The Structural Configurations of Alcohol in Denmark: Policy, Culture, and Industry

Abstract

This article analyzes recent developments in Danish alcohol policy, culture, and industry. It reveals cross-sector dynamics and complexities that are often downplayed in existing literature. It traces how a stable “structural configuration” emerged in the 1960s-1980s between the three domains, based on liberalization. A particular adolescent alcohol culture of intoxication, however, emerged in the 1990s, raising public awareness and calls for policy intervention. Contrary to what may have been expected, this did not represent a break with the liberal alcohol configuration in policy, culture, and industry, but an increased segregation of adolescent consumption from adult consumption, exposing the former to severe legal and moral regulation. This analysis of historic-structural dynamics helps explain why adolescent drinking is dependent on more than isolated causal links such as between policy events and consumption.