The Political Power of Bad Ideas: Networks, Institutions, and the Global Prohibition Wave

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The Political Power of Bad Ideas

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The Political Power of Bad Ideas Networks, Institutions, and the Global Prohibition Wave Mark Lawrence Schrad

1 2010

1 Oxford University Press, Inc., publishes works that further Oxford University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education. Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With offices in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Copyright © 2010 by Oxford University Press, Inc. Published by Oxford University Press, Inc. 198 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016 www.oup.com Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford University Press. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Schrad, Mark Lawrence. The political power of bad ideas: networks, institutions, and the global prohibition wave / Mark Lawrence Schrad. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-19-539123-7 1. Policy sciences—Case studies. 2. Culture diffusion—Political aspects— Case studies. 3. Prohibition. 4. Temperance. 5. Globalization—Case studies. I. Title. JF1525.P6S37 2010 320.6—dc22 2009023027

9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper

To my parents—Dale and Paula—with love and gratitude.


Acknowledgments

Most books begin by listing the author’s accumulated intellectual debts and the various institutions that have financially supported their far-flung academic endeavors. I’d like to buck that trend by thanking first and foremost the U.S. housing bubble, without which this current book could not have been possible. When it became painfully obvious that a multicountry, multiregional, comparative archival investigation did not meet the funding requirements of the usual foundations, the only source of funding for the required fieldwork became a second mortgage on our modest Madison bungalow, which by mid-decade was annually appreciating in value more than I was actually earning as a lecturer at the University of Wisconsin. We could not have capitalized on this opportunity were it not for my parents, who have given more of themselves than anyone I know. My father, Dale was always there with an encouraging word and has taught me some of the most important skills I now possess—framing, drywalling, tiling, electrical, and household repair. My mother, Paula, was always willing to drop whatever she was doing to move in with us and help take care of the family while I was researching, writing, or conducting fieldwork out of the country. I’ve never heard of someone helping out quite like this—but then again, I’ve never known anyone more caring than her. Thank you. This book is very much a Schrad brothers’ production: my brother Dan provided the cover design, while my other brother, Kent, aided with editing and indexing. All complaints associated with either aspect should be accordingly directed to them. My wife, Jennifer, is truly the unsung hero of this story. Not only did she have the responsibility for bringing-home the bacon with a “real job” during our years in Madison, now she has the exhausting task of raising our wonderful children—Alexander, Sophia, and Helena—while dad is holed-up in a distant office, or a cold, damp, unfurnished basement. I will never be able to fully convey my deep love, appreciation, and adoration for you. I owe a longstanding intellectual debt to Murray Feshbach, who taught me early on that the most interesting political questions are those basic issues of life and death that impact people on a daily basis. I am likewise

viii

Acknowledgments

indebted to my former dissertation committee, most notably Mark Beissinger, whose continuing insight and assistance, though often from afar, have been invaluable. Byron Shafer provided a great deal of inspiration and encouragement to a latecomer to the world of American political studies, and Jon Pevehouse anchored my work on transnationalism into a solid IR context. John Witte and Ted Gerber gave insightful comments throughout the manuscript. I also benefited tremendously from conversations with Scott Gehlbach, Nadav Shelef, Barry Burden, Orfeo Fioretos, Ed Friedman, Crawford Young, and Ann Fishback-Rivlin, while Joel Rivlin, John Coleman, Graham Wilson, Frank Baumgartner, and Bryan Jones, offered constructive feedback on American policy development. Paul Hutchcroft always lent an ear to my concerns and helped schedule teaching arrangements around my duties as a new father, while Deb McFarlane, Marilyn Price, Debbie Bakke, Tammi Kuhl, Diane Morauske, and J. D. “Drew” Stathus all provided invaluable assistance during my time in North Hall. I need to thank Kate Weaver and Mike Mosser for guiding me up that hill in the first place. Upon relocating to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, I have benefited immensely from the friendship and kindness of Jeremy Duff, Bill Bernhard, Paul Diehl, Mark Steinberg, Jose Antonio Cheibub, Zach Elkins, Carol Leff, Tracy Sulkin, John Vasquez, Marie Henehan, Joe Hinchliffe, Denise Davis, Margarita Ham, and Brenda Stamm. In Sweden I would like to thank above all Tove Lindén for her gracious hospitality and stimulating intellectual conversation. I also appreciate the assistance and insight provided by Dr. Robin Room and his staff at the Centre for Social Research on Alcohol and Drugs (SoRAD) at Stockholm University, and the library at the Centralförbundet för alkohol- och narkotikaupplysning (CAN). The archivists at the Riksarkivet, both at Marieberg and Arninge, as well as the Arbetarrörelsens arkiv och bibliotek and Kugliga biblioteket in Stockholm all provided wonderful services despite my broken Swedish. In helping me to understand the particularities of Swedish politics and temperance history, I am especially indebted to conversations with Bo Rothstein, Per Frånberg, and Lennart Johansson. Partial funding for my Swedish fieldwork was graciously provided by the Consulate General of Sweden and a fellowship from the American-Scandinavian Foundation, as well as the Vilas Travel Grant through the University of Wisconsin. In Moscow, I am forever grateful to Georgia, Andrew, and Elizabeth Williams and to the Russian Orphan Opportunity Fund (ROOF)—whose impassioned work with Russia’s neediest borders on saintly—for their wonderful hospitality that made my Russian fieldwork possible, and heaven forbid, even enjoyable. I also feel compelled to mention the assistance of the librarians at the State Archives of the Russian Federation, the Russian State (Lenin) Library, and the Russian State Archive of the Economy. I would

Acknowledgments

ix

especially like to thank David McBride and Oxford University Press for allowing this project to ultimately see the light of day. Integrating the helpful insights of the anonymous reviewers, Dave made this a much better book than it would have otherwise been; not in the least by saving it from the title I had originally given this project: a title so dismal and vile that it dare never again be repeated aloud. Finally, I would like to acknowledge the love and support of family and friends too numerous to mention—from Iowa to Washington, D.C., from Madison to Champaign and beyond. Of special note are the longstanding friendships that have supported our family from afar through difficult years, including Scott and Mary Schnabel, Brian Varney, Steven Hughes, and Chris Walker. Quinn Ernster once vowed that he would never buy a book that I had written unless it mentioned him by name somewhere in it. Hey, guess what . . . ?


Contents

1

Introduction

3

2

The Transnational Temperance Network

31

3

American Prohibition Reconsidered

62

4

Avoiding the Prohibition Pitfall in Sweden

88

5

The Surprising Rise and Tenacity of Russian Prohibition

118

6

International Influences on National Alcohol Policymaking

146

7

Transnational Activism and National Policymaking

186

Archival Sources

211

Notes

215

Index

277




Chapter 1 Introduction

There is no social movement in our day more amazing than the world-wide rebellion against rum domination. Who would have dreamed that autocratic Russia would so soon become a prohibition nation? Whiskey-ridden England, . . . France, and even Germany, have taken steps to check the liquor traffic. Canada has outlawed the saloon from a number of her provinces. Newfoundland voted dry at an election last month. In our own country eighty per cent of the territory is dry and sixty-five per cent of the people are living in districts where the saloon is no longer tolerated. What is the basis of this world-wide phenomena? Such world movements were never built on sand foundations. —Rev. A. C. Archibald, “Explaining the World-Wide Prohibition Phenomena” (1915) The prohibition of alcohol was a mistake—a historic policy gaffe and a political fiasco. In the language of policy studies, it was a “suboptimal” policy option: a bad idea when compared with the more effective alternatives available. Novelist, historian, and social critic H. G. Wells famously lampooned “the crowning silliness of making prohibition a part of the Constitution of the United States” as the Eighteenth Amendment begot rampant corruption, bootlegging, and crime, eroded respect for law, and eliminated a valuable stream of government revenue by decimating an entire industry while miserably failing to achieve its purported aims of national sobriety, economic productivity, and communal moral salvation.1 As a result, this monumental domestic policy blunder would ultimately gain infamy as the only Amendment ever to be erased from the U.S. Constitution. While alcohol prohibition is often thought of as a uniquely American phenomenon—foisted upon an unwitting nation by a cabal of rural, Midwestern, evangelical temperance zealots—the truth is that the push for government restrictions on alcohol was global in scope. Coinciding with the outbreak of World War I, prohibition was adopted in ten countries in

4


addition to the United States, as well as countless colonial possessions—all with similar disastrous consequences, and in every case followed by repeal. The conventional wisdom views prohibition as the logical policy outcome of a cultural backlash against the forces of American urbanization and immigration, but that reasoning obviously does little to explain the near simultaneous adoption of prohibition in countries as diverse as Russia, Norway, Turkey, and Canada, or the expansion of organized temperance activities to virtually every state, colony, or protectorate around the globe (see Figure 1.1).2 While it is natural simply to assume that no one could have possibly foreseen that this so-called noble experiment would result in increases in crime, corruption, and disrespect for law, in reality the prevailing consensus of bureaucrats and policymakers in many North Atlantic countries at the turn of the last century was that prohibition was impractical for precisely those reasons. So, we are left with a puzzle: if so many policymakers and practitioners anticipated the failure of prohibition, how are we to explain the global wave of countries all rushing to adopt this “suboptimal” policy over the consensus view of their national policymakers, and all at the same time? In other words, how are we to explain the international diffusion of bad policy? Moreover, what does this diffusion of bad policy ideas tell us about differences in the creation of policies in different national contexts? Traditional accounts of international policy learning and diffusion are premised on the notion that policymakers scan the international horizon to identify “best practices” in a particular policy realm and then translate those policies into their domestic context. By dispensing with the default assumption that policymakers mindlessly mimic best practices, what can the global diffusion of alcohol prohibition tell us about the mechanisms of uncoordinated interdependence that connect policy developments in one country with those in another?3 Consequently, this book has a variety of interrelated goals: to tell the true story of international prohibition politics, and to consider what this diffusion of bad policy tells us about transnational networks, the influence of ideas on policies, and differences in institutional structures of decision making through a genuine exercise in comparative politics. To understand the dynamics of diffusion, we must first know something about the history of alcohol control in a diverse collection of countries in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, while also appreciating the temperance movement as a genuinely transnational conduit of policy ideas and vital actors that set the stage for the prohibition policy “wave” associated with World War I. Thus the early chapters of this book disproportionately focus on the historical background of prohibition politics, before gradually bringing these experiences into dialogue with the institutionalist and policystudies literatures.

Number of Countries under Statutory Alcohol Prohibition

10

8

Hungary 1919

6 Canada 1918–1920 Estonia 1917–1920

4

Turkey 1920–1924 Iceland: 1915–1

922

2

Newfoundland:

1915–1924

Norway: 1916–1

927

0

Belgium 1914

Finland: 1917–1932

Russia/USSR: 1914–192

5

USA: Wartime Pro 1912 1913 1914 hibition 1917–1 919; Volstead Ac 1915 1916 1917 t 1920–1933 1918 1919 1920 1921 1922 1923 1924 1925 1926 1927 1928 1929 1930

Year

Figure 1.1 Prohibition Countries, 1912–1935.

1931 1932 1933 1934 1935

6


TAKING PROHIBITION SERIOUSLY Viewed in both American and international contexts, alcohol prohibition is often dismissed as an anomaly—unceremoniously written off as nothing more than a “pseudo-reform” in Richard Hofstadter’s Pulitzer Prize– winning Age of Reform.4 Prohibition is indeed unusual in many ways: the Eighteenth Amendment was the only amendment to circumscribe personal liberty, and the Twenty-First was the only amendment to erase a mistaken provision from America’s foundational law. The dismissal of prohibition as a political phenomenon worthy of our attention is usually premised on its ultimate failure to achieve its aims, yet that should not prevent us from learning from what was otherwise a pioneering political movement, which mobilized policy ideas, entrepreneurs, and organizational resources to influence the policy process. After all, temperance was one of the first, highly influential social movements;5 alcohol control—up to and including prohibition—has been documented historically as the first social policy;6 and moreover, both the prohibition and repeal amendments to the American Constitution were enacted through normal democratic means. In sum, temperance and prohibition deserve to be more thoroughly studied as social movements, as public policy, and as having the potential to contribute to our understanding of the policymaking process. To that end, we should take a moment to become familiar with the basic histories of three vital countries in the global prohibition drama: the most famous (or infamous) prohibition in the United States; Russia as the world’s first prohibition country; and Sweden as the source of numerous policy alternatives to prohibition.

The United States Based on a rudimentary “if temperance, then prohibition” logic, traditional histories of prohibition in the United States focus on the evolution of a moralistic, nationwide temperance movement bent on rooting out “demon rum” at all costs. Accordingly, from the first statewide prohibition in Maine in 1851, advances in alcohol control legislation are seen as reflecting the growing influence of temperance organizations. The clouds of European war in 1914 were accompanied by a heightened wave of prohibitionist sentiment in the United States, ultimately culminating in the passing of the Eighteenth Amendment in 1918, following a temporary prohibition, which was declared as a wartime measure. The amendment was ratified with surprising speed by early 1919 and went into effect through the Volstead Act in early 1920— well after the cessation of European hostilities.

Introduction

7

Despite widespread lip service to the new law, the proliferation of speakeasies and bootlegging suggests that prohibition found only lukewarm resonance with prevailing public sentiments. Sensational accounts of Chicago gangland brutality symbolized the nationwide increase in corruption and organized crime that thrived on the illegal alcohol trade. Enforcement of prohibition became increasingly difficult, as smuggling and homebrewing were widely accepted with a wink and a nod: “prohibition is better than no liquor at all,” as satirist Will Rogers once quipped.7 Ineffective enforcement and eroding respect for law undercut support for prohibition, while the Great Depression gave economic impetus for the legalization of the alcohol trade, which would create much needed jobs and tax revenues. The defeat of the “dry” Republican Herbert Hoover at the hands of the “wet” Democrat Franklin Roosevelt in 1932 signaled the end of prohibition: the Twenty-First Amendment was subsequently ratified even faster than the Eighteenth had been, and by 1933 prohibition was repealed; the new amendment relinquished control over alcohol back to the states and effectively put alcohol control to bed as an issue of high politics. Yet fundamental questions remain unresolved according to the traditional “if temperance, then prohibition” account of American prohibition. In particular, how could so many have rushed to adopt such a bad policy so quickly?8 Moreover, how do we understand the massive swings of public sentiment evident in the wholehearted popular lunge toward prohibition, followed by an even more rapid leap to repeal only a dozen years later?

Russia/Soviet Union Unexpectedly, Imperial Russia was the first country to adopt nationwide prohibition in 1914—first as a measure to ensure an orderly mobilization for World War I, and subsequently made permanent by a decree of Tsar Nicholas II. This came as a surprise to many observers, since the autocracy had long subverted temperance organizations, which were seen as threatening bases of civic opposition to the imperial order. As it turns out, Russian prohibition was, if anything, more disastrous than in the United States, not only because of the predictable increases in lawlessness and revolutionary fervor, but also because with one fell swoop, the imperial government did away with the state liquor monopoly that had provided fully one third of the entire state budget—on the eve of the largest and most deadly military conflagration the world had ever witnessed. In the words of one commentator: Obeying the National Church of Russia, the Tsar issued his imperial decree establishing prohibition. Shortly thereafter prohibitionists in [the United States] gave wide publicity to the claim that prohibition had worked a revolution in the

8

The Political Power of Bad Ideas lives of the people of Russia. It worked the revolution alright, and both the church and the empire were overthrown and went down to destruction through the vortex of bolshevism and anarchy.9

If Russian prohibition was simply the whim of a doomed, out-of-touch autocrat, one would expect that after the overthrow of the tsar, the socialist, provisional government of Aleksandr Kerensky would repeal prohibition and regain a lucrative stream of revenue during a time of extreme financial crisis. Strangely, the provisional government held fast to prohibition and was itself overthrown by the Bol’shevik Revolution of October 1917—ushering in entirely new political, social, and economic arrangements that would bear little if any similarities to their imperial counterparts. Yet even Vladimir Lenin and the communists continued prohibition in Russia, despite the allure of sorely needed vodka revenues. Ultimately, prohibition was the only government policy on which the tsarist, provisional, and Bol’shevik governments were all in full agreement—a fact suggesting that prohibition was much more than simply a fatal blunder by an ill-fated tsar. The Soviet prohibition fell to the same pervasive pathologies as elsewhere, meeting with a gradual repeal in the late 1920s, as the vodka monopoly was reinstated under direct orders from Joseph Stalin. How are we to explain not only the surprising victory of the Russian darkhorse contender in the race to be the first country on earth to adopt prohibition, but also the surprising durability of the policy despite the most radical of political changes?

