Elliott, Lana M., Waqa, Gade D., Ravuvu, Amerita L.A., Dalglish, Sarah L., and Topp, Stephanie M. (2024) Watered down: a cross-case political economy analysis of sugar-sweetened beverage taxes in Vanuatu and Fiji. Health Promotion International, 39. daae142.

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Abstract

axes on sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) in Vanuatu and Fiji are praised for their alignment with the World Health Organization’s noncommunicable diseases Best Buy policy recommendations. SSB taxes also intersect with economic, trade and commercial interests as well as complex domestic and international power dynamics. Yet, to date, the role of these broader interests and power dynamics in shaping SSB tax adoption in Vanuatu and Fiji has remained underexamined. Drawing on Bourdieu’s forms of capital and triangulating interview (n = 50), document (n = 461) and observational data, this cross-case political economy analysis sought to understand where forms of power reside, how they manifest, and what impact they have on the alignment between SSB tax in Vanuatu and Fiji and national and global goals and priorities. Three interconnected themes emerged from the analysis: the influence of domestic industry actors in a context of shifting fiscal and trade incentives; the pivotal agenda-setting role of pro-tax multisectoral coalitions and the way political instability lent importance to informal policy processes. Findings evidence the varying influence of economic, social, and cultural capitals across the policy cycle and showcase the way in which actors strategically deployed, lost or re-imagined their capitals to secure policy influence. Importantly, cultural capital was essential to leveraging influence across the policy cycle and more inward-facing systems favoured the protection of domestic actors and industries, including their economic capital. From a health perspective, these political forces ultimately culminated in weaker or ‘watered down’ SSB taxes in both Vanuatu and Fiji

Item ID:	84876
Item Type:	Article (Research - C1)
ISSN:	1460-2245
Copyright Information:	© The Author(s) 2024. Published by Oxford University Press. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Date Deposited:	13 Mar 2025 00:22
FoR Codes:	42 HEALTH SCIENCES > 4206 Public health > 420603 Health promotion @ 100%
SEO Codes:	20 HEALTH > 2004 Public health (excl. specific population health) > 200499 Public health (excl. specific population health) not elsewhere classified @ 100%
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