Thinking About Drinking
Thinking About Drinking
How do we understand alcohol and how do these understandings shape its regulation? ‘Rational’ explanations of this relationship depict public attitudes and regulation as simple products of a straightforward comprehension of the objective social and individual harms which alcohol is causing. This chapter uses historical and comparative evidence to show that the variability of ‘drink problems’ across cultures and historical periods cannot be explained purely in reference to levels of consumption and harm. Instead, drawing on the concept of moral regulation, it is argued that empirical concentration on the problematisation of alcohol and attempts to regulate drinking will yield more satisfactory explanations.
Keywords: alcohol, drinking, moral regulation, moral panic, problematisation
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