Sweden Before the tsar’s historic prohibition proclamation of 1914, Sweden was considered the front runner in the race to adopt national prohibition.10 Civic activists, and temperance organizations in particular, lauded the effectiveness of temporary prohibitory measures as ensuring that the national strike of 1909 ended peacefully. A resulting nationwide referendum recorded an astounding 99 percent majority in favor of prohibition. To be sure, it seemed like prohibition was a question of “when” rather than “if ” in Sweden. Consistent with the nascent Swedish corporatist system, in 1911 the government established a national Temperance Committee to study the pressing liquor question and draft alcohol control legislation. The push for prohibition kicked into high gear with the looming specter of European war and economic depression, as Sweden was cut off from its continental trading partners. Yet prohibition was never enacted in Sweden, which opted instead for a system of disinterested management and individual liquor rationing that would weather a democratic consultative referendum—the first of its kind in Sweden—and ultimately endure through the 1950s. So

Introduction

9

what happened? How did Swedish prohibitionists deftly snatch defeat from the jaws of victory? Why did a country that was seemingly so certain to have prohibition ultimately choose another path? The experiences of each country provoke a number of intriguing questions about the decision of each whether or not to adopt prohibition; each of these will be addressed more fully in subsequent chapters. Yet even setting these rudimentary histories side by side, we have reason to question the conventional “if temperance, then prohibition” wisdom gleaned from the American experience: we see in Russia the adoption of prohibition without a strong temperance movement, and no prohibition in Sweden despite a highly influential temperance movement. Clearly, then, the level of temperance activism in a country is not an accurate predictor of the ultimate adoption of the prohibition policy; such temperance ideas necessarily interact and must be translated into policy within each country’s distinctive policymaking institutions. Moreover, the conventional wisdom does little to explain why so many countries were enacting similar, and ultimately detrimental, controls on alcohol at the exact same time.

EXPLAINING THE PROHIBITION “WAVE” Examining particular policy outcomes in one country can quickly become a complicated matter: one has to consider not only the wide spectrum of policy alternatives and social attitudes toward policy change, but also the placement and strength of influential actors and their ideational predispositions within the institutions of decision making, as well as temporal attributes from when an issue gets placed on the legislative agenda to the final collective policy decision. Examining why a particular policy is adopted in many countries almost simultaneously multiplies this complexity: one considers not only such domestic factors and salient institutional differences between them, but also the transnational conduits of activism and information that link policy developments in one country with those in another. Therefore, we will find that the international “wave” of prohibition was actually more of a “perfect storm”—a combination of a number of diverse factors, both domestic and international, none of which alone could have resulted in the adoption of a widely acknowledged bad policy at the same time. In brief, the external crisis of a world war provided a common reagent for the dramatic translation of internationally shared temperance ideas into concrete policies through the broad national institutional channels of policymaking. War explains the timing, transnational temperance explains the direction, and domestic institutional constraints explain the form of alcohol policy change.

10


As we will see in chapter 2, a transnational temperance advocacy network linked like-minded activists across the globe. Throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, this network matured, integrating more and more individuals from a wide range of countries into a dense network of international communication. This activism not only bolstered the cause of temperance in each country by empowering and linking domestic activists, state representatives, and policymakers, but also conveyed information about relevant political developments in one country to those in others. Such transnational activism set the ideational stage for eventual policy action: the constant agitation of longstanding, internationally linked temperance activists not only influenced normative public sentiments in their home countries, but also provided background cognitive paradigms as to the desirability of alcohol control, which effectively placed the liquor question squarely on the political agenda in many countries at roughly the same time. Internationally linked temperance advocates also served as conduits for policy ideas in the foreground of the policy debate: the concrete policy alternatives, or programs, and the normative frames that served to justify them. Transnational networks provided a diverse range of potential policy “solutions” to the liquor problem for publics to consider and policymakers to debate, including local option, high license, excise taxation systems, monopolization, Gothenburg dispensaries, and of course, statutory prohibition. Along with such policy alternatives, transnational networks transmitted information as to the practicality, enforceability, effectiveness (as well as normative arguments as to the desirability) of one course of action over another. Such information provided normative frames—or “lenses” through which to view the alcohol problem and its potential remedies. In many ways, then, the transnational temperance advocacy network paved the way for the wave of policy change, though the particular course of policy action would be determined through domestic policymaking institutions. While temperance agitation may have eventually led to a similar course of policy change of its own accord, the “wave” of near simultaneous adoption of alcohol restrictions can be explained only with reference to the catalyzing effects of World War I. The crisis of war struck at the heart of Europe, impacting those European and North American countries that had for decades served as the core of the transnational temperance network. The political and economic crisis accompanying war opened a window for policy change even within countries that were not directly involved in the fighting, providing a common external stimulus that moved many pressing issues from the agenda-setting to the policy decision stage. The shortened time horizons for political action provided a shift from parallel to serial information processing, curtailed in-depth policy debate, and often led to a propensity to adopt simple, prepackaged solutions such as prohibition. These factors, coupled

Introduction

11

with the reframing of the alcohol issue as one of economic security and national defense, accounted for sudden changes in public and policymaker attitudes toward solutions to the alcohol question—though the form of the resulting restrictions was more the result of institutionalized channels of policy formation, which vary from one domestic structure to the next. The ultimate form of alcohol policy can be explained with reference to variations in the institutional channels of policymaking in each domestic context. In the American society- dominated system, the activation of institutional mechanisms of positive feedback resulted in public clamor for dramatic legislation, which was rapidly translated into prohibition first as a wartime measure, then as a permanent policy through constitutional amendment. In the Swedish corporatist system, similar calls for radical prohibition encountered numerous institutional constraints, including the insulation of policy decisionmakers from popular sentiments, the inclusion of diverse vested interests in a closed corporatist system, and an institutional predisposition for objective, cognitive ideational elements over normative appeals—all of which served as instruments of negative policy feedback that inhibited the adoption of a bad, albeit popular, policy in the form of absolute prohibition. In the autocratic Russian system, the insulation of imperial policymakers and the predisposition for normative appeals, combined with the positive feedback from an obsequious bureaucracy, facilitated the introduction of prohibition, first as a wartime measure, only to garner widespread support for the eventual declaration of a permanent prohibition. The revolutionary consequences of this decision in fomenting popular dissatisfaction and rampant inflation that ultimately consumed the imperial system itself should not be easily dismissed. While there certainly is not a simple, one-to-one correlation between type of government and the adoption or rejection of alcohol prohibition, a structured comparison of the politics of prohibition in diverse institutional contexts not only enhances our understanding of this unusual international policy development, but also highlights important inherent differences between various institutional contexts of decision making.

“ . . . BETTER THAN NO LIQUOR AT ALL:” PROHIBITION UNDERSTOOD AS BAD POLICY Both in the United States and abroad, prohibition is often referred to apologetically as the “noble experiment”: noble in spirit, but an experiment that ultimately failed and that was indeed doomed to fail.11 While it is natural to assume that no one could have foreseen the increased corruption, lawlessness,

12


and negative social and economic externalities associated with prohibition before the policy was actually in place, in reality, the failings of prohibition were quite well known to bureaucrats and policymakers of the time. As subsequent chapters will demonstrate, official and quasi-official policy studies by the Swedish Temperance Committee, the imperial Russian Commission on the Question of Alcohol, the American Committee of Fifty, and numerous independent and government-commissioned studies from a variety of countries had, by the dawn of the twentieth century, come to similar conclusions that radical prohibition measures were unenforceable, unfeasible, and would ultimately prove counterproductive. Even the Volstead Act, which legislated enforcement of the Eighteenth Amendment in the United States, had to be carried over the veto of the practicality-minded President Woodrow Wilson, who had significant reservations concerning its enforceability.12 Yet in spite of this policymaker consensus, with the coming of the Great War there occurred a global wave of restrictions against the liquor trade: most countries of the “civilized” world increased state control of alcohol, and the United States and ten other countries rushed to adopt a widely known bad idea. Why would so many different countries—with widely differing systems of government—adopt so bad a policy at the same time? What makes for a “bad” policy? Beyond subjective editorializing on unpopular policy decisions, the notion of “policy failure” is occasionally used in the policy-studies literature to refer to “inefficient” or “suboptimal” policies, without regard to content or to the context in which it was promoted.13 I define bad policy in terms of both effectiveness and externalities: a policy is bad when it is known to be a less-than-optimal means of achieving its advocates’ stated goals when compared with existing policy alternatives, and when its implementation creates new (or exacerbates existing) policy problems requiring additional government action. While it would be tempting to define bad policy in terms of policy duration (whether or not the policy was ultimately repealed, as prohibition was), this definition neglects two possibilities: first, that the political context and the appropriateness of a particular course of political action may change over time, and second, that even more effective policy alternatives might be developed over time, making previous policy decisions suboptimal in comparison. There are good reasons to devote particular attention to the diffusion of bad policies like prohibition, since it allows us to separate the mechanisms of policy diffusion from the content of those policy ideas. Most diffusion studies— between countries or American states—rely on the assumption that the policy was adopted in many places because it represented best practice: it was ultimately a “good idea.”14 Yet by removing that default assumption, we are better able to identify the processes by which ideas become translated into concrete policies in different countries, and to highlight the mechanisms by which

Introduction

13

policy-relevant ideas are diffused across national contexts, since there is no logical reason to expect the simultaneous widespread adoption of a bad policy idea. Only recently have attempts been made to investigate why contemporary policies adopted from abroad may ultimately fail—because of the uninformed, incomplete, or inappropriate transfer of particular policy options.15 By uncovering how policy ideas diffuse internationally to be translated and filtered within different domestic contexts, this book seeks to contribute to the study of policy transfer, and to the literature on diffusion more generally. I suggest that the most fruitful approach to understanding this particular chapter in world history will come through a detailed, systematic analysis of the transnational spread of temperance ideas, and the influence of these ideas in radically different contexts: an open, society-dominated decisionmaking system in the United States, nascent corporatism in Sweden, and outright autocratic structure in imperial and early Soviet Russia. Only after placing our historical understanding of temperance and prohibition politics in proper perspective can we then move forward to scrutinize more closely how these different institutional structures translate similar temperance sentiments into different policy outputs.

AN INSTITUTIONAL FRAMEWORK FOR ANALYSIS Institutions encapsulate the entire range of state and societal rules, compliance procedures and practices—embodied in both formal organizations and informal rules—that shape how political actors define their own interests and structure their relations of power with other actors and groups.16 An institutionalist approach to understanding politics—especially in a historical context—differs from typical rationalist approaches by demonstrating the ways in which institutions constrain the opportunities for the expression of political choice, and how institutions influence the development of preferences rather than simply being granted exogenously.17 In less abstract terms, the goal of historical institutionalism is to demonstrate how political struggles and outcomes are constrained by the setting in which they take place, often addressing electoral structures, party systems, constitutional delegation of decision-making authority, social classes, and even social norms. Institutions are particularly attractive to historical and comparative research, since institutions are transgressive elements that reflect historical experience—as the product of previous political struggles, institutions have a continuing and enduring influence on subsequent decision making.18 Three particular aspects of the historical-intuitionalist enterprise are alluring for the study of prohibition in comparative and

14


international perspective: consideration of policy punctuations, nonmaterialist motivations of actors, and transnational policy diffusion. First, since institutions constrain the range of potential choices available to policymakers, who adjust their policies only at the margins based upon informational feedback and gradual learning, institutional change and policymaking tend to be path-dependent and incremental in nature.19 However, historical institutionalism is not blind to abrupt and often revolutionary policy changes that “punctuate” more incremental development.20 Subsequently, one of the more pressing critiques of historical institutionalism—and one that motivates the present study—is to specify more fully both the mechanisms and conditions under which evolutionary policy change succumbs to more radical instances of policy punctuation within different institutional structures.21 Second, since it is not limited to considering solely materialistic, selfinterested motivations for policy action, historical institutionalism is an even more appropriate framework for the consideration of temperance activism.22 Going beyond narrow concepts of self-interest allows us to illuminate the role of ideas and other nonmaterial concerns in shaping actor preferences. The bite will be in understanding the way in which various material “interests” and nonmaterial “ideas” interact and motivate social and political actors. In particular, we will examine how materialist interests, such as a need to maintain state revenues from the alcohol trade, act as mechanisms of negative policy feedback in promoting policy stability, and how such influences can be overcome by mechanisms that promote positive policy feedback and dramatic policy changes. Third, the enduring vein of research into questions of policy learning and transnational policy diffusion within historical institutionalism holds great promise. Here, Peter Hall’s work on the diffusion of Keynesian ideas across national boundaries, to be varyingly translated into macroeconomic policy within the different advanced capitalist democracies, offers an alluring template for examining the diffusion of temperance ideas, to be varyingly implemented into national alcohol control policy.23 Indeed, both in title and content, this book is intended as a complement to Hall’s Political Power of Economic Ideas in extending the analysis of similar mechanisms of diffusion beyond the international political economy literature, which tends to focus more upon the convergence of internationally accepted best practices. Finally, some distinction should be made from the rationalist politicalinstitutions literature, commonly associated with modeling institutional differences within a “veto player” framework.24 While I share the institutionalists’ understanding that “political institutions shape the processes through which decisions are made and implemented,”25 and that international pressures are “filtered, mediated and refracted through nationspecific political institutions,”26 much of the rationalists’ approach is ill

Introduction

15

suited for the coming endeavor. Such approaches take for granted a stable, usually democratic political environment, with a focus on differences in electoral rules in parliamentary versus presidential systems. As it turns out, in the cases to be examined here, the political systems are hardly static—Russia undergoes not one but two revolutions, while Sweden makes a transition from autocracy to democracy—and moreover, the electoral dimensions are either nonexistent (Russia) or in a state of flux (Sweden). Also, while the veto players framework is based in examining how many veto players or big ideological distances lead to policy stability while few veto players or small ideological distances between them facilitate change,27 there is little consideration of the processes associated with political stability or change. Therefore, while the institutionalist reader will find much of interest in this study, I have eschewed the veto players framework in favor of examining the particular policy dynamics exhibited within different institutional structures.

Domestic Structures To facilitate comparison, we need to examine variation in the institutional arrangements, which can best be done with reference to the concept of domestic structures. Here, we can typologize states according to fundamental differences in national political institutions, basic features of society, and the channels for transmitting societal demands for political consideration.28 Figure 1.2 begins by distinguishing between centralized and fragmented political institutions. Can the public or social organizations directly influence the course of policy decisions, or is power concentrated in the hands of a few decision makers, insulated from public input? Is bureaucratic infighting expected, or is it downplayed in favor of unanimity? Is the legislative process free from executive interference, or can the government influence the parliamentary agenda? Is the power of the government effectively diffused in a federal or confederal arrangement among national, state, and local administrations, or is the domestic authority of the national government absolute? In each of these questions, the former option is emblematic of a state with fragmented political institutions, while the latter are hallmarks of a centralized state. According to Thomas Risse-Kappen, “‘Centralized states’ would then be characterized by political institutions and cultures which concentrate executive power at the top of the political system, in which national governments enjoy considerable independence from legislatures (if they exist at all), and which emphasize the state as the caretaker of the needs of the citizens.”29 For our purposes, Sweden and both Imperial and Soviet Russia fit the mold of centralized states, while the United States can be thought to exhibit a fragmented political structure.

16

The Political Power of Bad Ideas Societal Structure Strong

Political Institutions

Centralized Fragmented

Corporatist (Sweden) Society-dominated (United States)

Weak Autocratic (Russia/USSR) Fragile

Figure 1.2 Simple Typology of Domestic Structures.

