Eros: intermedio mediador

The soda tax first became a legislative initiative in 2012. Senator Marcela Torres from National Action Plan (Partido Acción Nacional- PAN), the largest party opposing the President’s party Democratic Revolution Party (Partido de la Revolución Democrática- PRD), submitted it to a vote. A member of an international agency said in an interview that ‘the initiative was a result of [this] Senator working with the civil society and academics’. According to Kingdon’s analytical framework, non-state influences or non-state policy entrepreneurs use agenda-setting opportunities (policy windows), such as the collaboration with the Senator, to include issues of interest on the policy agenda (Howlett et al., 2009, p. 103).

When this legislative initiative was submitted to a vote, other initiatives were also emerging in both legislative chambers. However, none of them included a fiscal measure. Thus, awareness of obesity as a public health issue was a clear concern in policy discussions within the legislative, and dialogue about the obesity problem was leading to a search for potential political solutions (Thomas, 2001). One legislator stated the following:

We [deputies of our party] made calls for actions, declarations, resolutions where we mentioned obesity as an important public health problem. (LEG)

Support of non-state actors in formulating soda tax initiative

Accounts consistently show that civil society and academia were part of the process of policy formulation of the soda tax initiative. Some civil society groups acknowledged that they participated in this process, mainly through three different strategies. First, they ‘persuaded’ the legislators to support the legislative initiative.

Second, they brought together various actors, such as legislators and academics, and reached out to other civil society organisations, as described by a member of an international organisation:

The INSP, the group El Poder del Consumidor (a civil society organisation) and an advocacy group called Polithink that worked to

of the year [2012]. Each group has different projects and works with different organisations. (IAM)

Third, they helped encourage the inclusion of evidence and academics’

recommendations in the legislative initiative by working with several academic institutions and ‘provided a lot of evidence and international experience’ (IAM).

Academics and international organisations were invited to formally advise the Senator Marcela Torres, and some months later (Figure 7.1) the Senate invited the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) Mexican office to collaborate. One international organisation representative noted the following:

We received the invitation from the Senate to help in this initiative [the soda tax] and facilitate information available in the organisation, but [we] also were in frequent conversations with the MoH to share everything we were working on and the experience the Congress was having with this initiative. (IAM)

Subsequently, PAHO created a team of advisers that included several organisations, including the INSP, a MoH representative, other UN agencies such as FAO and UNICEF, Polithink and BP, to devise a strategy. In this regard, one interviewee said the following:

At least once a month, we were gathering to share what everyone was doing and defining strategies that could help consolidate the law initiative that the Congress would present to achieve approval of the majority. (IAM)

Legislators’ positions in supporting and opposing the initiative

Other than Senator Marcela Torres’s allies (other senators, Polithink, Fundación Mídete, Contra Peso ANSA), not many actors form the Senate participated in the formulation of the soda tax initiative. Other legislators and food and beverage industry (F&BI) representatives reacted to the proposal only later. First, several legislators from the proponent’s party and the opposing party expressed divided opinions:

The coordinator of the chamber didn’t want me to present it [legislative initiative], so I needed to impose by being accompanied with 24 other senators, 12 of my party and 12 of other parties […].

(LEG)

A civil society member confirmed that the Senate chamber president, ‘who is totally pro-industry’, had decided to reduce the initially proposed soda tax of 20% and to not pass the legislative initiative. These accounts indicate the strong opposition inside the Senate chamber at that time. Additionally, and even though no formal accounts are available to verify lobbying efforts at legislative offices, one legislator mentioned that F&BI representatives visited all Senators who signed the legislative initiative. She also noted:

A Senator of my party represents the soda industry, and she radically opposed my legislative initiative. We even had personal problems inside our own party […]. (TTM)

One interviewee described the F&BI lobbying as follows:

Immediately after presenting the initiative, I had visits from the soda industry people, with studies supported by them telling me that soda was a clean liquid, that it is a safe source of drinking water, that it is part of the poorest Mexicans’ diet and that jobs would be threatened, as well as the whole economy in Mexico, that we would have problems with sugar cane producers, and all the little family stores would be affected because 80% of what they sell is soda. I argued against each of the arguments they gave me. (LEG)

Many legislators from other parties who opposed the soda tax remained silent. A think tank member noted that when the discussion started, the PRI legislators were silent on this aspect, and ‘they did not pronounce themselves in favour or against the tax,’ and it was mainly ‘because the Fiscal Reform was coming’ (TTM).

The widespread silence among the legislators of the new presidential party, Institutional Revolution Party (Partido de la Revolución Institucional- PRI), may have been due to a desire to ‘close’ the policy window opened by the PNA Senator’s soda tax proposal. And before taking a stand for or against a policy proposed by the opposing party, legislators were waiting until the federal government first set out its agenda.

Although multiple obesity-prevention legislative proposals, including the soda tax, were presented to vote in 2012, none of them were passed in the Congress (both Senate and Deputies chambers), where the majority represented the elected President’s party. Instead, all obesity issues were withheld until the new federal administration took office. This strategy would give the federal government a positive image as being proactive in dealing with obesity, as politicians choose polices that ‘best promote their electoral appeal and gives more room for manoeuvre’ (Majone, 1989, p. 76).

As mentioned in Kingdon’s framework, policymaking refers to a condition of ambiguity and ‘a state of having many ways of thinking about the same circumstances’ (Feldman, 1991, p. 5), as illustrated in this case. Ambiguity creates stress and confusion (Zahariadis, 2014, p. 26). For instance, whether taxing soda was a health, political, financial or moral decision was kept ambiguous, given the context of the country. The interviewees considered the Senate an institution with internally conflicting missions (Marks & Thompson, 2011). Additionally, they also revealed how the F&BI engaged in persistent lobbying as a corporate political activity (Mialon et al., 2015, p. 519).