Corporate Political Activity: Taxonomies and Model of Corporate Influence on Public Policy

Abstract

Background: Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) kill 41 million people a year. The products and services of unhealthy commodity industries (UCIs) such as tobacco, alcohol, ultra-processed foods and beverages and gambling are responsible for much of this health burden. While effective public health policies are available to address this, UCIs aim to stop governments and global organisations adopting such policies through what is known as corporate political activity (CPA). We aimed to contribute to the study of CPA and development of effective counter-measures by formulating a model and evidence-informed taxonomies of UCI political activity. Methods: We used five complementary methods: critical interpretive synthesis of the conceptual CPA literature; brief interviews; expert co-author knowledge; stakeholder workshops; testing against the literature. Results: We found 11 original conceptualisations of CPA; four had been used by other researchers and reported in 24 additional review papers. Combining an interpretive synthesis of all these papers and feedback from users, we developed two taxonomies – one on framing strategies and one on action strategies. The former identified three frames (policy actors, problem, solutions) and the latter six strategies (access and influence policymaking, use the law, manufacture support for industry, shape evidence to manufacture doubt, displace and usurp public health, manage reputations to industry’s advantage). We also offer an analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of UCI strategies and a model that situates industry CPA in the wider social, political and economic context. Conclusion: Our work confirms the similarity of CPA across UCIs and demonstrates its extensive and multi-faceted nature, the disproportionate power of corporations in policy spaces and the unacceptable conflicts of interest that characterise their engagement with policymaking. We suggest that industry CPA is recognised as a corruption of democracy, not an element of participatory democracy. Our taxonomies and model provide a starting point for developing effective solutions.

Corporate activities that influence population health: A scoping review and qualitative synthesis to develop the HEALTH-CORP typology

“…The number of references pertaining to a specific activity should not be interpreted as an indication of the strength of associated evidence, but rather the number of instances the respective activity was discussed in the included articles. Our descriptions of the activities in the political and preference and perception shaping practices domains are brief as these practices have been discussed in detail elsewhere [3,4,6,7]. The HEALTH-CORP typology is presented in Table 2 (see end of document) and an expanded version with additional details is provided in Additional File 1, Appendix 3.…”

“…Drawing on the findings of this analysis, other CDH work [2,3,6,7], and the work of relevant civil society organizations [21,22], the first author (R.B.) then developed a model to describe the interdependencies between domains and their proximity to health outcomes in consultation with the third author (N.F.).…”

Editorial: AI and new digital technologies have transformed alcohol and other drug industries lobbying

“…It illustrates how the sector can leverage new technology to promote so-called “responsible” alcohol consumption. The message that industry is actively engaged in activities to reduce alcohol harm is one of the key PR strategies used to lobby against more effective legislative controls (Ulucanlar et al , 2023).…”

Understanding the influence of stakeholders on the implementation of front-of-pack nutrition labelling in the absence of public debate: the case of Portugal

“…In the public health sector, economic operators are known to influence governmental decisions. Theories such as the commercial determinants of health (CDoH) or the corporate political activities (CPA) have shown the various ways in which the unhealthy commodity industries (UCIs) (for example, tobacco, ultra-processed foods and beverages) can impact policy-making by accessing and influencing policy-making, using the law, manufacturing support for industry, shaping evidence to manufacture doubt, displacing and usurping public health, and managing reputations to the advantage of industry [ 10 , 11 ].…”