Temperance and Modernity: Alcohol Consumption as a Collective Problem, 1885–1913

Abstract

My aim is to analyse how the alcohol question and its responses were framed in the formative period in 1885-1913, when the international anti-alcohol conferences were taking shape. How was the alcohol problem framed in terms of current discussions on general themes such as the individual's role in society, the challenges of modernity and the contribution of science in solving a problem that was traditionally seen as a moral issue? The anti-alcohol conferences of 1885-1913 can be seen as an arrangement for the modern state where the temperance movement placed itself in the service of the state and at the same time demanded that it be given some responsibility for the future development. These were years when the nation acted as a point of reference in several questions that were chafing within the modern project: population qualities and the condition of future generations, the notion of citizenship, industrial strength and competitiveness, the role and the strength of the state. That nation which desired industrial competitiveness, an efficient infrastructure and a strong military institution also did well to ally itself with those temperance advocates who met at the transnational anti-alcohol conferences. The nation which had such objectives and wanted to see sober and strong citizens was encouraged also by the progressive forces in the temperance movement to take up a whole host of issues from women's political status to an individual's sex life.

Taxation, State Formation, and Governmentality: The Historical Development of Alcohol Excise Duties in England and Wales

“…The changes described here are part of a wider development of statistical sources of demographic and economic information within Western societies (see Brewer 1988: 221–49; Hacking 1991; Higgs 2001). They also resonate with a growing political interest in the effects of alcohol consumption on the strength and quality of populations that has been identified in various Western countries in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century (Edman 2015; Valverde 1998). Specifically, it has been shown here that the administration of excise duties by an organized, professional bureaucracy instigated particular leaps forward in regard to understanding average drinking habits in England and Wales.…”

“…These changes would, it was envisaged, encourage individuals to exercise personal agency by making active choices to consume beer above spirits. This point is reminiscent of analyses of national and transnational temperance organizations and the manner in which their efforts to govern the consumption of alcohol were linked to the promotion of specifically modern forms of subjectivity based around the exercise of personal autonomy and individual self-control (Edman 2015; Sulkunen and Warpenius 2000; Yeomans 2011). From this perspective, the Beer Act can be linked to a wider political project of producing a particular ethical subjectivity, of generating the model individual of liberal thought who was autonomous and capable of self-improvement (see Rose et al 2006).…”

A thickening plot: components and complexities in the political framing of the smoking problem in Sweden, 1957–1993

“…Compared to other substance misuse, the institutional medicalisation of tobacco use came very late. Smoking has largely remained unopposed by the kind of public mass movements that emerged in the mid-19th century to fight alcohol and which were linked to such game-changing social questions as poverty and franchise (Edman, 2015). Nor has opposition to smoking been able to assume a symbolic value similar to the fight against drugs during the post-war era (Edman, 2013).…”

From Boredom to Dependence: The Medicalisation of the Swedish Gambling Problem

“…In her investigation of the early 1900s As has often been the case in debates of acute social problems -from sinful dancing (Frykman, 1988) to alcohol and drug misuse (Edman, 2015) -the protection of the youth was in focus also when the consequences of gambling were investigated (PB 1970:285;1971:16131972:18851887-18881974:841;1975:610;624;PR 1970:9, § 28;1974:67, § 3;1975/76:29, § 7). Problem gambling was also framed as time-consuming escapism, which drew attention to the non-working and economically vulnerable group of pensioners (PB 1974:841;1975:610;624;PR 1975/76:29, § 7).…”