Politics and fantasy in UK alcohol policy: a critical logics approach

ABSTRACT

The Scottish Government’s policy of minimum unit price (MUP) for alcohol has received significant scholarly attention. Much of the focus of this literature has been on the efforts by sections of the alcohol industry to oppose the policy, including attempts to ‘frame’ key terms of the debate and an understanding of its legitimacy and effects within the wider field of interpretative policy analysis. The present article builds on these studies by re-conceptualizing the MUP debate through the lens of post-structuralist discourse theory and the logics of critical explanation that emerge from this. It argues that the success and failure of MUP (as a projected social logic) can be understood through the shifting coalitions of actors that emerged (political logics) and the affective hold that industry narratives were able to exert (fantasmatic logics) in this context. While focused on UK alcohol policy, the article speaks to a wider research agenda on the ‘commercial determinants of health’ and, through the application of the critical logics approach, offers new analytical insights beyond those provided by existing models of industry influence. Similarly, it contributes to the field of post-structural policy analysis through its novel focus on the role of commercial entities as health policy actors.

KEYWORDS:

• Critical logics
• alcohol policy
• alcohol industry
• fantasy
• UK

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

MvS is funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Doctoral Fellowship (NIHR3000156), and her research is also partially supported by the NIHR Applied Research Collaboration North Thames. The views expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the funders or their staff. BH's position is funded by Medical Research Council (Grant Number: MC_UU_00006/7).

Notes on contributors

Benjamin Hawkins

Benjamin Hawkins is Senior Research Associate at the MRC Epidemiology Unit, University of Cambridge. His work focuses on the political economy and regulation of alcohol and tobacco at the national, regional, and global levels, including the implications of international trade and investment agreements and European single market laws for national health policies. His work uses qualitative research methods including semi-structured interviews and documentary analysis and draws on a range of theoretical approaches including frmaing and discourse theory.

May CI van Schalkwyk

May CI van Schalkwyk is a medical doctor and entered specialty training in August 2016 as a Public Health Specialty Registrar and NIHR Academic Clinical Fellow. She has conducted research on trade governance and health, and the commercial determinants of health. She has published on Brexit, trade policy governance, as well as on the tobacco, alcohol, and gambling industries, including on the activities of industry formed and funded organizations.