scholarly journals Framing the alcohol policy debate: industry actors and the regulation of the UK beverage alcohol market

2013 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-71 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin Hawkins ◽  
Chris Holden
Keyword(s):  
Alcohol Policy ◽  
Policy Debate ◽  
The Uk

The IMF, the UK Policy Debate, and Debt and Deficit Discourse

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ben Clift
Keyword(s):  
Adverse Effects ◽  
Coalition Government ◽  
Policy Debate ◽  
Fiscal Consolidation ◽  
Policy Space ◽  
Fiscal Multipliers ◽  
Scientific Image ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Deep Recession ◽  
The Imf

This chapter charts changing character of the economic ideas informing fiscal policymaking in Britain, and Fund responses to them. Drawing on interviews with the Fund’s UK Missions and UK authorities, it shows how, despite the IMF’s prizing of its non-political, scientific image, its differing views of UK policy space and prioritization became the stuff of a contested politics. The central assumption of the coalition government’s construction of fiscal rectitude was that Britain faced a ‘crisis of debt’, yet the IMF did not share this view. Fund work on fiscal multipliers being higher during recessions, and the adverse effects of fiscal consolidation on growth, all had pointed relevance for UK policy. The coalition government saw little potential for activist fiscal policy in support of growth. In 2013 Blanchard accused the UK authorities of ‘playing with fire’ by pursuing excessively harsh austerity which threatened a prolonged and deep recession.

scholarly journals In fear of a reversal back to the spirits-drinking era — the 2004 decrease of Finnish alcohol taxes in public discourse

2012 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 57-77 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matilda Hellman ◽  
Thomas Karlsson
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Alcohol Policy ◽  
Alcoholic Beverages ◽  
Health Concern ◽  
Drinking Patterns ◽  
Policy Debate ◽  
Public Health Perspective ◽  
Total Consumption

Aims The study investigates how the dissimilar tax reductions for different alcoholic beverages (spirits, wine and beer) were debated during the large tax decrease on alcoholic beverages in Finland in 2004. Design and Data The material comprises parliamentary proceedings and discussions, as well as daily press items (=105) from 2003–2004. Content analyses, both quantitative and qualitative, were performed. Results The parliament's discussion on the unequal treatment of different beverage types concerned mostly the overall framing of a public health perspective, differencing between consumption of “spirits” and “non-spirits”. The mass media framed the question mostly from the industry's point of view. Neither a clear support of the total consumption model (excluding specification of beverage sort), nor a strong liberalisation model for alcohol policy were expressed in the materials. Varying stances were merely motivated within a paradigm of “changing drinking patterns”. Conclusions The differing treatment of different beverage types, especially the large reductions in spirits taxes, was crystallised as the fundamental public health concern surrounding the decision to lower alcohol taxes. In the end of the article the authors ask whether the lack of clear stances other than the drinking pattern framing could imply that the Finnish alcohol policy debate has become more heterogeneous, neutralised or resigned in its basic nature.

scholarly journals The Finnish Drinking Habits Survey: Implications for alcohol policy and prevention

2020 ◽  
Vol 37 (6) ◽  
pp. 619-631
Author(s):  
Katariina Warpenius ◽  
Pia Mäkelä
Keyword(s):  
Alcohol Consumption ◽  
Risk Perceptions ◽  
Population Level ◽  
Alcohol Policy ◽  
Alcohol Prevention ◽  
Drinking Patterns ◽  
Policy Debate ◽  
Drinking Habits ◽  
Alcohol Related Harm ◽  
Related Harm