The second dimension considers differences in the structure of the society in which the state is embedded.30 Can issue-oriented pressure groups influence policy decisions, or are efforts at social organization stymied through apathy, fear, or active subversion by the state? Are political attitudes divorced from religious, ideological, or class differences, or are they knit tightly together? Again, in each set of questions, the former is suggestive of a strong civil society, while the latter is indicative of a weak society. “‘Strong’ societies are then characterized by a comparative lack of ideological and class cleavages, by rather ‘politicized’ civil societies which can easily be mobilized for political causes, and by centralized social organizations such as business, labor, or churches.”31 With entrenched civil liberties and a rich tapestry of civic associations, both the United States and Sweden can be considered strong societies, while the weakness of Russian civil society can be attributed to the active subversion of independent social organizations by both the Imperial and Soviet governments. This simple dichotomization of state and societal forms allows us to make fundamental distinctions between domestic structures. The United States offers an example of a society-dominated domestic structure, where organized interest pressures are channeled through fragmented representative institutions with multiple points of access to the policymaking process. The Swedish case is illustrative of a corporatist domestic structure, where powerful intermediate organizations, including political parties, organized business, and labor, operate within a closed consultative structure with tightly regulated channels for pressure groups to influence the policy process. Despite revolutionary changes in government and radical differences in political philosophies, both tsarist and Soviet Russia exhibit striking similarities when it comes to their autocratic domestic structure: exhibiting highly centralized political institutions with strong executives, without competing intermediary organizations or a well-organized civil society. The final category, fragile domestic structures, has no representative here, though one might envision weak, postcolonial states and failed states to fall within this

Introduction

17

category, where societal organization is underdeveloped and state institutions are fragmented or ineffectual. While previous studies have successfully used typologies of domestic structures to gauge transnational influences on national policymaking with reference to variations in access to policymakers, they tell us little about the process of policymaking in each setting.32 By examining the response of these structures to similar external stimuli in terms of transnational temperance activism and the precipitating crisis of a world war, this study goes beyond simply explaining individual policy outcomes, to uncover discernible variations in how these domestic structures of governance and policymaking channel different ideational elements into policies. In particular, we will see how certain institutional features give disproportionate weight to normative over cognitive ideas in some domestic structures, cognitive elements over their normative counterparts in others (chapter 6), while highlighting mechanisms of policy feedback in each, noting the degree to which each mechanism is susceptible to switches from negative to positive feedback with dramatic implications for particular policy outcomes (chapter 7). While this undertaking does not necessitate the development of a general theory of the policy process that applies equally to all states in all circumstances at all times—if such a thing is indeed possible—it is possible to use this comparative historical analysis to highlight a number of salient institutional features and their operation across domestic structures, including policy feedback mechanisms, discrete temporal stages in the policymaking process, and the influence of exogenous shocks on the political process.

Policy Feedback Processes If we hold that policy decisions are shaped by institutional constraints, we must also recognize that such institutions are themselves the outcome of previous political decisions.33 Policy feedback—diminishing returns to scale, or negative feedback (in the parlance of policy studies)—refers to those constraints produced by the effects of previous political decisions that promote stability and equilibrium, often by creating a constituency with vested interests in the continuation of the status quo, thus stifling change.34 The related concept of path dependence refers more generally to those behaviors and strategies formed in response to particular policies that favor the continuity of the status quo and the reproduction of the associated institutional logics.35 Perhaps the most-cited examples of this path dependence invoke the early adoption and standardization of suboptimal technologies—such as VHS videocassettes over Betamax competitors that provided better picture quality, or the QWERTY keyboard over its more simplified, ergonomic and intuitive rival arrangements—where sunk costs hinder the transition to

18


better or more efficient alternatives, implying not only that “history matters,” but also that “sequence matters” in terms of constraining the range of potential alternatives for subsequent action and choice.36 We can further differentiate between mechanisms of positive and negative feedback. Mechanisms of negative policy feedback induce stability and incremental change in public policy, and as a result have long been an integral part of models of bureaucratic behavior, policy subsystems, gridlock, and other approaches to the policy process.37 The most fundamental negative feedback mechanism is the ability of impacted groups (or “veto players”) to organize in opposition to policy change, which is a function of domestic structure: autocratic states, as in Russia, do not exhibit this negative feedback mechanism, unlike states with effective protection of civil liberties and a strong civil society, such as in corporatist Sweden or a society-dominated United States.38 A second homeostatic mechanism of negative feedback is to be found in “incrementalist” models of policy change, whereby policymakers make only marginal changes in existing policy based upon their limited abilities to foresee consequences of their changes due to complexity and uncertainty.39 Thus, a stable and predictable external environment in which bureaucrats can foresee and adapt to minor changes provides an additional mechanism of negative feedback. This stability is buttressed by a third, ideational, element of negative feedback, whereby bureaucrats maintain policy stability “through a complex system of mutually noninterfering policy monopolies buttressed by powerful supporting images.”40 Such supporting policy images—paradigms—consist of the ways in which policy ideas are understood and discussed among relevant specialists in the policy subsystem. So long as these commonly held understandings hold firm, one can expect little in the way of sudden policy change. However, when policy images begin to falter in the face of heightened public and policymaker attention (usually premised on normative appeals and public sentiments), the unanimity is broken, permitting drastic policy changes. Although such ideational elements of negative policy feedback were pioneered in studies of the societydominated American policy process, they can be found in other domestic structures as well. A fourth, and related instrument of negative feedback arises from the vested interest of the state in not disrupting the flow of needed financial resources, which can provide an additional hurdle to major policy change, making the treasury an additional veto player. The ramifications of this financial interest will become evident when one studies opposition to prohibition by local and national government bodies in the United States, Sweden, and Russia, when prohibition threatened to eliminate their lucrative stream of tax revenues on the liquor trade. As with other mechanisms of negative

Introduction

19

feedback, this resistance to change would appear to be equal across domestic structures; the question then becomes: how and to what extent can such hurdles to policy change be overcome? Self-reinforcing mechanisms of negative policy feedback that provide policy stasis can be overwhelmed by mechanisms of positive policy feedback that accentuate rather than counterbalance pressures for change. Whether referred to as mimicking behavior, “cascades,” “tidal waves,” “bandwagons,” “tipping points,” or “snowball effects,” in these self-reinforcing dynamics, change in one case makes change in the next case more likely.41 Such mechanisms, often based in powerful social pressures toward conformity and emulation, have proven particularly deft in explaining pressures for policy change,42 voting behavior, and collective identity issues: from the propensity for cultural assimilation and participation in ethnic activity to the tidal influences of nationalism that precipitated the breakup of the Soviet Union.43 Mimicking processes and the shifting attenuation from one salient issue aspect to another may lead to rapid changes in individual behavior, leading to compounding pressures for policy change that overwhelm mechanisms of negative policy feedback and stability.44 As we shall see, the propensity to shift from negative to positive feedback goes far in explaining the “sentimental tempest” of hysteria for nationwide prohibition in numerous countries throughout North America and Europe.45 By understanding the propensity for a shift from such negative to positive feedback, rather than simply tallying up such veto players, we gain far greater insight into the actual dynamics of policy change. Economic and political crises, whether exogenous or endogenous, can also prompt a change from “business as usual” by shortening time horizons, curtailing debate, and pressuring governments to make quick decisions on numerous issues on the policy agenda. Major crises can also accentuate particular policy attributes, such as when defense-related projects become more salient and jump to the forefront of the policy agenda with the outbreak of a military crisis. The degree to which particular policy concerns (such as alcohol control) can be reasonably related to the crisis situation depends to a great extent on the actions of policy entrepreneurs. While mimicking behavior is premised on universal notions of human psychology, and potential “cascades” or “tempests” of opinion may not vary from one institutional context to another—as we will see, different domestic structures insulate their policymaking processes from the influence of positive feedback mechanisms to different degrees. Moreover, while the susceptibility to political crises may not vary from one domestic structure to another, variations in policy insulation from exogenous influence do, leading to different inherent propensities in policymaking within those structures.

20


Configuring Ideas within Institutions Historical-institutionalist accounts have traditionally been unable to abandon the rationalist emphasis on individual self-interest as the primary motivation behind policy decisions, resulting in an inability to account for the specific content of policy outcomes through the neglect of the influence of ideas (as opposed to “interests”) on the policy process.46 At the most basic level, ideas are subjective claims about causal relationships, descriptions of the world, or the normative legitimacy of certain actions.47 Only in the early 1990s did scholars attempt to demonstrate that in addition to self-interested motivations, ideas too “matter” as important influences on policymaking— often mimicking Max Weber’s analogy of ideas as “switchmen” exerting profound effects on the course of events by directing interest-based action down one or another track.48 Subsequent consideration of ideas within the policy process has been contentious. Penning the conclusion to a recent collaborative study of international diffusion dynamics, Geoffrey Garrett, Frank Dobbin, and Beth A. Simmons suggest that any supposed duality between material “interests” and subjective “ideas” is at best passé, since government decisions to enact a particular policy at a given time are usually based on both interests and ideas.49 Perhaps, then, we need to abandon this conventional juxtaposition and take a different approach to how we understand ideas, their content, and their influence on the policy process. Drawing upon John L. Campbell’s work on ideas and institutional analysis,50 we can construct a broad typology based upon the conceptual distinctions between cognitive ideas as outcome-oriented descriptions and theoretical analyses that specify cause-and-effect relationships, versus normative ideas based on shared values, norms, identities, and attitudes; and whether these ideas are underlying assumptions residing in the background of decisionmaking debates, or whether they embody the concepts and theories in the foreground of the debate. In drawing these distinctions, Campbell identifies four types of ideas: programs, paradigms, public sentiments, and frames—each of which exerts different effects on policy decisionmaking (Figure 1.3). Ideas as policy programs are those that concern concrete solutions in terms of prescriptions to pressing policy problems. Policy programs are ideas used deliberately by elite policymakers responsible for the adoption and implementation of policy and are often expressed in policy memos, legislative debate, and professional recommendations. These programs provide suggestions for a clear and concise course of action based upon understandings of cause-and-effect relationships relevant to the policy realm in question. For our purposes, the concrete alcohol control policy

Concepts, theories and actors in the foreground of the policy debate

Cognitive level

Normative level

Ideas

Actors

Programs Ideas as elite policy prescriptions that help policy makers to chart a clear and specific course of policy action

Decision makers (politicians, bureaucrats, corporate managers, etc.)

Frames Ideas as symbols and concepts that help policy makers to legitimize policy solutions to the public

Framers (spin doctors, political handlers, campaign mgrs, advertising firms, etc.)

Underlying assumptions and actors in the background of the policy debate Actors

Ideas Paradigms Ideas as elite assumptions that constrain the cognitive range of useful solutions available to policy makers

Brokers (pollsters, media, PR, advisors, consultants, think tanks, epistemic communities, etc.)

Public sentiments Ideas as public assumptions that constrain the normative range of legitimate solutions available to policy makers

Theorists (academics, intellectuals, etc.)

Constituents (public, voters, business elites, political elites, investors, courts, etc.)

Figure 1.3 Ideas, Actors, and Their Roles in Policymaking. Source: Adapted from John L. Campbell, “Institutional Analysis and the Role of Ideas in Political Economy,” Theory and Society 27 (1998): 385; John L. Campbell, Institutional Change and Globalization (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2004), 101.

22


proposals that include local dispensaries, local option, government monopolization, and outright prohibition would constitute policy programs. Ideas as paradigms are those that reflect broad cognitive constraints on the range of potential solutions to policy problems by defining the broad terrain of the policy discourse.51 Rather than offering concrete courses of action, paradigms reflect the background theoretical and ontological assumptions of policymakers about how the world works, which in turn inform the course of policy action. There are often multiple competing paradigms within the political discourse, some coming to dominate others because of the degree of institutionalization within influential organizations, or being attributed to influential sponsors, policymakers, and theorists.52 As a result, when particular policy options seem to “fit” within a dominant paradigm, they are more likely to appeal to policymakers as comfortable and familiar programs.53 While often conflated with “policy images” (from the study of the American policy process), which embody the supporting set of ideas that structure how policymakers understand the policy, paradigms focus on the cognitive policy understandings divorced from normative elements, while policy images “are always a mixture of empirical information and emotive appeals.”54 Ideas that encapsulate broad-based attitudes and normative assumptions by large sections of the general public about what is desirable are labeled public sentiments, which constrict the normative range of solutions viewed as politically acceptable; as distinct from paradigms, which constrict the range of solutions that decision makers perceive as instrumentally useful. The distinction is not an insignificant one: for better or worse, often the most instrumentally effective policy solution may be seen as illegitimate and even normatively reprehensible if it lacks political legitimacy and does not find particular resonance with a broader public sentiment. The legalization of the trade in narcotics is an example of a policy option that may be quite instrumentally effective in terms of both law enforcement and revenue generation, but such an option is generally not perceived as legitimate, because public sentiments tend to reflect a belief that the proper role of government is to eliminate rather than facilitate the drug trade. Public sentiments cover a wide range of political, economic, and social issues and rarely present a coherent and consistent position, since popular sentiment in one issue area may contradict the basic tenets of another set of policies. To be sure, public sentiments can be inferred from public opinion polling and electoral outcomes, and also can find expression through social organizations and the media, which subsequently impact policy agendas and outcomes.55 In nondemocratic settings public sentiment can influence decision making through elite representation and reaction to policy impositions.56 Regardless of institutional environment, public sentiments can also

Introduction

23

exert influence by being shared by the policymakers themselves, who are embedded within their particular national social environment. Public sentiments can thus limit the range of policy options that elites, leaders, and bureaucratic decision makers themselves believe to be normatively acceptable, but rarely are they both consistent and precise enough to be directly translated into policy. Deeply held public sentiments become especially influential during times of crisis and uncertainty, when decision makers place greater emphasis on simplicity and congruence with generally held social values.57 Understanding how crises lead to policy change under different institutional and ideational configurations is important to furthering our understanding of the policy process in general, and the history of alcohol control policy in particular. There has been thus far little consideration of agency or strategic action by political elites and policy entrepreneurs. As French Nobel Laureate Romain Rolland once noted, even the “most sublime idea remains ineffective until the day when it becomes contagious, not by its own merits, but by the groups of men in whom it becomes incarnate.”58 Accordingly, since the efforts by individuals, organizations, political elites, and policy entrepreneurs—especially those engaged in policy-relevant networks—have a great influence on the adoption of one policy over another, we must extend consideration of the ways in which ideas can influence the policy process through the actions of framers and ideational brokers.59 The literature on ideas as frames—or the mobilization of symbols and interpretation to be utilized by policy entrepreneurs—is a diverse one, drawing insights from comparative studies of social movements and theories of the American policymaking process.60 For our purposes, frames are the (predominantly) normative ideational notions located in the foreground of policy debates, which are strategically crafted and manipulated by political elites—or framers—to legitimize and drum up support for particular policy programs among policymakers and public sentiment.61 Frames appear as instrumental appeals to the public to support one policy option or vilify another through public pronouncements of politicians, reporters, scholars, social and political elites, as well as other leaders whose words may influence public sentiment.62 Frames help to couple ideas with particular political actors who in turn are influenced by institutional configurations. Framers are dynamic actors who can create new institutional solutions, proposals, and programs through bricolage, or the recombination of existing practices and principles into new programs that may have substantial similarities with previous ones.63 Ideational brokers, which include framers, work at the crossroads of these four different ideational realms, influencing cognitive and normative perceptions in both the background and the foreground of the policy debate.

