THE ALCOHOLIC ISSUE: THE REVERSE SIDE OF SOVIET HEALTH-SAVING IDEOLOGY (HISTORIOGRAPHY AND STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM)

The purpose of this study is to collect, analyze, and uncover the causal relationships between the ideology of political meaning and the formation of healthy lifestyle morals in the USSR. The research focuses on the study of the alcohol issue in the Soviet period of the country’s development. The scientific novelty lies in a serious attempt to collect and process on a large scale the above-mentioned information, which is largely fragmented in the research space. As a result of the conducted work, an extensive source base on the topic, catalog material of alcoholic beverages is analyzed, and a comparative analysis of scholarly views on the problem is presented.

Modernization Potential Capacity of Great Reforms of Alexander Ii: Alcohol Reform of 1863

Serfdom and alcohol tax farming emerged in Russia almost simultaneously – at the end of the XVI century. 250 years later again at the same time serfdom and tax farming were abolished. The alcohol reform of 1863 is one of the greatest events of the day. Despite the limitations of the proclaimed goals, this transformation had a significant modernization potential capacity and was systemic. In the course of its implementation not only did change the way of collecting alcohol charges. The entire related reality was radically altered: industrial production, agriculture, trading, system of public administration, social relations. The replacement of tax farming with the excise system, as well as the elimination of serfdom, was the basis and condition for future transformations of 1860s-1870s, which otherwise, like seeds thrown into the unprepared field, would be doomed to miserable stagnation or even death. Evaluation of the transformation effectiveness concerning the alcohol issue was made on the basis of a set of indicators related to modernization. In the economic sphere, the alcohol reform resulted in the development of new technologies based on the use of scientific (rational) knowledge, the enhanced division of labor, the complication of alcohol production organization, increasing incentives for the creation and implementation of technological and organizational innovations, the growth of production indicators; the social sphere witnessed a replacement of direct and direct control by universal regulators of activity, minimizing the dependence of professional growth on personal ties; in the political sphere there was the creation of effective management bodies, the growing number of channels of participation of public institutions in alcohol policy. But in the country itself there remained the traditional form of strong drinks consumption. Moreover, the process of modernization gave rise to a compensatory effect, which was expressed in the increase of people's drunkenness

Drink wisely Australians, but keep drinking: does the alcohol industry in Australia frame the discourse on alcohol to maintain hegemony?

Public health literature proposes that the Australian alcohol industry–funded organisation DrinkWise is a Social Aspects Public Relations Organisation (SAPRO) that favours industry over public interests by deploying ineffective alcohol harm reduction strategies. This research addresses a gap in the critical public relations literature by investigating these claims through an examination of DrinkWise’s source media content. Content and rhetorical framing analysis revealed how the organisation framed the alcohol issue, as well as identifying the messages and message audiences of their media releases. Results supported extant research suggesting that DrinkWise is insulating the alcohol industry against evidence-based public health harm reduction strategies, by engaging in agenda building through industry-friendly framing of the alcohol issue, and dissemination of information subsidies to elites and policy-makers. We discuss the conclusions through a lens of hegemony and develop an argument that DrinkWise media relations is a strategy to maintain a hegemonic individual responsibility ideology.

The Italian “alcohol question” from 1860 to 1930: Two opposing scientific interpretations

Petrilli, E., & Beccaria, F. (2015). The Italian “alcohol question” from 1860 to 1930: Two opposing scientific interpretations. The International Journal Of Alcohol And Drug Research, 4(1), 37-43. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.7895/ijadr.v4i1.193Background: In recent years, English-speaking and Northern European alcohol researchers have turned a historical gaze towards their subject, and in particular have explored how a medical view attempted to describe and explain phenomena such as alcohol abuse and addiction. Although there was a heated and prolific debate in Italy in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, there are few historical studies of the first scholars’ thoughts on alcohol-related problems.Aims: The article depicts how the Italian scientific community interpreted and explained alcohol-related concerns following the emergence of the alcohol issue in the late 19th century. Specifically, the stances of the two main groups of scientists who dealt with the issue, the Positive School of Criminology and Legal Socialism, are examined.Method: The article is based on the materials collected by the Italian research group during a comparative study carried out as part of the ALICE RAP project. More than 40 books and five scientific journals were consulted.Results: Medical-related concerns were never predominant in the late 19th-century Italian debate on the alcohol question, but were addressed in the broader discussion of criminality, where positivists’ and legal socialists’ perspectives both focused mainly on social consequences, albeit with differing interpretations of causalities and remedies.

