Corporate strategy, corporate capture: food and alcohol industry lobbying and public health

Abstract
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 ‘partner
ship’ model of governance.