24


The range of potential actors that could be labeled as ideational brokers is quite diverse: pollsters conveying public sentiments to policymakers, the media conveying frames to the public constituency, think tanks translating theorists’ paradigms into policy options, consultants and advisors aiding the development of frames that resonate with public sentiment, and so forth. Because ideational brokerage is not exclusive to a particular category of political actor, many of the aforementioned actors can don the hat of the ideational broker at different times: theorists, policymakers, and framers occasionally influence developments across ideational categories.64 Accordingly, the labeling of ideational broker simply signifies the linkage of ideas from one realm to another rather than as some exclusive analytical category. Ideational brokers are vitally important to an understanding of the interdependent nature of policymaking in diverse national contexts. Ideational brokers that link policies in diverse lands include both so-called epistemic communities (transnational networks of intellectuals, academics, experts, nongovernmental organizations, and government representatives that are active in a particular policy area)65 and transnational advocacy networks of activists seeking to influence policy change in other countries through the transmission of information and strategies to impact the background paradigms and public sentiments that buttress existing policy, with occasional appeals to policymakers themselves.66 Here too there is some definitional slippage, as members of epistemic communities may be ideational brokers in a foreign land while wearing the hat of theorist, framer, decision maker, or even constituent at home. Chapter 2 will untangle this web of actors and ideas as they relate to temperance and prohibition ideas in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

AN ENHANCED, COMPARATIVE UNDERSTANDING OF THE POLICYMAKING PROCESS Having specified the relevant ideational elements and associated actors, how are we to bridge the gap from ideas about policy—especially as they diffuse transnationally—to the adoption of actual policies within a given country? The adoption of policy necessitates choice by relevant policymakers, who differ from one institutional context to another. In a society-dominated domestic structure as in the United States, policy decisions are made in Congress by representatives charged with translating constituent pressures into legislation, to be approved by the president. In Russia, by contrast,

Introduction

25

policy decisions were frequently made by executive decree, perhaps in consultation with a small group of ministers and advisors, without regard to public pressures. In Sweden, policies are drafted in closed committees of experts before being submitted for public and legislator approval. These three brief examples by no means exhaust the myriad of policymaking arrangements, but they suffice to underscore the dramatic variations in national political structures and the inclusion of, or insulation from, organized societal pressures on the policy process. Yet while the institutional process by which policies are enacted may differ from one country to another, the process by which particular issues are deemed worthy of policymaker attention before policy responses are formulated are broadly similar across institutional context. In the interest of parsimony, we will simplify the complexity of the policymaking process into two discrete stages: the agenda-setting stage, and the policy choice stage. The agenda-setting stage marks the period during which policymakers come to pay attention to particular issues as worthy of consideration for policy action on their finite agenda space. Often, getting particular issues on the political agenda is the outcome of prolonged and dedicated work by activists and social organizations, which shape public perceptions and elite paradigms toward the desirability of policy action. Yet simply getting an issue on the political agenda is no guarantee of a policy decision: some issues may languish for ages on the political agenda without remedy, often as a result of institutionalized negative-feedback pressures.67 Recognition of these stages within a temporal process is a useful analytic tool for understanding the role of ideas within the policy process. As we shall later see, each of the aforementioned types of actors and ideas—programs, paradigms, public sentiments, and frames—influences the subsequent adoption of policy differently in these distinct stages, and their influence is greatly determined by the institutional arrangement to be found in each national environment. During the agenda-setting phase, paradigms and public sentiments have particular resonance, since these focus the attention of decision makers to a particular problem.68 Likewise, public sentiments and paradigms influence problem definition, but so too do competing policy frames, as framers and policy entrepreneurs manipulate meaning by interpreting facts, symbols, and emotions to shape both the organizational and public perception of the problem. These normative frames, as well as the particular policy programs have greater influence during the later stage, in which various programs are presented, supported, and rebuked by competing policy proponents. At the later stage, entrepreneurs can promote favored options to the relevant decision makers by the strategic manipulation of policy frames. All of this activity precedes the actual adoption and implementation of policy by decision makers—which are greatly

26


influenced by the institutional mechanisms of collective choice: voting rules and other mechanisms that affect the translation of political ideas into the adoption of concrete policies. Exogenous political and economic crises accelerate the move from agenda-setting to policy choice: in the absence of crisis situations, policymakers can easily vacillate between calls for policy action and inaction. However, with the shortened time horizons associated with looming crises—and the related increases in issue attention—more immediate policy action is called for.69 This catalyzing feature of external crises has strong parallels with John Kingdon’s notion of “policy windows”—those rare instances when compelling political moments give advocates, or policy entrepreneurs, the opportunity to match their preferred solutions to the perceived problem, resulting in the rapid adoption of a particular policy program.70 For these reasons, it is helpful to distinguish between different temporal stages in the policy process, even at the expense of adding to the complexity of our theoretical considerations. The fact that a shared external crisis can similarly accelerate the policymaking process on a similar topic (here, alcohol-control policy) in different institutional structures allows us to say something meaningful about inherent differences in how ideas are translated into policies within those structures. In brief: I argue that while there may be broad similarities in the salience of various policy-relevant ideas and their related actors in society-dominated, corporatist, and autocratic structures during the agenda-setting stage of policymaking, when an external event pushes the policy from agenda-setting to the debate and decision-making stage, the salience of particular ideas and actors changes. In particular, in a society-dominated structure such as the United States, we find disproportionate influence of normative elements (frames and public sentiments), which is directly opposed to the disproportionate influence of cognitive elements (programs and paradigms) in the corporatist arrangement in Sweden. Finally, in the autocratic context of Russia, we find a disproportionate influence of foreground considerations (programs and frames) in the ultimate adoption of policy. A more explicit comparison of the institutional differences in feedback mechanisms (discussed in chapter 7) highlights the features inherent in each institutional arrangement that predisposed decision makers in each country toward or away from a particular policy. In addition to differences in the ideational channels of policy influence, different domestic structures have different profiles of policy feedback mechanisms. While each system has elements of negative feedback that promote policy stasis and incremental change, under particular circumstances these mechanisms can be overwhelmed by positive feedback mechanisms, which facilitate rapid policy

Introduction

27

change. While the switch from negative to positive feedback mechanisms has been scrutinized as influencing dramatic policy “punctuation” in the United States, the propensity for such a switch can be appreciated only in comparative context.71 In sum: in autocratic structures such as Russia there are more institutional features that facilitate a switch from negative to positive feedback, there are fewer such switches in corporatist Sweden, and the society-dominated American system contains a mix of such features. Institutions provide the playfield for the interaction of diverse ideas and actors relevant to the adoption of policy. Different types of ideas are more salient at different stages of the policy process, and exogenous crises can speed up the decision-making process. Ultimately, policy change becomes a question not simply of interests, or of actors, or even of ideas, but rather of the interaction of all these elements within a regulated, institutionalized environment that varies from one domestic structure to the next.

THE WAY FORWARD As we seek to understand how this historical puzzle can contribute to our understanding of the policy role of ideas, the institutional differences in national policymaking, and the study of political decision making more generally, this book progresses steadily from the empirical to the theoretical, with each chapter building upon previous chapters to resolve particular historical questions while we simultaneously familiarize ourselves with the history that is integral to our story. Chapter 2 examines the cause of temperance as one of the first truly global transnational advocacy networks (TANs), which acted as a multidirectional transmission belt of policy-relevant ideas and information from one country to another to be filtered and reframed by domestic-level actors. By examining the life cycle of the transnational temperance network in terms of four stages—incipient, ascendant, mature and declining—this chapter provides a template for addressing the evolution of transnational advocacy networks, while also preparing the stage for analyzing alcohol-control policymaking at the national level, which follows in chapters 3 through 5. Chapter 3 examines the most famous statutory prohibition—that of the United States. We examine how prohibition came to dominate the public discourse at the expense of rival alcohol control options such the Gothenburg system, through the concerted framing efforts of temperance organizations. As elsewhere, the pending crisis of a European war created a “policy window” for the reframing of prohibition as congruent with patriotic sentiments of sacrifice for the greater good.72 This reframing, combined with the dynamics of positive policy feedback and the altered locus of decision

28


making, helps explain the most baffling historical question of how such an overwhelming majority of Americans could support such a disastrous policy option to not only ratify a prohibition amendment to the Constitution, but do so in record time. From there, we consider the ultimate repeal of prohibition with reference to the same mechanisms of competing ideas, actors, and feedback processes, which best explain how a supermajority of Americans and their representatives so overwhelmingly—and even more rapidly— defeated a policy that a supermajority comprised of virtually the same pool of citizens adopted just years before. Chapter 4 asks why Sweden never adopted prohibition, though it seemed almost foreordained at the time, opting instead for a novel alcohol-rationing system. Particular attention is paid to the role of the official Temperance Committee, and the efforts of its most active and influential member, Ivan Bratt. Ultimately, much of the reason that Sweden adopted a stringent system of alcohol control rather than prohibition was the influence of ideational brokers such as Dr. Bratt, who mediated between prohibition and antiprohibition forces and develop new options through bricolage of existing elements of alcohol control, working within the corporatist structure that provided the institutional space for such policy experimentation. Chapter 5 addresses the apparent paradox of why Russia—an autocratic country that actively subverted organized temperance forces—became the world’s first prohibition country, and why such a ruinous policy could endure two revolutions and the transition from its being the most conservative autocracy in Europe to becoming a revolutionary communist polity, despite its ultimate failure to achieve even the most basic policy aims of sobriety. By considering the development of temperance sentiments among the Russian elite and the means by which they permeated the legislative, administrativebureaucratic, and even royal institutions, we can better understand how the Russian imperial government could voluntarily forego its single greatest source of income at its hour of greatest need. The chapter also highlights both fundamental differences and similarities in the autocratic policymaking process from its society-dominated and corporatist counterparts. Chapter 6 weaves together the transnational temperance movement in chapter 2 with policymaking at the national level in chapters 3 through 5, by examining the extent to which alcohol-control policy ideas and experiences in one country influence policy developments in another. By focusing on the invocation of foreign ideas—anchored in experience beyond the control of national policymakers and requiring explicit investigation and comparison of foreign conditions—we can trace the influence of ideas within different institutional contexts at different stages in the policy process. While transnational ideational influences are broadly similar with respect to agenda setting in society-dominated, corporatist, and autocratic governance

Introduction

29

structures, these similarities disappear with the shift to policy debate and adoption that comes with the opening of a window for policy change. Societydominated structures, such as in the United States, are predisposed toward the influence of normative ideational elements—frames and public sentiments—whereas corporatist structures, as in the Swedish case, are predisposed toward the influence of cognitive ideational elements—policy programs and paradigms. In autocratic structures, as in Russia, the elements in the forefront of the policy debate—policy programs and frames— are more salient. Finally chapter 7 provides a more explicit comparison of the institutional differences in feedback mechanisms, highlighting the features inherent in each institutional arrangement that predisposed decision makers in each country toward or away from a particular policy, while also enhancing our understanding of how different institutional arrangements respond to crises by accelerating the policy debate and thereby altering the political discourse to impact the course of policy development. In drawing together such diverse insights, chapter 7 also poses an explanation for the international alcohol control/prohibition policy “wave” of the early twentieth century. In brief, the wave can be explained only with reference to a combination of transnationally diffused temperance ideas, varyingly translated into policy through institutionalized channels of decision making, with a common external stimulus of a world war. War explains the timing of the policy wave, transnational temperance information networks explain the direction of the policy change, and domestic institutional constraints explain the ultimate form of that change. This study has implications for a wide variety of literatures. For the study of international relations, my findings substantiate the importance of transnational advocacy networks—such as the temperance movement—in influencing policy change in different countries, even at this “early” historical juncture. In particular, this study suggests those institutional configurations and time frames in which the infusion of ideas by transnational advocacy networks might have their greatest impact on policy outcomes. For comparative political scientists, I suggest that scholars who study policy development in a single national context in isolation from broader international influences do so at their own peril—often overlooking many of the more relevant aspects of decision making that can best be unearthed through rigorous and structured comparison. For historians interested in the prohibition question, I likewise suggest that understanding the rise and fall of prohibition in one country, such as the United States, cannot be complete without serious consideration of the global dimensions of temperance and competing alcohol-control options. Furthermore, I suggest that it is also beneficial to stop thinking of prohibition or repeal as overdetermined and

30


seemingly inevitable policy developments—a charge that characterizes much of the existing historical literature that focuses solely on the American outcome of prohibition—but rather to begin viewing prohibition as but one of a variety of policy options from which to choose. This may seem a circuitous route to traverse to craft a new story of the history of the “noble experiment”—but the trip will ultimately be worth the journey. Previous, overly simplistic accounts of prohibition have often attempted to tailor explanations for this curious domestic development to existing theoretical approaches within the social sciences. Whether based on rationalist or culturalist understandings of the prohibition phenomenon, the fit has rarely proven wholly satisfactory. Only by appreciating ideas and processes in their institutional context can we advance our understanding of the fundamental differences in national policymaking institutions, and finally come to terms with one of the most peculiar global phenomena: the early twentieth-century wave of alcohol control, and the widespread adoption of a well-known suboptimal policy idea in the form of prohibition.

Chapter 2 The Transnational Temperance Network

The catholicity of the Temperance movement is remarkable. It links together in a fraternal bond of union, people of every nation, irrespective of colour, education, politics or religion, and through the agency of these bodies, the peoples of the earth are being linked together not only to drive the means of intoxication from the commerce of the world, but to secure peace and goodwill among nations. —Guy Hayler, International Prohibition Confederation (1914) A British colleague once shared the following curious story: a number of years back he had the good pleasure to visit the island of Skansen—Sweden’s foremost outdoor museum and amusement park—during a brief venture to Stockholm. While there, he happened upon an idyllic scene of a tidy and well-preserved turn-of-the-century village lodge, with the letters I.O.G.T. emblazoned above the entryway.1 Thinking that the letters represented some arcane and indecipherable Swedish acronym, he queried his Swedish host as to what the letters meant; the host was confused as to why he was being asked to translate into English what was in fact an English abbreviation well-known to the Swedes—International Order of Good Templars. Almost 150 years ago this transnational temperance organization had already taken root in this foreign soil—a soil that would prove to be more fertile than that in its native North America. Such transnational organizations serve as important transmission belts for policy-relevant ideas and are vital to our understanding of the global prohibition wave and how various policy ideas permeate institutions of policymaking. This chapter analyzes the maturation of the cause of temperance into one of the world’s first truly transnational advocacy networks (TANs). While much scholarly attention has focused on modern TANs—including the human rights, global justice, labor, and environmental movements— little consideration has been given to similarities in the patterns of their growth and evolution.2 By examining an early precursor to such modern

32


movements—the transnational temperance movement—we can distinguish four stages in the life cycle of a TAN (incipient, ascendant, mature, and declining) with respect to the depth, breadth, and regularity of interaction of like-minded temperance advocates hailing from different corners of the globe.3 This discussion of the international diffusion of temperance ideas sets the stage for discussion of how those ideas, tactics, and programmic policy options interact with national decision-making institutions to ultimately form national alcohol control policy.

OF TRANSNATIONAL ADVOCACY NETWORKS One of the goals of this book is to understand why so many different countries of Europe and North America increased restrictions on alcohol— including prohibition—at roughly the same time. Other such near simultaneous international “policy waves” have confronted researchers in various policy realms, who often focus on internal economic, political, and social reasons for the adoption of particular social and economic policies.4 Explanations for international policy waves are normally couched in terms of “diffusion models” or “contagion effects,” hypothesizing that national decision makers emulate, or are pressured by their constituents to develop, policies similar to successful policies adopted elsewhere.5 Such interpretations, based upon a high-altitude approach of using aggregate data, suggest the importance of certain prerequisites for the diffusion of policy, but only rarely do they scrutinize the on-the-ground causal mechanisms or ideational motivations.6 Indeed, the conventional rationalist wisdom that states are the only players in international relations has long stifled consideration of individuals and organizations that act as the conduits of information, ideas, and institutional forms across national settings. At least as far back as the nineteenth century, there existed extensive webs of interaction and information exchange among individuals, advocacy organizations, and policymakers of different countries that both reflected and sustained shared values, beliefs, and projects.7 Such webs of interaction, or transnational advocacy networks, are increasingly regarded as vital elements to our understanding of international politics because of their ability to communicate new norms, ideas, information, discourses, and organizational forms beyond national borders.8 Transnational advocacy networks are not only structures that facilitate interaction but also political actors coordinating collective action to change international outcomes and national policies.9 Comprised of individuals, or “rooted cosmopolitans,” that work internationally but are embedded in


33

particular national political environments, such networks not only actively seek to shape national politics but also are shaped by their domestic political environments.10 In addition to international nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), transnational advocacy networks may also include international research organizations, local and national social movements, research foundations and intellectuals, the media, social organizations like churches and trade unions, intergovernmental organizations, and members of the legislative and executive branches of national governments.11 To be sure, inclusion in a transnational advocacy network is based more upon the extent to which an actor shares similar values and is engaged in the exchange of information with other actors rather than through some external, objective categorization. Transnational advocacy networks are sometimes confused with epistemic communities—international networks of professionals and experts whose are bound by shared causal ideas and technical information as a foundation to influence national policy decisions.12 While there is often some overlap between the two, the primary distinction is that epistemic communities emphasize shared scientific and cognitive understandings, whereas transnational advocacy networks are motivated primarily by shared normative understandings of complex social phenomena. Epistemic communities— experts and scientific professionals—are traditionally more aloof from the political process, while TANs actively seek social and political change based primarily on shared understandings of right versus wrong and good versus evil. This distinction will be of particular importance later, as we uncover how different national policymaking institutions respond differently to the cognitive paradigms and normative frames and sentiments transmitted through networks of transnational activism. Networks of transnational activism utilize information and ideas to influence national policymaking through persuasion and socialization. In particular, transnational actors often employ information politics (the generation of information to prompt policymakers, the media, and individuals into action on behalf of a particular issue)13 as well as symbolic politics (the framing and normative interpretation of issues, developments, and information through symbolism and emotional appeals) to raise awareness of the need for political action concerning the relevant issue. The transnational temperance network utilized both methods to further the cause of temperance by reporting on social developments, policy responses, and debates occurring in other countries, and by interpreting these developments for the domestic audience in terms of simple normative understandings—juxtaposing the “evils” of alcohol with the “noble” efforts to combat them. Since much of the literature on TANs examines the impact of transnational activism in the present, they are blind to the lessons of

34


the past. What follows then is a description of the development of the transnational component of the nineteenth- and early twentieth-century temperance movement, broken down into four analytical stages of growth and progression—incipient, ascendant, mature, and declining stages. While this stage heuristic is intended to help make sense of the history of the international temperance story, such stages may well be applied to the study of transnational advocacy networks more generally, aiding our understanding of how such networks themselves evolve, grow, and even die.14

DEVELOPMENT AND EVOLUTION OF THE TRANSNATIONAL TEMPERANCE NETWORK Almost from the time that mankind discovered the inebriating qualities of fermented beverages, there have been social and political attempts to diminish the negative consequences associated with overindulgence— garnering alcohol control the title of “the first social policy.”15 American temperance history typically dates from the publication of Dr. Benjamin Rush’s Inquiry into the Effects of Ardent Spirits upon the Human Body and Mind in 1784.16 Social organizations motivated by temperance sentiments find their foundation in the Massachusetts Society for the Suppression of Intemperance, formed in 1813. More important, the American Temperance Society (ATS), formed in 1826, in less than ten years claimed over 1.5 million members in over 8,000 auxiliaries—or about one out of every five free adults.17 These early abstinence movements should not be confused with later prohibition organizations; the ATS as well as other organizations sought not to change laws but to change lives, through persuading men of social standing to take the “teetotal” pledge of complete abstinence from distilled spirits. Yet again, such temperance admonishments and social organizations were not uniquely American—in Växjö, Sweden, Pastor Peter Wieselgren established a temperance society as early as 1819.18 Elsewhere in Europe the “Order of Temperance” was established by Maurice, Landgrave of Hesse, in 1600 with the signatures of over two hundred German nobles dedicated to personal abstinence, and evidence of earlier temperance activities among the higher classes of Europe dates back to 1517.19 Yet such early abstinence organizations did not suffice to create a transnational temperance network. Viewing subsequent developments in transnational temperance in terms of incipient, ascendant, mature, and declining stages will help us to understand why this transnational social movement developed when and how it did.


