Political Science and Tobacco Policy

Abstract

Tobacco policy has long been recognised as a major concern in public health. It is also a key issue in political science and public policy research for four main reasons. First, as a policy problem it has some unusual features. Smoking is legal, but represents the number one preventable cause of premature death and disease in the world. Second, tobacco policy contains elements of both stability and instability. It provides one of the most significant examples of major policy change in the developed world. A post-war picture characterised by limited governmental intervention (to control tobacco) has been replaced, in many countries, by a comprehensive set of measures designed to reduce smoking and limit the activities of tobacco companies and, at the global level, by a major public health treaty – the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) of the World Health Organisation (WHO). Third, it provides one of the most important examples of power and politics in the modern world. We can link initial levels of stability and continuity to a great imbalance of power and resources in favour of transnational tobacco companies at the expense of anti-smoking groups. Fourth, it provides an extensive source of information on comparative public policy processes and outcomes. In particular, it allows us to examine the policy divide between developed and developing countries (as categorised by the United Nations).¹