Enhancing our understanding of the commercial determinants of health: Theories, methods, and insights from political science

Public health researchers concerned with the commercial industry's influence over health policy have contrib-uted to the development of a new field of inquiry, Corporative Political Activity (CPA). While the CPA literature has improved our understanding of the tactics that industries use to influence health policy and outcomes, ironically, this literature appears to have fallen short of thoroughly engaging those social science disciplines focusing on the relationship between industry and government in the policymaking process, such as political science. The purpose of this article is to reveal how political science theory and method can generate new research questions for CPA scholars; propose alternative qualitative methodological approaches to causal inference, with a focus on historical and temporal analysis; and establish adequacy in causal mechanisms. The application of political science theories and methods may assist CPA researchers in their efforts to explain the durability and efficacy of CPA political tactics at the domestic government level, which of these tactics are more important, while providing greater depth into explaining how and why industries continue to obstruct policy -making. The author then propose an alternative political science analytical framework, Political Analysis of Corporate Political Activity (PACPA), that may provide a more thorough understanding of the politics of the commercial sector's policy influence. This framework integrates the political science literature highlighting the political and institutional contexts shaping interest group activities and policymaking influence along with the CPA literature discussing these issues, through a historically-based qualitative case study approach emphasizing the causal mechanisms behind industry's political activities. With respect to methodology, this article relied on an analysis of qualitative documents through a variety of on-line search engines and the author's extensive knowledge of the topic. Select case studies were used as illustrations supporting the author's claims. This research began in November 2020 and concluded in June 2021.

Automated summary

This article discusses the research field of Corporate Political Activity (CPA), explores the application of political science theories and methods in CPA research, and proposes an alternative political science analytical framework (PACPA) to better understand the political influence of the commercial sector on policy.