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Incipient Stage (1820s–1845) Just as any journey begins with a single step, the development of a TAN begins with small and often mundane transnational linkages. In the incipient stage, activists first make contact with like-minded individuals in other countries in order to exchange ideas and information. Interaction and information exchange is sporadic, and while they may steadily increase in quantity, they are not predictable or routinized. Whereas establishing such international contact today may be easily accomplished through e-mail, telephone, or even a weekend trip abroad; during the early nineteenth century the agents of diffusion were primarily those individuals most involved in international travel: traders, ambassadors, and missionaries who could act as international information conduits. It may be impossible to identify the very first transnational temperance linkage, but even as early as the 1730s a young Philadelphia printer by the name of Benjamin Franklin was occasionally reprinting English articles against the scourge of liquor.20 By 1829 Massachusetts ship captains were winning applause from the American Temperance Society for their efforts in introducing the pledge of total abstinence to individuals in Liverpool, England, and fostering the development of a temperance lodge there.21 Captains quickly found that temperance was good for business: abstinent crews enjoyed dramatically reduced rates of insurance for the transatlantic journey, increasing demand for their services by merchants.22 This AngloAmerican axis, which would develop into one of the strongest bilateral temperance linkages, undoubtedly drew on the networks of transatlantic commercial, information, and religious ties that sustained American colonial subservience and that endured even following American independence.23 Yet whereas the “firewater” carried by earlier British missionaries and merchants fostered drunkenness, by the 1820s these contacts evolved into conduits of temperance information and ideas:24 “Temperance Societies have not only made America truly the new world, but in a few months they have produced an unparalleled change in many districts of the United Kingdom” [sic].25 Such transatlantic ties facilitated the development of the temperance movement in Europe through the establishment in 1829 of the first British temperance society—the Glasgow and West of Scotland Temperance Society. In the previous year John Dunlop, who would subsequently be known as “father of the temperance societies of Great Britain,” sought explanation for the supposedly superior habits of the French working classes over those in his native Scotland. Convinced that the problem lie in the Scottish addiction to whiskey, he cobbled together information on the results of temperance organization in the United States, collecting reports

36


of British naval emissaries and medical doctors stationed in North America, without ever undertaking the journey himself.26 His resulting lecture, On the Extent and Remedy of National Intemperance (1829), became the first transnational temperance study, and within a year had a circulation of 140,000 tracts. As copies of Dunlop’s study multiplied, so did the British temperance societies, “with a rapidity which astonish[ed] even its most active promoters.”27 The continued intercourse of American and British missionaries and temperance-minded activists helped reduce any lingering acrimony associated with the War of 1812 and the American Revolution. By the early 1830s, statements such as the following from the English Temperance Magazine and Review were increasingly common: We cannot help thinking that the old world is under deep obligation to America for the development of the principles of Temperance Societies; and now that they have been introduced and with success into Great Britain, we trust that we shall not be slack, as Englishmen, in acknowledging our obligations. We know that there has been a feeling in this country against every thing American, but we trust and believe that that day has gone by, never to return. Let us emulate them in this good work, and may the alacrity with which we follow in their footsteps excite them to persevere till the cope-store of the building is brought forth with joy.28

Protestant missionaries provided ankother early conduit of transnational temperance communication. The creation of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missionaries (ABCFM) in 1811 provided the support structure for subsequent generations of American evangelicals. The moralistic temperance message resonated within the missionary community, since of the sixteen men who founded the ATS, fourteen were ABCFM members. Historian Ian Tyrrell explains: The gospel command and the institutional connections ensured that temperance reformers would value international work. Since they conceived of intemperance as a heinous sin and an obstacle to gospel work, they took it as axiomatic that temperance must triumph everywhere if the ABCFM was to succeed. “The world of the Lord” would “run swiftly” in a sober world and usher in the fruits of “millennial glory,” said the founders of the American Temperance Society.29

These missionaries were charged with spreading the perfectionist spirit associated with the Second Great Awakening within American Protestantism (1800–1835), which held that individual piety and improving their earthly society was a means of accelerating the coming of the millennium: [W]herever the gospel goes, and exerts its legitimate influence over the mind of man, abstinence from all which intoxicates, and thus wars against the soul,


37

will be its sure and invariable attendant. The Hottentot and the Hindoo, the Greenlander and Tahitian, will unite with the inhabitants of the Emerald Isle, the Caledonian, European, Asiatic, African and American of every name, in ceasing to do evil. . . . The frost and the snows of six thousand winters will be forever dissolved; and the spring-time of millennial beauty, and the autumnal fruit of millennial glory, open upon the world.30

Such sentiments resonated with other Christian communities, such as the British Unitarians, which utilized similar rhetoric and justification for their transnational crusade against slavery of the 1830s through 1860s.31 As a result, the ATS resolved that copies of the society’s Temperance Manual should be furnished for each missionary of all denominations, and in all parts of the world [and] to a number of distinguished, and philanthropic individuals, in all countries; accompanied with a letter, briefly stating what has already been done on this subject, and suggesting some of the prominent benefits, temporal and eternal, which, should men cease to drink intoxicating liquor, would result to the human race, and inviting a prompt and universal cooperation.32

International reports, journals, and correspondences were the primary means through which the temperance message and organizational forms of the ATS spread globally in the 1830s. Organizations throughout the British Isles, Switzerland, France, and even the Royal Patriotic Society of Sweden all solicited materials from the ATS to aid in the development of domestic temperance societies. By 1833 “Sweden and Prussia had caught a flame which [the Bishop of Chester] hoped would soon spread to other countries, till, stimulated by our example, it reached the farthest shores of Europe, Asia, and Africa.”33 By the mid-1830s the ATS temperance message was spread by merchants and missionaries throughout the Baltic and by “temperance ships” sailing to ports in the Mediterranean Sea, Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific Oceans, leading foreign activists to proclaim that the ATS “had its origin in the United States, but it must not have its end, till it has circumnavigated and blessed the entire world” (italics in original).34 The establishment of permanent organizational bodies and temperance lodges—and communications between them—first arose during this incipient stage of network development. In 1831, at the same time that Alexis de Toqueville was making his famous excursion to study American democracy and civic associations—notably including temperance organizations35— Nathaniel Hewett of the ATS visited France and Great Britain, assisting in the formation of the British and Foreign Temperance Society, charging followers there with the task of extending the movement’s blessings “throughout the kingdom and throughout the world.”36 Other American temperance lodges, such as the Sons of Temperance, began to establish international chapters during this period, while Irish and English immigrants brought

38


their Father Mathew and Rechabite temperance societies to the United States in the 1830s and 1840s. A shared normative commitment to the precepts of temperance bridged divisions between Protestants and Catholics, and Protestant reformers hailed Father Mathew during his extensive tours of Canada and the United States in the late 1840s.37 Elsewhere, foreign emissaries such as the Marquis de Custine were actively condemning the deplorable social conditions and inebriety of the lower classes in Russia.38 Moralistic admonitions and close ties with evangelical churches greatly facilitated the transnationalization of the temperance cause. While secular self-help temperance organizations such as the Washingtonian movement of the 1830s flourished domestically, they could not draw upon the same resources for transnational activism as could their religious counterparts; moreover, that the Washingtonian societies lacked a central organizational hierarchy perpetuated the co-opting of local Washingtonian lodges by rival temperance organizations, leading to the eventual demise of the Washingtonian self-help movement in the late 1840s.39 Undoubtedly the most influential early transnational temperance trailblazer was the American reverend Robert Baird, who sermonized throughout Europe as an emissary of the American Sunday School Union, the ATS, and the French Evangelical Association (a Franco-American missionary union) through the 1830s and 1840s.40 Baird was blessed with a comprehensive command of Christian theology, a knowledge of temperance history, and a knack for persuasive oratory, and so his work and legend inspired a wave of temperance activity throughout northern Europe. Upon his arrival in France, Baird was approached by members of the French aristocracy and the American ambassador to the French court to prepare a brief historical sketch of American temperance activity in French; over 2,000 copies of the resulting Histoire des sociétés de tempérence des États Unis d’Amérique were published the following year and quickly circulated among the most influential salons of the continent. As Baird’s son and biographer would note: The wide diffusion of information respecting one of the most remarkable moral enterprises which the world has ever witnessed, by means of a language which is read by almost every well-educated man in Europe, was the motive which suggested the publication of this work. A minor, but still important consideration, was the hope that such a work might be the means of awakening France to the evils of the increasing use of brandy and other intoxicating liquors in all the . . . cities and villages of the kingdom.41

Baird’s work spread quickly throughout Europe, as did his fame. In 1836 he was granted an audience with French King Louis XV, Danish King Frederick VI, Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm III, Swedish King Karl XIV Johan, and innumerable queens, crown princes, princesses, barons,


39

ministers, liaisons, archbishops, gentlemen, professors, and ambassadors.42 Already predisposed toward temperance ideals, Karl XIV Johan decreed that Baird’s History would be translated into Swedish and mass produced at the king’s own expense.43 In 1837 Baird assisted in the formation of the Swedish Temperance Society, and when he returned to Sweden three years later, it claimed over 50,000 members. By his third visit in 1846 the society he helped to found boasted 332 lodges with nearly 100,000 adherents.44 In Prussia, Baird convinced the crown prince to join a total abstinence society, and King Friedrich Wilhelm III ordered the establishment of temperance societies in every Prussian province.45 News of Baird’s arrival in Europe coincided with numerous reports throughout the continent that reflected favorably on the American example. Following the publication in a Riga journal of an 1836 article concerning the ATS, temperance missionaries sought the blessing of the Russian imperial government for a Baltic temperance society, but they were quickly rebuked, “lest they should be mistaken for separate religious sects.”46 Upon visiting St. Petersburg in 1840, Baird was granted an audience with Tsar Nicholas I, who promised to translate his History into Russian and Finnish and distribute 15,000 copies throughout the empire.47 Following his meeting, Baird wrote: “Never was I more convinced of the importance of going directly to the source of power than in this case. It will not be possible to form temperance societies here for years; but much may be done at once by diffusing information” (emphasis in original).48 By the time he returned to the United States, much had indeed been done by diffusing information: Baird’s History was available not only in Russian and Finnish, but also in French, Dutch, German, Swedish, and Hungarian.49 At this early stage, temperance activists focused on encouraging partial or total abstinence of the individual through moral persuasion, rather than through coercive government restrictions.50 “They were confident that, since sin was due to ignorance, knowledge would turn men from vice to virtue.”51 The perceived effectiveness of the American temperance blueprint of information politics—evident in international press coverage and propagandistic tracts—explains the diffusion of American-inspired organizational arrangements (local temperance lodges with close church ties) to diverse national settings throughout Europe. Given this brief description of the incipient stage of the transnational temperance advocacy network in the early nineteenth century, a number of points are generalizable to the genesis of TANs broadly speaking. First, the initial establishment of transnational linkages was primarily an elite phenomenon. The foremost transnational temperance crusaders of the time, such as Nathaniel Hewett, Robert Baird, and Father Mathew, were not only men of faith but also men of high educational and social standing. Their

40


elite status assisted in the formation of transnational linkages with national elites in other countries: certainly, not just anyone could routinely find sympathetic audience with the most influential royal families of Europe. Moreover, this may well mark the first time that governments received ambassadors representing social causes instead of states. Second, the establishment of transnational temperance linkages benefited from association with the church, which was replete with physical, financial, and moral resources. Promoted by “men of God,” the temperance message of early pioneers resonated with broad public religious sentiments, rather than being limited to particular sects or denominations. Moreover, the links between denominational churches internationally, as well as the links between church parishes locally, provided mobilizational resources in terms of interpersonal contacts. Consequently, it should not be surprising that the travels of the foremost temperance representatives were supported by Christian missionary organizations.52 Third, in the incipient stage of TAN formation, the transfer of ideas, information, and tactics influenced the development of local organizations in other national settings primarily through inspiration and emulation. While the actions of advocates certainly aided the establishment of temperance organizations in different countries, in-person visits were not necessary—simply conveying the organizational template was often enough to prompt the emergence of temperance adherents and organizations. This phenomenon serves to underline the importance of early newspapers, journals, and translations of temperance tracts to the promotion of the temperance cause. Fourth, the uniformity in the development of local temperance units is striking. Even at this early stage, temperance advocates in Europe were not only following the ideology emanating primarily from America, but also mimicking its institutional forms—adopting American-type lodges and verbatim copies of the teetotal pledge of the ATS. This seems to confirm the insights of sociological institutionalists, who suggest that “organizationbuilders who face complex challenges in conditions of uncertainty are inclined to copy well-understood, already legitimate models in their environment.”53 Fifth, at this embryonic stage, the fate of national developments depended not only on the congruence of the temperance with national public sentiments, but also with the prevailing domestic structure. As the brief sketch suggests, transnational temperance advocates received positive receptions in England, Sweden, and Russia, though political considerations frustrated the further development of temperance activity in the latter.54 The incipient stage of development of a transnational advocacy network depends upon sporadic, irregular efforts by a small number of devoted


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transnational actors. While this stage witnessed the proliferation of a large number of local temperance chapters in different countries, what differentiates this initial stage from later stages is the infrequent, irregular, and highly contingent exchanges of information between the nascent national temperance organizations themselves.

