stakeholder = 'a party with any sort of interest whatsoever'

[Michael Quinion]

David Daniel wrote:

> I see it used on a daily basis in UK business speak to mean anyone
> involved, even peripherally or indirectly. Unions etc. are definitely
> included.

That fits my own observations. In political contextsin the UK, the term is
often widely drawn to include large groups of involved individuals, up to
the "everybody who may be peripherally interested" level that Bill Mullins
mentioned, though rarely as widely as this comment by Sebastian Coe about
the 2010 London Olympics:

In the past five years, I´ve talked frequently about the importance of our
stakeholders. This year, we are asking our most important stakeholder -
the 60 million people in this country - to make sure they play a part in
the greatest show on earth in 2012.
[Daily Telegraph, 13 Jan. 2011.]

--
Michael Quinion
Editor, World Wide Words
Web: http://www.worldwidewords.org

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