominantly associated with either the effect on individuals of the substances or behaviours or their impacts on society more broadly. However, this chapter is concerned with the ways in which corporate and policy actions, or inactions, have impacts on well-being which are both significant and under-appreciated. These are effects on policy-makers, policy decisions, the way in which they are implemented, and the ultimate consequences of these policies in terms of well-being. 11.2 Well-being The idea of well-being has become increasingly more prominent in policy circles. Both the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the European Union (EU) have been working toward the inclusion and measurement of well-being in policy-making (OECD, 2006; European Commission, 2014a). The concept of well-being in public policy is relatively straightforward; it involves taking account of how societal factors can be detrimental to individual well-being. Poverty, physical and mental health, social exclusion, limited employment and educational prospects, and other forms of social disengagement can all exacerbate the likelihood of dependence on substances or behaviours that can be harmful. Well-being is recognized as an important concept because it acknowledges the social as well as the individual factors underlying both harm and positive health. The OECD framework regards societal well-being as comprising three dimensions: quality of life, material conditions, and sustainability of well-being over time.

This chapter uses social network analysis to explore the web of influence of the four ‘addictive’ industries examined in the book: alcohol, tobacco, food, and gambling. The data are used to paint an overall picture before taking a closer look in subsequent chapters. The four industries form more or less separated clusters, and whereas the alcohol and food industries are very well interconnected, the gambling and tobacco industries are only loosely tied to the others. The network also shows that advertising and marketing sectors and think tanks often act as connecting hubs between the industries. The closer look at the clusters of the four industries shows some important differences. The food cluster is more heterogeneous than the others are; the alcohol cluster contains product-related subclusters; and gambling, as well as tobacco, is smaller and less dense compared with the other two.