Ascendancy (1846–1885) Beginning in the mid-1840s a growing number of national-level temperance organizations integrated into a transnational web of communication and interaction. This ascendant stage is marked by international temperance conferences and publications, as well as the development of temperance organizations engaged in multiple national settings. The ascendant stage, then, dates from the development of the first international temperance conferences in 1846 until the establishment of regularly scheduled transnational temperance relations through the series of International Congresses on Alcoholism beginning in 1885. While the Civil War debilitated American temperance organization, the temperance cause continued relatively unencumbered in Europe.55 The Independent Order of Good Templars (IOGT) became the first organization to promote coercive measures such as prohibition and to extend those ideas through an extensive international network. Formed in 1851 in Utica, New York, by the time of the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861 the IOGT claimed lodges throughout the Northeast, upper Midwest, and Southern Canada. Rather than focusing on moral suasion and rehabilitation, its platform demanded a lifetime pledge of total abstinence by its members and also promoted legislative palliatives, including the revocation of licenses to produce, distribute, or sell alcohol. In addition to being the first temperance organization to encourage participation of women and families, the IOGT had a platform that focused upon moral suasion and rehabilitation, differing significantly from previous temperance organizations. Participation in the IOGT was premised on a lifetime pledge of total abstinence and work toward the eventual prohibition of liquor through the revocation of licenses to produce, distribute, or sell alcoholic beverages. According to the Right Worthy Grand Templar Simeon Chase: believing that the appetite for alcohol “is too strong to be overcome while the siren tongue beckons on the unfortunate to partake of the sparkling, bewildering draught, we would carry joy to his heart, and enable him to conquer it, by banishing the luring devil from our midst, and surrounding his unfortunate victim by attractions pure, healthy and soulbenefiting.”56

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The IOGT experienced exceptional growth in the United States after the Civil War, enlisting over 400,000 members by 1868. More exceptional was the proliferation of IOGT lodges throughout every continent in the 1860s and 1870s. Philadelphia Good Templar Joseph Malins established the first British IOGT lodge in Birmingham in 1868, and within five years IOGT societies were flourishing throughout the British Isles to the extent that the annual Templar convention—the Right Worthy Grand Lodge—was first held outside of the United States in London in 1873. By the end of the decade the IOGT boasted a worldwide membership of 721,000, earning it the title of the “leading temperance organization in the world.”57 The first Swedish IOGT lodge was established by Swedish-American Olof Bergström, upon his return to Gothenburg in 1879.58 Consequently, while schisms over the question of racial equality within the American organization marked the beginning of a long, steady decline in the United States, the development of the IOGT as a truly transnational temperance organization adhering to the principles of individual abstinence and legislative restrictions continued unabated.59 The metamorphosis of the formal institutions is illustrative of this internationalization of the Templar movement. From the 1850s through the early 1870s the organization was governed by the “Right Worthy Grand Lodge of North America,” which subsequently gave way to the “International Supreme Lodge,” with representation from all nations boasting Templar lodges. Annual conferences, initially held exclusively in the United States, gave way to biennial sessions on both sides of the Atlantic, and eventually to triennial conferences rotating among North America, the British Isles, and the European continent. By the end of the nineteenth century the organization’s executive, the Right Worthy Grand Templar, had been occupied by Englishmen, Swedes, and Norwegians, and the members of the International Executive Committee speaking Scandinavian languages outnumbered those speaking English. By 1902 the order changed from being an “Independent” to an “International Order of Good Templars,” subordinating the North American lodges into separate “National Grand Lodges” for the United States and the Canadian provinces.60 The geographical breadth of IOGT development during the ascendant stage was remarkable, and so too was the depth and extent of the Templars’ influence on subsequent temperance organization. In the United States the Prohibition Party was organized at the behest of the IOGT, while the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), the Anti-Saloon League of America (ASLA), and the International Prohibition Confederation were founded by individuals with significant experience and leadership in Templar work. Moreover, when these organizations attempted to build transnational subsidiaries such as the World’s WCTU and the World


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League against Alcoholism (WLAA), they would build upon the work of the IOGT.61 Much of the organization’s success can be traced to its open and nondiscriminatory membership policies which not only permitted the IOGT to involve women in the movement, but also facilitated cooperation with newer, pan-denominational temperance contemporaries, such as the Sons of Temperance and the Independent Order of Rechabites. The most visible way that such organizations could interact to bring together like-minded temperance advocates from different regions to exchange ideas, information, and innovations was through international temperance conferences. These conferences not only provided opportunities for socialization and information exchange, they also served as focusing events for the necessity of policy action.62 Mimicking tactics pioneered by the abolitionist movement, temperance advocates brought increased attention to the international dimension of their cause by labeling their meetings a “World Temperance Convention” and inviting delegates from other countries.63 Initially such conferences had only token international representation, but as the transnational network developed, the countries represented in these meetings grew in step. When temperance trailblazer Robert Baird returned to Europe in 1846, he did so as a delegate to two of the first international conventions on the temperance question: a first conference in Stockholm under the patronage of King Oscar I,64 followed by a larger “World’s Temperance Convention,” held in London at the behest of the National Temperance Society (NTS). Plans for such an international gathering in London were first proposed during the 1843 Anti-Slavery and Peace Conventions and subsequently spread throughout the early transnational abolitionist networks, which included members of both temperance and missionary organizations as well as noteworthy abolitionists Lyman Beecher and William Lloyd Garrison.65 Attempts were made to extend this convention into a permanent organization, or World Temperance Union, though most participants viewed such proposals as premature, impractical, and inexpedient. Beyond discussion of temperance activities throughout North America, Britain, and outposts of the Empire from the Caribbean to India, the convention is worthy of mention as the first deliberative assembly linking temperance pioneers in the United States with like-minded reformers throughout the British Empire.66 Whereas the 1846 London convention drew upon the ideas of equality of the abolitionist movement, the “Whole World’s Temperance Convention” that coincided with the New York World’s Fair of 1853 further developed linkages between the abolitionist, temperance, and nascent suffragist movements, making it the most influential and well-attended international temperance convention during the ascendant stage. With Susan B. Anthony

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unanimously elected secretary of the convention, it was the unparalleled inclusion of women that spoke toward the universality of the temperance cause, that claimed to be worldwide “in spirit, if not in numbers,” reflecting the fact that delegates were drawn solely from the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom.67 While the conference resolutions continued to encourage temperance through individual abstinence and spiritual growth, most of the proceedings constituted a debate over the appropriateness and enforceability of the recently enacted prohibitory law in Maine in 1851–1852. Lauding such legislative palliatives against inebriation, the conference resolved that the official position of the state with regard to the liquor traffic should be one of “declared and uncompromising hostility,” indicating a further transition of temperance ideas from tactics of mere moral suasion toward the full utilization of the coercive capacity of the state.68 The summer of 1876 was a time of great excitement throughout the United States with the centennial of American nationhood, and nowhere was that excitement more in evidence than in Philadelphia—the cradle of American liberty—where two international temperance conferences were held in conjunction with the Centennial Exposition. President of the WCTU, Annie Wittenmyer, called to order the Woman’s International Temperance Convention on June 10—the “first . . . international convention . . . for women

Table 2.1 Early International Temperance Conferences Conference

Location

Date

Countries

Temperance Convention

Stockholm, Sweden

15–17 June 1846

World’s Temperance Convention The Whole World’s Temperance Convention International Temperance and Prohibition Convention Woman’s International Temperance Convention

London

4–8 Aug. 1846

New York, NY

1–2 Sept. 1853

London

2–4 Sept. 1862

Sweden, Norway, US, Germany US, UK, Canada US, UK, Canada n/a

Philadelphia

10 June 1876

Philadelphia

12 June 1876

Philadelphia

June 1885

London

July 1886

International Temperance Conference Centennial Temperance Conference British and Colonial Temperance Convention

US, UK, Canada, Japan 9 Countries US, UK, Canada UK, Canada


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the world has ever known”—with delegates from Canada, England, Scotland, Japan, and twenty-one of the thirty-eight American states.69 This meeting commissioned a study of the feasibility of a permanent woman’s international temperance union, which would eventually become the World’s WCTU. A larger International Temperance Conference was held two days later, with over 420 delegates from Canada, England, Scotland, Sweden, and New Zealand. Conference attendees debated licensing issues, liquor revenue interests, and the feasibility of prohibition; heard histories of twenty-two temperance organizations and descriptions of temperance developments in Australia, New Zealand, Sweden, Jamaica, China, British India, and colonial Madagascar; and read sixty correspondences from fifteen countries.70 Ironically, although two international temperance conventions were held in celebration of the American centennial in Philadelphia in 1876, the “Centennial Temperance Conference” wouldn’t be held until 1885—celebrating instead 100 years of American temperance activity dating from the publication of Benjamin Rush’s Inquiry. Correspondingly, the conference proceedings consisted primarily of historical sketches of various temperance organizations and established churches in addressing insobriety in the American context, with only token presentations given to developments in the British Isles and the Dominion of Canada.71 On the flip side, the following year an international temperance conference was held in London focusing on the development of temperance activities solely within the British Empire, with only token consideration of American developments.72 The transnational temperance network was not limited to grand lodges and world conferences; another important development was the proliferation of press coverage of foreign temperance developments. Temperance societies developed in-house presses to publish books, temperance tracts, sermons, and periodicals for members and subscribers. The Nation, the National Temperance Advocate, the WCTU’s Union Signal, and the IOGT’s International Good Templar all date from the 1880s, with more publications in the succeeding decades. The IOGT’s National Temperance Society and Publication House produced the first comprehensive histories of the liquor question in different countries as well as tracts addressing the ways in which various governments and leaders have addressed it.73 To this point, little attention has been directed to the incorporation of more closed and conservative regimes, such as imperial Russia. While transnational temperance linkages were anemic because of government efforts to frustrate temperance organizations, coverage of the “scourge” of Russian intemperance was common in the aforementioned international histories, in international temperance studies, and in the general-interest press.74 Temperate members of the Russian intelligentsia were invited to par-

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ticipate in international conferences and comment on the state of Russian inebriety, though they were rarely involved in the proceedings.75 This is not to suggest that the temperance impulse was unidirectional: the affluent salons of St. Petersburg—Russia’s “window on Europe”—were not remote from European social developments and ideas, and network forces operated at a variety of levels to promote the temperance cause in the Russian Empire. Moreover, the non-Russian provinces of Finland, Poland, and the Baltics maintained international religious linkages based on Lutheranism (and Catholicism, in Poland and Lithuania), which spread the temperance message there despite official opposition.76 Informally, too, international actors promoted temperance in Russia by means of direct pleas to influential leaders, including Tsar Alexander III himself, to institute alcohol reforms as a means toward improving the moral standing of his good, Christian people.77 In terms of the evolution of a transnational temperance advocacy network, then, a number of factors differentiate the ascendant stage of network development (1846–1885) from those developments that came both before and after it. First is the rapid expansion of local temperance lodges in an ever-increasing range of countries, as well as the proliferation of connections between them. Consequently, the temperance TAN increasingly became a mass movement as international linkages were no longer the sole purview of a handful of elite emissaries. Moreover, the proliferation of temperance organizations provided new channels for the transmission of statistical, historical, and tactical information to other countries.78 Second, the ascendant stage was marked by the genesis of organizations with an expressly transnational focus. While the seeds for international temperance organizations such as the World’s WCTU were planted during this stage, the development of the IOGT into a full-fledged international temperance organization, with extensive transnational administrative linkages similar to modern international NGOs, was crucial to the continued development of the transnational temperance network. Third, the advent of international temperance conferences as a means to transmit temperance information, tactics and reports of progress in other lands was a crucial characteristic of the ascendant stage. Given the time and resources necessary for international travel, such conferences were normally scheduled to coincide with other international events: World’s Fairs, centenary celebrations, and other international conferences. Drawing on tactics of the abolitionist cause, the attachment of an “international” or “world” label to such gatherings, even though the actual amount of international content was frequently trivial, served to legitimize temperance activity as a worldwide moral battle between universal principles of good and evil, right and wrong. Such “global framing,” according to Sidney Tarrow, “can


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dignify and generalize claims that might otherwise remain narrow and parochial.”79 International conferences confirmed advocates’ perceptions as to the necessity of their cause, since it was apparent that the “evil” that they were confronting was not simply the manifestation of localized conditions, but was instead part of a global (if not universal) struggle requiring global response. Networking with like-minded foreign activists likewise reassured temperance advocates that they were not waging their battle alone or in vain. Yet since these early international conferences were created at the behest of domestic organizations to further their own parochial ends, they were infrequent, were highly contingent, and contained relatively little genuine international participation. Fourth, the ascendant stage of transnational network development witnessed a change in the content of the ideas and information being transmitted from moral persuasion to legislative coercion, due in large part to the growing influence of the IOGT.80 Temperance activists increasingly considered government policy options, debating the feasibility of alcohol restrictions, licenses, taxes, and outright prohibition—especially following the enactment of the first American prohibitory legislation in Maine in 1851.81 This development is related to the maturation of the network itself: rather than simply appealing to public sentiments, the ascendant stage witnessed the international transmission of policy programs and the normative frames to justify them, with an aim at influencing dominant cognitive paradigms. In sum, the ascendant stage of the transnational advocacy network was marked by a rapid spread of temperance lodges, organizations, and a proliferation in the number of international contacts between them. While intraorganizational contacts were increasingly regular and frequent; interorganizational and intergovernmental contacts were not. The development of a mature transnational network would take shape only with the existence of stable interorganizational linkages, regular temperance conferences, and increasing interaction of the network with the relevant policymaking and government bodies.

Maturity (1885–1925) By the advent of the “Prohibition Era” in America, a mature transnational temperance network had already been in existence for well over thirty years. The maturation and professionalization of the network is evidenced not only by the creation of routine international conferences drawing upon an ever-growing cadre of members from around the globe, but also through the establishment of organizations with an expressly global agenda: to bring prohibition or temperance not to any one country but ultimately to the entire globe as a whole. As transnational activists are rooted in the political and

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social contexts of their home countries, it should come as little surprise that the apogee of the transnational temperance network roughly corresponds with the ascendance of prohibitionism in Europe and North America, and that the eventual decline of the network corresponds with the demise of the so-called “noble experiment” with prohibition. Accordingly, we can date the beginning of the maturity stage of network development from the first biennial temperance convention in Antwerp, Belgium, in September 1885; while the network enters perceptible decline after the Geneva Conference of the International Bureau against Alcoholism in 1925—the last hurrah of prohibition and temperance as topics of serious mainstream international consideration.82 Beginning with the September 1885 Meeting international d’Anvers contre l’abus des boissons alcooliques in Antwerp, transnational temperance meetings would be regularized, routinized, and professionalized, with conventions held every second year rotating throughout the various states of Europe—only once visiting North America. Reflecting on the differences from the Anglo-American temperance conferences of the past, American Gallus Thomann described the 1887 conference in Zurich “as an educational agency, as a centre of information, supplied by channels ramifying all over the globe, and in turn sending its radiating streams of enlightenment throughout the civilized world, this second international conference most assuredly excels its predecessors in a manner and measure far surpassing the expectations of the most sanguine.”83 Moreover, as the transnational advocacy network grew broader and deeper, both the number of delegates to the congress and the number of countries represented would keep step. These trends are indicated in Figures 2.1–2.3. The organizing committee of the International Meeting against the Abuse of Alcoholic Beverages in Antwerp in 1885 originally solicited representation from numerous temperance societies, both in Belgium and abroad. As a result, the meeting was attended by 560 delegates from all over the world, including the United States, United Kingdom, Belgium, the Netherlands, France, Sweden, and Switzerland. These delegates continued the trends of earlier international conferences by addressing the viability and effectiveness of coercive legal approaches to curbing the alcohol trade, rather than focusing on simple moral suasion.84 These regular conferences provided ample opportunity for temperance advocates to network with likeminded individuals in other lands and to acquire information on the advance of the temperance cause elsewhere. Following an opening address in the language of the host country; the conference proceedings, papers and discussions were routinely conducted in French, German, and occasionally English, with each participant responding in whichever language most suited him or herself and the conversation. Given the relatively high educa-

Figure 2.1 Gauging Network Depth: Attendance at International Temperance Conferences, 1885–1934. Source: Data for Figures 2.1–2.3 are available in Mark Lawrence Schrad, “The Prohibition Option: Transnational Temperance and National Decisionmaking in Russia, Sweden, and the United States” (University of Wisconsin–Madison, 2007), 460–84.

Figure 2.2 Gauging Network Depth: Temperance NGOs and Presses Represented at International Temperance Conferences, 1885–1934.

Figure 2.3 Gauging Network Breadth: Number of Countries Represented at International Temperance Conferences, 1885–1934.

