Astroturf, front groups, sock puppets, and the capture of civil society

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Miller ◽  
Claire Harkins ◽  
Matthias Schlögl ◽  
Brendan Montague
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
Political Strategy ◽  
Health It ◽  
Grassroots Groups ◽  
Sock Puppets ◽  
European Science ◽  
Front Groups ◽  
Corporate Political Strategy

Civil society is widely thought of as an obstacle to corporate political strategy. This chapter suggests that civil society can be an ally in corporate attempts to undermine public health. It reviews the use of astroturf (i.e. fake grassroots groups) and ‘sock puppets’ (i.e. fake online identities) and discusses these in relation to the corporate-backed ‘sound science’ lobby. The chapter reviews the role of the tobacco and other addictive industries in creating front groups to pursue sectional corporate interests. It looks in turn at interlocking efforts such as the European Science and Environment Forum, the Risk of Freedom briefing, and more recent ventures such as the Institute of Ideas and Spiked the Democracy Institute. These groups are mostly not transparent about their relations with the corporations, and may exhibit some measure of independence from their corporate funders; however, any independence—real or manufactured—is not necessarily a disadvantage.

scholarly journals Protecting the Public's Health in Pandemics: Reflections on Policy Deliberation and the Role of Civil Society in Democracy

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary Beth Quaranta Morrissey ◽  
Jorge L. Rivera-Agosto
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
Task Force ◽  
New York State ◽  
Policy Decision ◽  
Public Health Emergency ◽  
First Person ◽  
Policy Reforms ◽  
Policy Deliberation

The COVID-19 pandemic (“the pandemic”) has magnified the critical importance of public policy deliberation in public health emergency circumstances when normal health care operations are disrupted, and crisis conditions prevail. Adopting the lens of syndemic theory, the disproportionate impact of the pandemic on vulnerable older adults suggests that the pandemic has heightened pre-existing precarities and racial inequities across diverse older adult populations, underlining the urgency of needed policy reforms. While the pandemic has called attention to systemic failures in U.S. public health emergency planning at both federal and state levels of government, the important role of civil society in influencing policy decision making and advocating for legal and ethics reforms and social change in a democracy calls for more open dialogue in aging, public health and legal communities and constituencies. To foster this dialogue, one public health lawyer, who is also a bioethicist and gerontological social work researcher and served as chair of the New York State Bar Association Health Law Section COVID Task Force in 2020 (“Task Force”), shares her first-person perspectives on the process of leading the development of a statewide bar's recommendations for policy reforms, including the challenges and conflicts encountered. A hospital-based attorney and clinical bioethicist brings a clinical ethics perspective to the discussions. This first-person contribution discusses the power of constituencies to influence policy deliberation in a democracy, and the implications of the Task Force recommendations for future aging and public health policy, particularly in view of the high suffering burdens and trauma older persons and older people of color have borne during the pandemic.

scholarly journals Centre-staging citizenship, power and communities in accountability discourses: An overview

2021 ◽  
pp. 273-278
Author(s):  
Sathyasree Goswami ◽  
E Premdas Pinto
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Health It ◽  
The Core ◽  
State Actors ◽  
Health Rights ◽  
Civic Space

This paper distils the key insights from thematic and inter-thematic deliberations of the Global Symposium on Citizenship, Governance and Accountability in Health. It describes the evolution of the symposium theme on linking accountability to citizenship and governance in health while providing an overview of the symposium. The paper further synthesises the key discussions of the core-themes, lays out analytical reflections that have emerged from the deliberations that touch upon the issues of power and politics surrounding accountability, viz civil society, democracy, power, civic space and the role of private non-state actors that affect health rights of the marginalised.

Public health advocacy for the prevention of NCDs

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mike Rayner ◽  
Kremlin Wickramasinghe ◽  
Julianne Williams ◽  
Karen McColl ◽  
Shanthi Mendis
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
Professional Organizations ◽  
Health Advocacy ◽  
Healthy Environment ◽  
Governmental Agencies ◽  
Public Health Advocacy ◽  
Future Potential

This chapter highlights the need for sustained advocacy to address the challenges posed by the sociopolitical landscape relating to non-communicable diseases (NCDs) as described in Chapters 4 and 5. It focuses on advocacy carried out by civil society (non-governmental agencies, charities, academia, and professional organizations). The chapter introduces different tools, tactics, and techniques to influence the setting and implementation of decisions that affect people’s lives. It provides case studies to share the experience of advocacy work carried out to protect against unhealthy diets. The chapter also discusses the role of social media in advocacy and the future potential to contribute towards creating a healthy environment. It concludes by providing a number of recommendations to increase the effectiveness of public health advocacy for the prevention of NCDs.

