This book analyses the battle for standardised cigarette packaging (‘plain packaging’) in Europe, drawing on the concepts of multi-level governance and policy transfer. This chapter provides the global context of the policy processes examined in the book and sets out the book’s aims and structure. It explains the importance of branding and pack design to transnational tobacco companies (TTCs), and details the emergence of related tobacco-control measures outside of Europe. In particular, it focuses on the introduction of standardised packaging in Australia. It then describes TTC political strategies in opposing such measures, via trade litigation and other methods. The chapter also sets out the research methods used to collect and analyse the empirical data used in the book.