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tional level of the attendees, the polyglot character of the proceedings did not appear to hinder the temperance discussion and rendered the meetings “uncommonly interesting.”85 As the transnational network expanded, it also became more professional, as the dominant role of religious figures at the conferences was gradually overtaken by leaders of national and international temperance organizations, representatives from local temperance lodges, government regulatory bureaucrats, and official delegates from legislative and executive bodies. These “inter-confessional and inter-classal as well as inter-national” (sic) congresses were enormous administrative undertakings requiring a durable support structure, which found form in the Permanent Committee of the International Congresses against Alcoholism, which included the most prominent temperance advocates in twenty-three countries.86 These meetings prompted the formation of new transnational temperance societies based upon shared affiliations and identities. The promise of repeated, biennial interaction allowed such new organizations to hold subsequent international meetings in parallel with future meetings. For example, the 1907 Congress in Stockholm produced the International Union of Medical Abstainers, the 1909 London Congress produced the International Union of Abstaining Teachers, the 1913 Milan Congress resulted in the International Committee of Abstaining Priests, the Lausanne Conference of 1921 spurred the development of the World Student Federation against Alcoholism, and the 1923 Copenhagen Congress produced the International Teacher’s Federation against Alcoholism.87 Such spin-offs allowed for advocates to continue their global temperance pursuits outside the confines of the conferences themselves. The professionalization of the TAN is evidenced by the greater number of government representatives and official state delegates to such international conventions. Representatives arrived at these conferences with official communiqués from their presidents, kings, prime ministers, governors, and mayors, with the charge of both conveying positive temperance developments in the country and learning of progress in other countries to be transmitted to legislators back home.88 Even regimes at the “fringe” of the transnational network, such as imperial Russia (which was openly hostile to indigenous temperance organization), routinely sent official delegates and even provided an annual stipend to help fund the conferences.89 A second defining feature of network maturation is the formation of organizations with an explicitly global agenda. While there were dozens of such international organizations and societies, only the three most influential will be addressed here—the World’s Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, the World League against Alcoholism, and the International Prohibition Confederation/ World Prohibition Federation.90


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The World’s Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (World’s WCTU) has its organizational roots in the WCTU of the United States, which was formed in Ohio in 1873 to mobilize women to the causes of temperance education and female suffrage. With the organization’s 1885 convention, which claimed “fraternal delegates” in Canada and the UK, charismatic WCTU president Frances Willard pronounced that a newly formed international branch of the WCTU would export temperance reform around the world through missionary work and the circulation of petitions to the “Governments of the World.”91 To that end, delegate Mary Clement Leavitt embarked on an eight-year missionary world tour, in which she brought the WCTU message of temperance and suffrage to every continent. By the time she returned to the United States, the World’s WCTU claimed over a half million members worldwide and routinely sent professional missionaries from North America, Scandinavia, and the British Empire to establish contacts through evangelical outposts as far away as China, Japan, India, and the Pacific—in the process modifying the WCTU slogan from “for God and home and native land” to “for God and home and every land.”92 Once established, these intercontinental relationships proved quite robust and were sustained through routine correspondence, publications, and meetings at international conventions. Ian Tyrrell notes that such contacts “served as the medium for the exchange of ideas and institutional arrangements” used by different WCTU chapters to promote temperance, including holding prayer vigils outside of liquor stores and the stationing of matrons to oversee the operation of police stations—practices pioneered in the United States and subsequently spread to Great Britain, India, and Australia within months.93 The World’s WCTU enabled women to specialize in various branches of temperance, religious, social, and political work through specific bureaucracies linked to a worldwide network of specialized agents, each of whom would report to local, state, and national conventions, which in turn sent delegates to international WCTU conferences and International Temperance Congresses.94 Pioneers though they were, Mary Leavitt and other World’s WCTU missionaries did not embark alone into the “uncivilized” wilderness: from arranging lecture tours and travel plans to providing audiences and identifying possibilities for advancement of the cause, Ian Tyrrell notes, “everywhere the WCTU missionaries went, they built upon the work already done by the Templars,” who were entrenched with 29,000 members in Australia even before Leavitt first set foot there in the mid-1880s.95 Thus adherence to particular organizational affiliations did not prevent interorganizational cooperation on behalf of the common cause—stemming the tide of inebriety—as many temperance organizations networked with one another, most notably through the biennial International Temperance Congresses.96

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Such cooperation is also evident in another organization seeking worldwide prohibition—the International Prohibition Confederation (IPC), known as the World Prohibition Federation (WPF) after 1919. The IPC was formed in London in 1909 at the behest of Guy Hayler—a professional transnational temperance advocate who had extensive experience within the ranks of the IOGT.97 As a consequence, the principles of the IPC/WPF mirrored those of the IOGT: total personal abstinence from alcohol and the elimination of the liquor traffic. As evidence of its role within a transnational information network, the stated objectives of the IPC were “to amalgamate the forces in various countries working . . . toward the one common aim of the total suppression of the traffic in intoxicants,” and “to obtain notes of progress, information, and news from all parts of the world, and to send such information to all organizations joining the Federation.”98 The IPC/WPF promoted these ideals through directly soliciting influential legislators and providing mass propaganda on overcoming the evils of alcohol through prohibition—achieving greater health, wealth, and happiness along the way. In less than two decades, more than five million copies of IPC/ WPF publications were circulating in English, French, and German.99 Like other transnational temperance NGOs, the IPC/WPF relied on regular International Conferences of the Federation, as well as its own journal, the International Record, to disseminate information concerning the advance of prohibition in various countries.100 The IPC/WLF differed from other transnational temperance NGOs primarily because of its federative structure—acting as a clearinghouse of information provided by, and distributed to, any individual or organization willing to interact with the federation. Lacking the traditional local temperance lodges and chapters, the IPC/WLF information network was ultimately co-opted by the larger and better-funded World League against Alcoholism (WLAA). By the 1920s the fate of the WLF was intricately tied to that of the World League. This WLAA was a latecomer to the realm of transnational organization. Like the World’s WCTU, the WLAA was a direct attempt to export the American understanding of temperance as prohibition—as well as the American prohibition “playbook”—to the rest of the civilized world. As the international branch of the Anti Saloon League of America (ASLA)— the pressure group whose activities are most frequently cited as providing for the ultimate victory of prohibition in the American context—the WLAA was comprised of those same prohibition advocates, such as Ernest Cherrington, “Pussyfoot” Johnson, and Bishop James Cannon, who helped bring the Eighteenth Amendment to fruition in the United States.101 Unlike its domestic-level parent organization, the WLAA rarely engaged in grassroots political activity, preferring to combat anti-prohibitionist sentiment


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through its role as a clearinghouse of prohibition propaganda in conjunction with the IPC/WLF. One noteworthy exception is the political agitation of William E. “Pussyfoot” Johnson, whose rabble-rousing visits to England, India, Australia, Russia, Sweden, and Yugoslavia, coinciding with pending legislation on the liquor question, were often met with derision: a debateturned-riot among the students of Kings College, London, in 1919 even cost Johnson the use of his right eye.102 From the headline-grabbing to the mundane, temperance achievements were disseminated through the temperance periodicals of the WCTU and the ASLA—the Union Signal and American Issue, respectively. At its peak in the mid-1920s, in addition to the ASLA headquarters in Washington, D.C., the WLAA had permanent offices in London, Oslo, Mexico, Estonia, and Switzerland. By the end of the decade the WLAA boasted 59 member organizations, mailings to over 500 temperance organizations, 200 temperance publications, support for prohibition campaigns in Scotland, Sweden, New Zealand, Mexico, and South Africa, two World League Conventions, and cordial relations with influential members of the League of Nations.103 The evolution of temperance into a mature and transnational advocacy network characterized by increasingly regular and routine interactions, the development of transnational professionals, and the proliferation of NGOs with a global agenda built upon the foundation of earlier TAN work. To be sure, national and local temperance lodges continued to operate in areas where they had been established, and even spread to countries outside of the North Atlantic axis. The proliferation of IOGT lodges furthered transnational relations between like-minded temperance advocates through bilateral correspondence, speaking tours, and the conduct of routine organization business.104 Moreover, the biennial International Congresses on Alcholism allowed specific transnational temperance organizations to flourish. Finally, the traditional mechanisms of transnational policy learning—official delegates and media coverage of temperance developments—were supplemented with new channels for both government officials and temperance advocates to transmit information.105 The existence of a mature transnational network greatly facilitated the international wave of antiliquor legislation and prohibition that coincided with the First World War by disseminating temperance frames for understanding significant political developments. For instance, the Brussels International Conference of 1889, which outlawed both the slave trade and the liquor traffic in large tracts of colonial Africa, was hailed as an important early victory for antiliquor forces.106 The confused and drunken attacks of the Russian Baltic Fleet on unarmed British fishing trawlers they thought were Japanese submarines off the Dogger Banks, as well as the surprising

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defeat at the hands of Japan in the Russo-Japanese War, were quickly framed as evidence of alcohol’s detriment to military performance.107 The seemingly successful imposition of temporary prohibition as an emergency measure with the Swedish general strike of 1909 likewise bolstered the case for prohibition. Finally, the spirit of self-sacrifice and economic necessity associated with World War I prompted an increase in alcohol restrictions, in some cases including prohibition. News of the victory of prohibition in one land often bolstered temperance efforts of those in another. Partially as a result of these transnational information conduits, we see a dramatic increase in the number of countries adopting statutory prohibition during World War I (see Figure 1.1 in chapter 1). The ways in which information and tactics shared transnationally are filtered through domestic political contexts is the focus of later chapters, but for our purposes here it should suffice to note that a mature transnational temperance network ultimately aided the development of prohibition in many diverse countries at the same time. In the long term, these networks—already having reached maturity some thirty years before prohibition—served as important conduits of ideas and information, conveying organizational tactics and forms, as well as understandings as to the desirability of particular policy options and normative frames for understanding external events, which predisposed public sentiment in favor of alcohol restrictions. In the short term, during the policy window opened by the looming Great War, the network transmitted information concerning pro-temperance developments in other countries. Yet while the transnational network facilitated the adoption of alcohol restrictions, the fate of the network itself would ultimately hinge upon the success of those policies. At root, network maturity is indicated by the depth, breadth, and professionalization of transnational linkages. In terms of network depth, cooperation and interaction are at their deepest when organizations are most developed and interaction is most routine. To that end, the mature period of TAN development is marked not only by the development of international NGOs with an explicit worldwide perspective, but also by an increase in the number of routine transnational meetings and conferences. These developments, as well as the expansion of organizational presses and periodicals, brought the dissemination of temperance literature and information to unprecedented levels. Finally, deeper network cooperation is evident by the inclusion of professionals, government delegates, and policymakers themselves. In terms of network breadth, the number of countries (as well as the number of people in those countries) active in the temperance movement grew substantially. By the twentieth century, international temperance congresses fielded representatives from thirty to forty countries, a large


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proportion of independent countries in existence at the time. Moreover, these representatives became increasingly active in furthering the temperance cause, as positive developments in any country were seen as integral to the international movement as a whole. Finally, the mature stage of network development is evidenced by the rise of truly professional transnational advocates. These are individuals dedicated to the cause of temperance who had extensive careers within temperance organizations with the explicit function of disseminating temperance information, and who acted within various national contexts to lobby on behalf of that information. The proliferation of international NGOs expanded the opportunities available to develop careers based on the promotion of temperance ideals. While the purpose of this chapter has been to pinpoint the sources of the global prohibition “wave” of the early twentieth century in the development of the transnational temperance network, we might well end here: where the temperance-cum-prohibition movement reached the high-water mark by achieving the aims of national prohibition. However, we would be remiss if we did not complete the tale by considering the recession of the transnational movement from the international stage. Whereas everything up to this point has been toward the advance of the cause, the declining stage examines the exogenous and endogenous factors that weakened and eventually incapacitated the temperance TAN.

Decline (1925–1935) The fate of the transnational temperance network was ultimately linked to the destiny of prohibition worldwide. When the prohibition inroads made in countries throughout North America and Europe were gradually repealed after World War I, support for transnational temperance efforts was correspondingly eroded. The more immediate reasons for this decline lie in the abandonment of the belief that statutory prohibition could remain an effective policy in the face of overwhelming evidence of policy failure. As advocates became disillusioned with the temperance movement—inextricably linked to the prohibition debacle—they withdrew their support for temperance organizations, ultimately causing the demise of the network. Thus the final stage in the network life cycle is decline: the dissipation of the motivating temperance impetus, marked by the gradual curtailing of network interactions as well as the bankruptcy, dissolution, or retooling of movement organizations. Since the Anglo-American axis had long been the keystone to the transnational temperance movement, the TAN was disproportionately influenced by political developments in those countries. The emergency circumstances

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of the Great War brought about strict alcohol restrictions just short of outright prohibition in the United Kingdom. These restrictions were gradually repealed after the war, and the UK would never again flirt with statutory prohibition. Therefore, much of the support for the temperance movement hinged on the fate of the American “noble experiment.” In many ways the American temperance movement was ultimately the victim of its own success: most members of temperance organizations believed that their crusade had come to an end with the adoption of the Eighteenth Amendment. Despite calls to help with enforcement and education, enrollment in American temperance societies declined precipitously during the early 1920s. The belief that the war on liquor had been won translated into fewer resources for the transnational temperance movement: fewer dues-paying members ultimately meant that American temperance organizations such as the WCTU and the Anti-Saloon League were unable to support the vast institutional structures of their international programs— the World’s WCTU and the WLAA, respectively. Mirroring the depths of the Great Depression of the late 1920s and early 1930s, transnational temperance was also in the doldrums, as even the last outposts of prohibition in the United States and Finland were faced with the prospect of repeal. The World League Against Alcoholism had long since curtailed its European activities, choosing to concentrate on the enforcement of prohibition at home. In the end, WLAA head Ernest Cherrington found himself leading a worldwide organization completely devoid of institutional support.108 As the Twenty-First (repeal) Amendment was ratified to erase the Eighteenth from the American Constitution, the WLAA and ASLA finally succumbed to chronic arrears and lack of public goodwill.109 Similar stagnation marked the decline of the World’s WCTU and the IPC/WPF, though in both cases the quixotic personal crusade of some of the most dedicated members would continue until their death, despite the “setbacks” presented by repeal. Without organizational support, a small and aging cadre of World’s Woman’s Christian Temperance Union members continued to extol temperance virtues in the Indian subcontinent through the late 1930s and early 1940s.110 The International Prohibition Confederation/World Prohibition Federation continued to preach to an empty congregation until the death of Guy Hayler in 1943, though the last issue of the WPF’s International Record would ultimately be published by Hayler’s son Mark in 1968.111 Yet not all temperance organizations met with such an ignominious end. Some would even thrive after the demise of the prohibition generation by broadening their focus to the promotion of a healthy and fulfilling lifestyle, and they have become central organizations to the dissemination of


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information on alcohol and drug addiction. The IOGT remains a significant social organization throughout Scandinavia, with 115 affiliates in 53 countries in 2002, mostly in the developing world. Retooled as the IOGT International, the organization has expanded beyond alcohol and drug addiction issues to the provision of support for refugees, war victims, and street children, as well as spearheading sustainable development projects.112 The International Bureau Against Alcoholism at Lausanne, Switzerland, which had provided much of the institutional support for the regular International Congresses on Alcoholism, is now known as the International Council on Alcohol and Addictions (ICAA) and in 2008 celebrated its centennial with the 51st International Conference on Dependencies in Limassol, Cyprus, a direct continuation of the original biennial conferences on alcohol and temperance.113 In the end, the decline of the temperance transnational advocacy network was precipitated by the failures of prohibition as a bad policy in comparison with existing alcohol-control alternatives. However, one should not automatically equate network decline with failure: other early transnational advocacy networks, including the abolitionist and suffragist movements, ultimately declined because they achieved their respective aims. The decline of the transnational temperance network holds two insights for the study of social movement organizations. The first concerns the need for TAN members to remain vigilant and active: temperance activity both domestically and internationally waned most precipitously from complacency that the fight no longer needed to be fought. Second, it appears that expansion and diversity are the keys to longevity in a transnational NGO. Whereas organizations that were strictly bound to the development of one domestic parent organization or founder (World’s WCTU, WLAA, IPC/WPF) went down with the sinking ship, organizations that had a more diverse foundation of support (IOGT, ICAA) proved to be lighter on their feet, more enduring, and ultimately more resilient.

WHY TEMPERANCE TRANSNATIONALISM? The temperance movement was founded in subjective assessments concerning the inappropriateness of drunkenness, coupled with the belief that social organization was an effective remedy, yet the implicit question of why it developed when it did has yet to be resolved. Addressing the birth of modern forms of collective action, Sidney Tarrow notes a blossoming of social movement activity during the eighteenth century embedded within broader social, political, and economic modernization processes. In particular, the

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rise of capitalistic publishing for a mass market served as a vehicle for reporting on both distant news and attitudes concerning such developments, creating “communities of print” that shaped popular attitudes and perceptions beyond local social associations.114 Additionally, while alcohol consumption may not have been on the rise, it may have been more visible in the “degenerate” urban slums arising as a consequence of industrialization—especially to Protestants intent on improving their earthly society as part of the Second Great Awakening. The perceived need to control drunkenness and rowdiness among the lower classes by the upper classes was part of the rationalization of industrial economic life.115 Thus social changes associated with urbanization and industrialization, combined with the perfectionist spirit of the Second Great Awakening, highlighted drunkenness as a target for social activism. This subjective “pull” of perceptions of societal inebriety and degeneracy combined with the “push” of a mass media linking local associations go far in explaining the rise of the transnational temperance movement. Special note must be made of the links between temperance and abolitionism in the evangelical cause. The great emancipator Abraham Lincoln himself advocated a “temperance revolution” through which humankind would “find a stronger bondage broken, a viler slavery manumitted, a greater tyrant deposed.”116 Indeed, as historian Daniel Walker Howe concludes, “Temperance and antislavery partook of the same moral impulse, for both sought to redeem humanity from bondage, whether to the passions of others or to those of oneself.”117 Thus it should come as little surprise that the transnational temperance movement drew heavily upon the spiritual, moral, physical, and financial resources of the transnational abolitionist cause: networks of evangelical churches and missionaries facilitated communication and interaction during the incipient stage of transnational development, while advances in transportation and communication technologies accelerated the interactions between them. Abolitionism provided templates for the development of a transnational advocacy network, including the use of conferences, organizations, and normative frames grounded in religious and liberal principles as a means of influencing public opinion.118 In the absence of such transnational linkages, it is difficult to imagine that the temperance movement would have spread as widely as it ultimately did during the mid-nineteenth century.

