Policy congruence and advocacy strategies in the discourse networks of minimum unit pricing for alcohol and the soft drinks industry levy

Abstract

Background and aim: Public health policy development is subject to a range of stakeholders presenting their arguments to influence opinion on the best options for policy action. This paper compares stakeholders' positions in the discourse networks of two pricing policy debates in the United Kingdom: minimum unit pricing for alcohol (MUP) and the soft drinks industry levy (SDIL).

Design: Discourse analysis was combined with network visualization to create representations of stakeholders' positions across the two policy debates as they were represented in 11 national UK newspapers.

Setting: United Kingdom.

Observations: For the MUP debate 1924 statements by 152 people from 87 organizations were coded from 348 articles. For the SDIL debate 3883 statements by 214 people from 175 organizations were coded from 511 articles.

Measurements: Network analysis techniques were used to identify robust argumentative similarities and maximize the identification of network structures. Network measures of size, connectedness and cohesion were used to compare discourse networks.

Findings: The networks for both pricing debates involve a similar range of stakeholder types and form clusters representing policy discourse coalitions. The SDIL network is larger than the MUP network, particularly the proponents' cluster, with more than three times as many stakeholders. Both networks have tight clusters of manufacturers, think-tanks and commercial analysts in the opponents' coalition. Public health stakeholders appear in both networks, but no health charity or advocacy group is common to both.

Conclusion: A comparison of the discourse in the UK press during the policy development processes for minimum unit pricing for alcohol and the soft drinks industry levy suggests greater cross-sector collaboration among policy opponents than proponents.

Keywords: Alcohol; discourse networks; health; policy; public health; sugar-sweetened beverages.