The Italian “alcohol question” from 1860 to 1930: Two opposing scientific interpretations

Petrilli, E., & Beccaria, F. (2015). The Italian “alcohol question” from 1860 to 1930: Two opposing scientific interpretations. The International Journal Of Alcohol And Drug Research, 4(1), 37-43. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.7895/ijadr.v4i1.193Background: In recent years, English-speaking and Northern European alcohol researchers have turned a historical gaze towards their subject, and in particular have explored how a medical view attempted to describe and explain phenomena such as alcohol abuse and addiction. Although there was a heated and prolific debate in Italy in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, there are few historical studies of the first scholars’ thoughts on alcohol-related problems.Aims: The article depicts how the Italian scientific community interpreted and explained alcohol-related concerns following the emergence of the alcohol issue in the late 19th century. Specifically, the stances of the two main groups of scientists who dealt with the issue, the Positive School of Criminology and Legal Socialism, are examined.Method: The article is based on the materials collected by the Italian research group during a comparative study carried out as part of the ALICE RAP project. More than 40 books and five scientific journals were consulted.Results: Medical-related concerns were never predominant in the late 19th-century Italian debate on the alcohol question, but were addressed in the broader discussion of criminality, where positivists’ and legal socialists’ perspectives both focused mainly on social consequences, albeit with differing interpretations of causalities and remedies.

New narratives, new narrators? Alcohol and alcohol policies in the Swedish press during the 1990s

During the years around 1990, several policy and economic events occurred which had significant effects on the Swedish society. In this context, critique against the welfare state grew and the traditional roles of the state and the individual were challenged. The legitimacy and efficiency of Swedish alcohol policy was also called into question. The article describes and analyses how portrayals of alcohol, alcohol problems and alcohol policies have changed during the 1990s in the Swedish press. Despite the growth of media like television and the Internet, the daily press must still be considered an important source of information and also an active constructor of reality. The analysis is based on different samples of press articles during the studied period. Special attention is paid to different actors/narrators, their argumentation and how they perceive the individual and the state as legitimate actors and controllers of our drinking habits. The analysis shows that the dominant restrictive alcohol discourse, based on the total consumption model, public health perspectives and universal and restrictive alcohol policy measures, gradually has been challenged by a liberal discourse in which individual freedom, market liberalism and consumer perspectives are put forward as guiding principles for alcohol policies. A ‘sensible drinking’ perspective has seriously weakened the traditional perspective where alcohol- related problems have been situated as the legitimate foundation for policies. Finally, the ongoing redefinition of the alcohol issue also has made it possible for new narrators, for instance, business representatives, to take part in and significantly influence the alcohol discourse.

Alcohol, Politics and Social Policy

ABSTRACTThe growing awareness of the importance of lifestyle factors in the prevention of ill-health has stimulated a number of policy studies. But of the main causes of preventable ill-health alcohol misuse has been comparatively neglected, in spite of the fact that it also has wider implications for a range of other social problems. This article attempts to fill this gap by charting the development of alcohol policy and the alcohol issue over the last three decades. The main intention is to explain why the policy has taken its present form. At the same time it sheds some light on why a more comprehensive alcohol policy has been rejected by successive UK governments. As a framework, three potential explanations for this rejection are outlined: opposition by powerful interest groups; the hostility of voters and politicians; and opposition by government bureaucracies. The analysis thus provides an opportunity to test the relevance of these theories in an area of policy which has wide implications for social welfare.