ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to illustrate a conception of power based on persuasion, or persuasive power, and proposes its role in shaping the potential for sustainable, healthy communities. It argues that persuasive power as an analytical tool sheds new light on the challenges to protecting community health and well being. Persuasive power often involves legitimation through implied connection to sovereign power, which can be employed to shape community and individual decision-making even in the absence of a legal foundation. Analysis of the Guidelines reveals several mechanisms through which persuasive power is channeled, including setting boundary limits on the conversational field, invoking and manipulating appeals to reason and appeals to values, capitalizing on technical ignorance and economic vulnerability, and linking to legitimated forms of sovereign power. The means of addressing persuasive power must come through the direct support of the sovereign to tease out, address, and ultimately combat persuasive power for the sake of protecting public health and well being.