Business Strategy and International Environmental Governance: Toward a Neo-Gramscian Synthesis

2002 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 84-101 ◽  
Author(s):  
David L. Levy ◽  
Peter J. Newell
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Business Strategy ◽  
Environmental Governance ◽  
International Governance ◽  
Political Strategy ◽  
Alliance Formation ◽  
International Environmental Governance ◽  
Corporate Political Strategy ◽  
Political Economy Approach

This paper develops a political economy approach to explaining the role of business in international environmental governance. The framework bridges micro and macro-levels of analysis and combines theories of International Relations with perspectives from management and organization. The uneven and fragmented nature of international governance is viewed as the outcome of a process of bargaining, compromise, and alliance formation among a range of state and non-state actors. Negotiated regimes are constitutive of the broader structures of global governance, but are also constrained and shaped by these wider configurations of power. We apply Gramscian concepts to understand processes of contestation and accommodation, and to locate corporate political strategy within the wider system of states, civil society, and international institutions. The Gramscian approach suggests the dominant yet contingent position of business, and points to a strategic concept of power that highlights the dynamic and somewhat indeterminate path of regime evolution.

Health

2019 ◽  
pp. 354-362
Author(s):  
Gian Luca Burci
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Tobacco Control ◽  
Health It ◽  
Health Governance ◽  
Illicit Trade ◽  
Normative Development ◽  
Control Community ◽  
Public Health Officials ◽  
Regulatory Measures

This chapter provides an overview of the conception, negotiation, and normative development of the WHO Framework Convention for Tobacco Control (FCTC) based on the professional experience of the author, a former Legal Counsel of WHO. The FCTC must be appreciated against the background of the normative role of WHO and its reluctance to use international lawmaking as a tool for global health governance. The FCTC is a groundbreaking instrument for the protection and promotion of public health; it was conceived as a framework convention in order to accommodate diverse regulatory measures at national and international levels and to create a normative space to facilitate progressive agreement on evidence-based interventions. The negotiation of the convention as well as of its Protocol on Illicit Trade in Tobacco Products was influenced by the relative lack of treaty-making experience on the part of public health officials in national delegations and by the uncompromising hostility of the tobacco control community against the tobacco industry. The resulting tension with strong commercial interests linked to tobacco trade led to a number of difficult and sometimes awkward compromises. At the same time, it led to the establishment of a strong institutional framework that has been instrumental in developing the FCTC through the adoption of far-reaching guidelines and the monitoring of compliance. Notwithstanding its success, there has been no serious discussion in WHO on the negotiation of new conventions, and the FCTC may remain an isolated achievement enabled by a unique set of circumstances.

The role of civil society in protecting public health over commercial interests: lessons from Thailand

The Lancet ◽  
2004 ◽  
Vol 363 (9408) ◽  
pp. 560-563 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nathan Ford ◽  
David Wilson ◽  
Onanong Bunjumnong ◽  
Tido von Schoen Angerer
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Civil Society

Philosophy for Public Health and Public Policy

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Wilson
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Public Policy ◽  
Complex Systems ◽  
Ethical Framework ◽  
Systems Science ◽  
Health It ◽  
New Approach ◽  
Novel Theory ◽  
Complex Systems Science

This book provides a novel theory of the philosophy of public health and public policy. It is addressed both to philosophers and to policymakers, inviting policymakers to rethink the nature of public policy, and philosophers to rethink the nature of philosophy. The book is divided into three parts. Part I argues that a number of popular philosophical tools such as thought experiments are poorly calibrated for providing guidance to policymakers. It advances a new approach to philosophy, which draws both on pragmatism and on complex systems science. Part II examines the role of ethical values in public health. It argues that certain commonly expressed worries about public health paternalism are much less convincing than is often thought. It further argues that individuals have a right to public health. If a state does not take easy steps to reduce risks to health, then it will often violate individuals’ right to public health, and should be criticized as a Neglectful State. Part III integrates the complex systems analysis developed in Part I with the ethical framework developed in Part II. It examines three spheres in which public health policy needs to make choices—responsibility, equality, and networks, focusing on three challenges: (1) how to make use of judgements of responsibility, and whom to hold responsible; (2) how to specify the goal of health equity and how to pursue it and (3) the implications of the fact that most health risks are contagious or can be amplified by socially mediated networks of causes.

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