A Time for Hope? Pursuing a Vision of a Fair, Sustainable and Healthy World

Friel, Sharon

doi:10.1111/1758-5899.12557

Cited by 5 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 47 publications

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“…The public health community has an important role to play in building inclusive coalitions of change across this constituency. 25 We are under no illusions, this will be a Herculean challenge. A new economic paradigm will have to be cultivated in the face of powerful resistance from corporate and financial elites who have promulgated and benefited from the neoliberal economic regime and occupy positions of considerable political influence.…”

Section: How Do We Achieve Paradigm Change?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Paradigm Shift: New Ideas for a Structural Approach to NCD Prevention Comment on "How Neoliberalism Is Shaping the Supply of Unhealthy Commodities and What This Means for NCD Prevention"

Schram

Goldman

2019

Int J Health Policy Manag

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It is a well-documented fact that transnational corporations engaged in the production and distribution of health-harmful commodities have been able to steer policy approaches to address the associated burden of non-communicable diseases (NCDs). While the political influence that corporations wield stems in part from significant financial resources, it has also been enabled and magnified by what has been referred to as global health’s neoliberal deep core, which has subjected health policy to the individualisation of risk and responsibility and the privileging of market-based policy responses. The accompanying perspective article from Lencucha and Thow draws attention to neoliberalism in the NCD space and the way it has historically structured patterns of thinking and doing that foreground economic interests over health considerations. In this commentary, we explore how shifting from a focus on material power to discursive power creates space to see the NCD agenda as a battle of economic ideas as well as dollars, and consequently the importance of public health engagement in the next vision for the economy.

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Section: How Do We Achieve Paradigm Change?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Paradigm Shift: New Ideas for a Structural Approach to NCD Prevention Comment on "How Neoliberalism Is Shaping the Supply of Unhealthy Commodities and What This Means for NCD Prevention"

Schram

Goldman

2019

Int J Health Policy Manag

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“…Addressing the significant power inequities between different actors requires 'political empowerment' whereby individuals and organisations can have greater influence on the decisions that interest or affect them. 46 Policy implications First, nutrition governance must be informed by greater awareness of power processes underlying or mediating actor interdependencies, especially between governments and industry. Second, the government needs good governance structures in place to counter industry power while, at the same time, nurturing equity and inclusivity in food marketing policy.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Food marketing is characterised by intersectoral working beyond health sector and thus non-health sector governance is crucial for interventions in food marketing to work. Addressing the significant power inequities between different actors requires ‘political empowerment’ whereby individuals and organisations can have greater influence on the decisions that interest or affect them 46…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How commercial actors used different types of power to influence policy on restricting food marketing: a qualitative study with policy actors in Thailand

et al. 2022

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ObjectivesThere is limited research focused explicitly on understanding how commercial actors use different forms of power to influence policy decision making in Thailand. This study aimed to identify how the food industry has used structural, instrumental and discursive power to influence policy on restricting food marketing in Thailand.Study designQualitative study using in-depth semistructured interviewsSettingsThailand.ParticipantsThe interviews were conducted with 20 participants (of a total of 29 invited actors) from government, civil society, technical experts, international organisation and the food and advertising industry. Interview data were identified in the transcripts and analysed using abductive methods.ResultsNon-commercial actors perceived the commercial actors’ structural power (its economic influence and structurally privileged position) as central to understanding the government having not implemented policy to restrict food marketing. The commercial actors’ instrumental power was observed through sponsorship, campaign and lobbying activities. Discursive power was used by the industry to shift responsibility away from the food companies and onto their customers, by focusing their messaging on freedom of consumer choice and consumer health literacy.ConclusionsThis study examined different types of power that commercial actors were perceived to use to influence policy to restrict food marketing in Thailand. The study showed arguments and institutional processes used to enhance commercial actors’ ability to shape the policy decision for nutrition, public opinion and the broader regulatory environment. The findings help governments and other stakeholders to anticipate industry efforts to counter policy. The findings also suggest the need for governance structures that counter industry power, including comprehensive monitoring and enforcement in policy implementation.

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“…Rebalancing the existing power inequities within the corporate food regime and achieving positive nutrition and environmental outcomes depends on networked combinations of different approaches rather than grabbing at only one lever of influence. 72 Despite long odds, recalibrating the power inequities in the global corporate food regime may be possible through articulating an ambitious shared vision; coalition building; strategic use of institutional processes including forum shopping; social mobilization among like-minded and unusual bedfellows, and organized campaigns; the strategic use of political and policy entrepreneurs, and compelling issue framing.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Redressing the Corporate Cultivation of Consumption: Releasing the Weapons of the Structurally Weak

Friel

2020

Int J Health Policy Manag

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Corporate control of the global food system has resulted in greater global availability of highly processed, packaged and very palatable unhealthy food and beverages. Environmental harm, including climate change and biodiversity loss, occurs along the supply chains associated with trans-national corporations’ (TNCs’) practices and products. In essence, the corporatization of the global food system has created the conditions that cultivate excess consumption, manufacture disease epidemics and harm the environment. TNCs have used their structural power – their positions in material structures and organizational networks – to establish rules, processes and norms that reinforce and extend the paradigm of the neoliberal corporate food system. As a result, policy and regulatory environments, and societal norms are favourable to TNC’s interests, to the detriment of nutrition, health and environmental outcomes. There is hope, however. Power, of which there is many forms, is held not just by the TNCs but by all actors concerned about and connected to the food system. This paper aims to understand these power dynamics, and identify how structurally weak, public-interest actors can release their agency and work to achieve positive structural change. Such an analysis will help understand how the status quo can be disrupted and healthy and sustainable food systems created. The paper draws from the health governance and social movement literature, examining the Doha Declaration on the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement and Public Health, the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), and the Divestment movement. These cases demonstrate the many ‘weapons of the weak’ that can, against all odds recalibrate structural inequities. There is no one approach to transforming the corporate food system to become a healthy and sustainable food system. It involves coalition building; articulation of an ambitious shared vision; strategic use of multi-level institutional processes; social mobilization among like-minded and unusual bedfellows, and organized campaigns; political and policy entrepreneurs, and compelling issue framing.

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A Time for Hope? Pursuing a Vision of a Fair, Sustainable and Healthy World

Cited by 5 publications

References 47 publications

Paradigm Shift: New Ideas for a Structural Approach to NCD Prevention Comment on "How Neoliberalism Is Shaping the Supply of Unhealthy Commodities and What This Means for NCD Prevention"

Paradigm Shift: New Ideas for a Structural Approach to NCD Prevention Comment on "How Neoliberalism Is Shaping the Supply of Unhealthy Commodities and What This Means for NCD Prevention"

How commercial actors used different types of power to influence policy on restricting food marketing: a qualitative study with policy actors in Thailand

Redressing the Corporate Cultivation of Consumption: Releasing the Weapons of the Structurally Weak

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