ArticleGlobalization and health2024
How can advocates leverage power to advance comprehensive regulation on ultra-processed foods? learning from advocate experience in Argentina.
Article in Globalization and health, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
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4 citing papers in PubMed.
- Understanding power in food policy: a critical scoping review of methods to guide future research.Health promotion international · 2026Article
- Corporate influence on food and nutrition policies in Latin America and the Caribbean: key determinants and policy directions.Globalization and health · 2026Article
- Corporate political activity of the food industry in the development of food policies in Latin America and the Caribbean: a narrative review of the current literature.Globalization and health · 2025Review
- Examining public support for comprehensive policy packages to tackle unhealthy food environments.Public health nutrition · 2024Article
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3 authors.
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Abstract
backgroundThe use of corporate power to undermine public health policy processes is increasingly well understood; however, relatively little scholarship examines how advocates can leverage power to promote the successful adoption of public health policies. The objective of this paper is to explore how advocates leveraged three forms of power - structural, instrumental and discursive - to promote the passage of the Promotion of Healthy Eating Law (Ley 27,642) in Argentina, one of the most comprehensive policies to introduce mandatory front-of-package (FOP) warning labels and regulate the marketing and sales of ultra-processed foods (UPFs) adopted to date.
methodsWe conducted seventeen semi-structured interviews with advocates from different sectors, including civil society, international agencies, and government. Both data collection and analysis were guided by Milsom's conceptual framework for analyzing power in public health policymaking, and the data was analyzed using hybrid deductive and inductive thematic analysis.
resultsAdvocates harnessed structural power through the leveraging of revolving doors, informal alliances, and formal coalitions, enabling them to convene discussion spaces with decision-makers, make strategic use of limited resources, and cultivate the diverse expertise (e.g., research, nutrition science, advocacy, law, political science, activism and communications) needed to support the law through different phases of the policy process. Advocates wielded instrumental power by amassing an armada of localized evidence to promote robust policy design, building technical literacy amongst themselves and decision-makers, and exposing conflicts of interest to harness public pressure. Advocates exercised discursive power by adopting a rights-based discourse, including of children and adolescents and of consumers to transparent information, which enabled advocates to foster a favorable perception of the law amongst both decision-makers and the public. Key contextual enablers include a political window of opportunity, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the ability to learn from the regional precedent of similar policies.
conclusionsPublic health policymaking, particularly when encroaching upon corporate interests, is characterized by stark imbalances of power that hinder policy decisions. The strategies identified in the case of Argentina provide important insights as to how advocates might harness and exercise structural, instrumental, and discursive power to counter corporate influence and promote the successful adoption of comprehensive UPF regulation.
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