Aims/materials: This reflection piece reviews some of the key results and conclusions from the book Näin Suomi juo ( This is how Finns drink, 2018), based on the Finnish Drinking Habits Survey. Our aim was to go through the results taking the perspective of prevention workers and policymakers: how could they benefit from the scientific findings when tackling alcohol-related harm? Results/reflections: The reflections displayed in this article provide some useful arguments and justifications for population-level alcohol policy in the controversial alcohol policy debate. Harms do not only arise among the heaviest drinkers, and efficient methods to prevent harm may be found among the prevention efforts that apply to populations rather than only to the heaviest drinkers. The article also illustrates how the results from a population survey can be used in order to identify specific challenges and solutions for alcohol prevention in a given population. The results help in identifying the population groups and situations with an elevated risk of alcohol-related harm and in characterising the drinking patterns and social situations in which drinking takes place in these vulnerable parts of the population. Conclusions: The review illustrates that a many-sided understanding of alcohol consumption and the related harm, based on survey results, is more far-reaching in terms of prevention and policy than a knowledge base built solely on register data on the development of alcohol consumption and harm. For example, the respondents’ drinking patterns are linked not only to their attitudes and risk perceptions but also to what people consider to be appropriate means to reduce alcohol use and the related harm in terms of alcohol policy, informal social control and people’s life management.

America's health care dilemma: not a pretty sight

2007 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 341-346
Author(s):  
DAVID WILSFORD
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Local Politics ◽  
Max Weber ◽  
The United States ◽  
Policy Debate ◽  
Us Congress ◽  
Critical Junctures ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Right

As the American right wing’s control of national (and local) politics implodes in the United States, there is the inevitable hope wafting in the air as policy specialists and other political activists on the other side of the divide anticipate capturing the US presidency at the end of 2008 to go with the center-left’s majorities won in the US Congress at the end of 2006. And so, health care reform is once again on the march! Alas, if Max Weber was wise to have observed that ideas run upon the tracks of interests, implying clearly that some good ideas die their death because they do not find the right track of interests, while some tracks of interests go nowhere for lack of the right idea, the health policy debate still provides a Technicolor demonstration that the mish and mash of this and that is not yet pointing the country in any particular direction, regardless of election outcomes in 2006 and 2008. Worse yet, in spite of the great sociologist Reinhard Bendix’s demonstration in his masterwork Kings orPeople (1978) that non-incremental transformations often occur at critical junctures of a nation’s history due to the diffusion effects of ideas from abroad, there is no evidence in the current (or past) American debate that the country has ever learned anything at all or thinks it has anything at all to learn from the way these problems are grappled with, and more successfully, elsewhere. (Oh, let’s just take Japan, France, Germany, Spain, Canada, the UK, and a handful of other countries as quick examples.)

Social Science and the Evidence-based Policy Movement

2002 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 215-224 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ken Young ◽  
Deborah Ashby ◽  
Annette Boaz ◽  
Lesley Grayson
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Gold Standard ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Policy Research ◽  
Evidence Based ◽  
Policy Debate ◽  
Evidence Based Policy ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Effective Contribution

There is a growing interest in ‘evidence-based policy making’ in the UK. However, there remains some confusion about what evidence-based policy making actually means. This paper outlines some of the models used to understand how evidence is thought to shape or inform policy in order to explore the assumptions underlying ‘evidence-based policy making.’ By way of example, it considers the process of evidence seeking and in particular the systematic review as a presumed ‘gold standard’ of the EBP movement. It highlights some of the opportunities and challenges represented in this approach for policy research. The final part of the paper outlines some questions of capacity that need to be addressed if the social sciences are to make a more effective contribution to policy debate in Britain.

Attitudes toward Alcohol Policy in Six EU Countries

2002 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 605-618 ◽  
Author(s):  
Örjan Hemström
Keyword(s):  
Public Attitudes ◽  
Control Policy ◽  
Alcohol Policy ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Alcohol Control ◽  
Logistic Regressions ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Representative Samples ◽  
Attitudes Toward Alcohol

This study explores differences between Sweden, Finland, the United Kingdom, Germany, France and Italy regarding public attitudes toward alcohol control policy (measured by a statement that the government has a responsibility to keep down how much people drink). Cross-national representative samples of around 1,000 respondents 18–64 years old in each country were analyzed. A large majority of people in Italy and Sweden (about 75%) supported governmental responsibility for alcohol control. This was the case for 60% in France and for 48% in the UK, whereas in Finland and Germany those who were supportive constituted a minority (38% and 29%). After controlling for social factors in logistic regressions, this pattern was unaltered and clearly significant. The attitude was strongly related to alcohol consumption: in all six countries, non-drinkers and low consumers were most supportive and high consumers least supportive. Limitations of the data and potential explanations of the findings are discussed.

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