CONCLUSIONS Questions of both the rise and demise of the transnational temperance network have been addressed in this chapter in terms of a network life cycle


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based on the extent, depth, and regularity of transnational linkages. In the incipient stage, development of the temperance advocacy network is contingent upon sporadic, irregular efforts by a small number of devoted, elite transnational activists. During the ascendant stage, the quantity of transnational linkages expands with the advent of occasional international conferences and early issue-oriented NGOs engaged in multiple national settings. The network reaches maturity with the development of frequent and routine transnational linkages through regular international conferences, as well as with the founding of international NGOs with an explicitly transnational agenda. According to this analysis, the temperance network had existed at the mature stage for over thirty years before the actual adoption of prohibition throughout Europe and North America. This mature stage lasted approximately forty years (1885–1925) before the network began to experience decline and decay, evidenced by declining quantity and regularity of international interaction and the eventual demise or retooling of the most visible transnational organizations. The life cycle heuristic has important implications for the study of TANs more generally, in which considerations of the ways in which such organizations, begin, grow, and ultimately decline have taken a back seat to functional considerations. Yet this chapter suggests that the effectiveness of such movements in influencing policymaking is in part a function of the depth and breadth of transnational network linkages. A network in the incipient or declining stages would be expected to have dramatically less influence on the adoption of national policies than a mature network with extensive linkages within governments and between diverse societies. In other words, when the linkages are the most robust, transnational advocacy networks are most effective at drawing attention to particular issues (agenda setting) and at subsequently influencing state behavior through concrete policy decisions.119 TANs influence the context of national decision making through information and symbolic politics, yet they have more direct effect on national policy the more government policymakers are themselves involved in the network. In terms of the transnational temperance network, this process is most evident from the delegation of an increasing number of official state representatives to international temperance conferences— an occurrence that came only during the mature stage of network development. Ultimately, the importance of TANs lies in “the power of their information, ideas, and strategies to alter the information and value contexts within which states make policies.”120 Accordingly, it is to the consideration of these decision-making contexts to which we now turn.

Chapter 3 American Prohibition Reconsidered

The extreme self-assertion which leads an individual to impose his likes and dislikes upon others, the spasmodic workings of the electoral machine, the hysteria of wartime on the home front, and the rat-trap rigidity of the American Constitution have combined to produce on a gigantic scale a spectacle at once comic and pathetic. —Winston Churchill, “What I Saw in America of Prohibition” (1929) Most historical accounts of the American “noble experiment” have viewed prohibition as the inevitable consequence of temperance activism, rarely scrutinizing the impact of the broader social, political, and institutional contexts of national policymaking.1 Yet despite hundreds of prohibition postmortems, a number of pivotal questions remain: if the U.S. Constitution is the embodiment of the collective wisdom of generations of Americans, how did a fundamentally bad policy like prohibition find its way in there? How could the “infallible” voice of the American people have been so wrong? More to the point, how do we account for not only the overwhelming tidal wave of public support and political supermajority that, in record time, enshrined the Prohibition Amendment in the U.S. Constitution—the world’s most difficult Constitution to amend2—but also the cascade of public support and supermajority among the same public that even more vehemently struck prohibition from the Constitution some thirteen years later? This chapter suggests that greater analytical leverage is provided by an examination of American prohibition and repeal in tandem as dramatic punctuations, or abrupt changes, in American alcohol policy. These punctuations contain clues as to the penchants of a society-dominated policymaking structure, that will become readily apparent when compared with debates over the adoption of this bad policy in other countries. This and the next two chapters are structured similarly to facilitate comparison across empirical cases while also addressing historical questions


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related to the course of prohibition politics in each country. This chapter begins with an analysis of the general outlines of policy decision making in the society-dominated American domestic structure, before building upon these foundations to create a fundamentally new historical understanding of the Prohibition Era that addresses both the adoption of prohibition and its repeal as instances of dramatic policy punctuation that are the hallmark of the American system of policymaking. This approach has the advantage of presenting a parsimonious account of a notoriously enigmatic period in American history, while at the same time explaining the most inexplicable aspect of the policy dynamics that enshrined and then dethroned prohibition within the U.S. Constitution: the tidal waves of public opinion that provided the supermajoritarian support for both prohibition and then repeal, which can best be attributed to the institutional mechanisms of policy feedback rather than to the influence of individual activists, groups, or cultural factors alone.

DOMESTIC STRUCTURE AND AMERICAN POLICYMAKING In placing American policy developments into comparative perspective, overly simplistic thumbnail sketches of the American political system are frequently invoked, such as the reliance on “winning coalitions” and constellations of “veto players.” Even the categorization of the United States as having a “society-dominated” domestic structure based on decentralized and fragmented political institutions and a strong civil society is a necessary simplification to facilitate meaningful comparison, which hardly captures the complexity of the American policy process. Abandoning traditional cultural understandings of prohibition in favor of viewing prohibition and repeal simply as instances of policy change, it is possible to integrate prohibition studies with the well-developed literature on American policy dynamics, most notably associated with Frank Baumgartner and Bryan Jones’ Agendas and Instability in American Politics (1993) and their “punctuated equilibrium” approach to policy change. By taking a longitudinal view of multiple public policies, this approach squared the “incrementalist” observation of long-term policy stability with the possibility of sudden, dramatic policy change—explaining both stability and change with reference to shifting policymaker attention to information within (occasionally shifting) institutional context. Unlike traditional rational-choice institutionalists, which attribute policy stability to the number and location of relevant “veto players” that resist policy change, Baumgartner and Jones focus on negative feedback processes

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that counterbalance external challenges to the established equilibrium. The American political system has the benefit of many such self-correcting features, most notably the persistence of scheduled policy monopolies on the understanding of esoteric policy interests, such as the safety of civilian nuclear power installations as overseen by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Department of Energy. Such policy monopolies are supported by commonly held policy images (specific sets of ideas that structure how policymakers analyze the policy) and an insulated institutional arrangement that reinforces it. In brief, “where the institutional venues of decision making are stable, and where a positive policy image supports a given policy, powerful negative feedback processes can operate, creating a strongly homeostatic system that generates stable policy outcomes for decades.”3 Rapid changes, or policy punctuations, can be accounted for by a switch from traditional negative feedback processes toward positive feedback mechanisms, which compound rather than dampen external forces for policy change. This switch from negative to positive feedback processes can be attributed to individual and group mimicking behavior, shifting attention to underlying issue attributes, or both—resulting in an altered understanding the policy problem and the appropriateness of the current course of government policy to address that problem. Mimicking behavior, or cue-taking, involves observing the behavior of others and acting accordingly. This fundamental aspect of cascade, tipping-point, and critical-mass models of political behavior relies upon a certain level of collective behavior at which individual activity becomes self-sustaining based upon perceived benefits of changing one’s position.4 Public policy issues are complex. Both private positions and public debates on contentious policies rarely address all of the relevant underlying dimensions of choice, instead focusing on a small number of dimensions that are considered particularly salient at the time. New information or new circumstances may shift attention from one underlying dimension of choice to another, or may make apparent a previously unacknowledged aspect of a particular policy stance.5 Just as in derivatives trading, when a small shift in the value of the underlying asset may cause a dramatic change in the value of the derivative, we find a similar dynamic in the policymaking realm: when enough individuals shift attention from one underlying issue to another, the shift may cause a rapid change in behavior, leading to dramatic effects on public discourse and consequently the institutional response by government representatives. The inherently social nature of public debate over contentious policy issues makes them prone to the mimicking and serial shifting of attention to underlying dimensions of choice that can facilitate a switch from negative to positive feedback, since individual decision makers are attentive to the positions of others, and the implications of


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coming out on the “winning side” of a given debate are not inconsequential, especially for elected representatives. This attention model of political debate has tremendous implications for the institutional location, or venue, of government policymaking. In response to the attenuation to diverse attributes or implications of a given policy, rival institutions of governance may assert their authority to become involved in the policy. Baumgartner and Jones highlight the confluence of shifting policy images and venues in the positive feedback processes that produced dramatic policy changes in U.S. regulation of nuclear power, pesticides, and even smoking over the past half-century. Such policy changes did not occur solely as the result of increased attention to an issue, or from a changed societal perception of that issue, but also because such heightened attention creates pressure for policy change. Just as social debates are prone to the mimicking and serial shift that lead to positive feedback, heightened attention, altered policy images, and changed expectations for success of policy change frequently combine to produce dramatic changes in a short period of time—a policy “punctuation.”6 In brief, if the punctuated equilibrium model is to be applicable to American alcohol policy, we should expect to find (1) long periods of stability characterized by negative feedback interrupted by dramatic policy changes marked by positive feedback trends, (2) dramatic policy changes should be preceded by heightened attention to the issue, combined with shifting perspectives on underlying issue dimensions, and increased anticipated prospects for success of policy change, (3) a changing institutional venue of policymaking, and (4) policy stability and a return to negative feedback processes following the punctuation. Finally, since in the study of prohibition we are addressing two policy punctuations—prohibition and repeal in favor of an alternative control system—we should expect to find these dynamics at work in both cases, though the first may be rightly viewed as a bad policy decision and the second as a correction of the earlier policy “error.” Applying this punctuated equilibrium framework not only provides a more satisfactory historical explanation for the seemingly unusual history of American prohibition and repeal, but will also highlight how policy-relevant ideas are filtered through a society-dominated domestic structure as in the United States, which provides multiple avenues for issue advocates to influence the policy process. As we will discover from comparisons with the Swedish and Russian cases, while such negative and positive policy feedback mechanisms are not unique to the American context, the institutional propensity for a switch from negative to positive feedback—especially during times of crisis—does indeed vary according to the domestic structure, which in turn influences the propensity for each country to adopt a fundamentally bad policy.

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NEW PERSPECTIVES ON PROHIBITION Literally hundreds of manuscripts have been written concerning the American experience with prohibition, and no doubt hundreds more have yet to be written. Yet of the existing literature, very few works examine the available information used to formulate policy or give serious consideration of alcohol control measures other than prohibition.7 Even before the beginning of the twentieth century the outright prohibition of the liquor trade was not a novel idea. In the United States liquor prohibition was first attempted—and failed—in colonial Georgia under James Edward Oglethorpe,8 whereas prohibition as an enduring statewide policy program dates from Maine’s dry law of 1851. By the late nineteenth century the American temperance movement, led by many of the organizations described in chapter 2, including the International Order of Good Templars (IOGT), the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), the Sons of Temperance, the Prohibition Party, and eventually the Anti-Saloon League of America (ASLA), contained a surprising diversity of opinion on alcohol control, ranging from moderates who advocated the “temperate” use of alcohol, to more radical, “absolutist” elements that insisted on total abstinence from all alcohol. With an increasingly zealous interest in social sobriety and a general refusal to engage in compromise with the elements of “evil” that were presumed responsible for the ills of society, the absolutist camp ultimately captured the sentiment of the American temperance movement, focusing its uncompromising hostility against the saloon and the liquor trade, insisting that total prohibition was the only true answer to the liquor question.9 Indeed, by the early twentieth century the ends of temperance and the means of prohibition were virtually indistinguishable in the American temperance movement. This sentiment was increasingly evident in the stories emanating from temperance mouthpieces such as the American Issue and Union Signal as well as from the general press. There is little point in going into the internal dynamics and political activism of the individual American temperance organizations, since that ground has already been traversed in chapter 2 as well as in numerous scholarly accounts. While the temperance-cum-prohibition movement has garnered the lion’s share of historical interest, it should not be assumed that prohibition was adopted solely because of the absence of feasible policy alternatives. As will be examined in greater detail in a consideration of Swedish alcoholcontrol politics in chapter 4, a powerful policy alternative to prohibition began to take shape in Europe by the mid-1800s, known as the “Gothenburg system” of municipal dispensary, named for Sweden’s second largest city, where it gained its pioneering victories. Seeking to remove the private profit motive from the liquor trade—which temperance advocates had long


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implicated in the form of the saloon-keeper luring men to their moral ruin—the Gothenburg system of disinterested management entrusted control of the municipal liquor trade to a board of respected local leaders, who funneled the lucrative stream of liquor revenues to local philanthropic ventures. With little financial stake in the sales of alcohol, such dispensaries led to the revitalization of numerous European communities, without prohibition’s well-known sidekicks: bootlegging and corruption. By the 1890s the Gothenburg system had won many adherents as a sensible alternative to prohibition both in the United States and abroad.10 This success ultimately threatened a schism in the American temperance movement between radical proponents of prohibition and more pragmatic advocates of a modified Gothenburg system.11 In 1891 Athens, Georgia, scrapped their ineffective local prohibition in favor of a municipal dispensary system modeled on the Gothenburg system. Its positive results prompted greater interest at both the city and state levels, with numerous towns and counties throughout North Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and Virginia establishing effective local dispensaries.12 In 1893 South Carolina initiated what would be a much debated but ultimately failed experiment with a state dispensary system, which translated the lucrative liquor profits into a new stream of statewide corruption and graft.13 Since such shortcomings were not immediately realized, the South Carolina dispensary was regarded as a viable alternative to state prohibition (as in North Dakota, and New York’s “Raines Law”),14 and the nationwide adoption of a Gothenburg-type system was increasingly regarded as a superior alternative to national prohibition. Building upon earlier reports of effectiveness from the Swedish government and temperance organizations,15 in the early 1890s two substantial investigations of the Gothenburg system (or alternatively, the “Norwegian system”) were undertaken by the U.S. Department of Labor.16 These initial studies sparked widespread interest, and other investigations followed: in 1894 a Special Commission to Investigate the Gothenburg and Norwegian Systems of Licensing the Sale of Intoxicating Liquors established by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts reported favorably on the system, calling for its immediate statewide adoption.17 Undoubtedly the most thorough investigation of practical alternative alcohol-control policies arose through the efforts of the Committee of Fifty for the Investigation of the Drink Problem, a private group comprised predominantly of Northeastern businessmen, professionals, and academics organized in 1893 “in the hope of securing a body of facts which may serve as a basis for intelligent public and private action.”18 Rather than a new movement in temperance agitation, the committee was a self-declared research body, with the general intent being not “the expression of opinion, or the advocacy of one theory over another, but strictly the investigation of

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facts without reference to the conclusions to which they might lead.”19 In the twelve years between 1893 and 1905 the committee examined the legislative, economic, moral, and physiological aspects of the alcohol trade.20 Its conclusions provided an eerie prophecy of the inherent flaws of prohibition—unavoidable shirking, corruption, and rebellion against the law as hallmarks of an ultimately ineffective policy.21 The reports of the legislative subcommittee advocated a more flexible alternative to prohibition, which included local option and the removal of the private profit motive—a hallmark of the Gothenburg system.22 These conclusions were expanded upon through further subcommittee examination of “substitutes for the saloon,” which advocated a Scandinavian-type dispensary system, as in Sweden, Norway, and South Carolina, as the best method to remove the private profit motive.23 The Gothenburg/dispensary alternative of liquor control should not be considered an insignificant footnote to the conventional prohibition story: these restrictive measures, along with local option and license systems, provided formidable challenges to the onward march of prohibition. Such viable—if not superior—alternatives to prohibition prompted a variety of responses from temperance advocates: alternatively perceived either as effective temperance measures, as necessary stepping-stones to prohibition, or as indefensible accommodations of the “evils” of the liquor traffic that would make the state even more complicit in this “deplorable” trade.24 Press coverage and literary discussion of these various measures dominated coverage of prohibition, with a particular surge in the interest in the Gothenburg/dispensary option in the late 1890s (Figures 3.1 and 3.2). Figure 3.2 in particular nicely illustrates that before about 1906 the literary discourse on alcohol-control policy included discussion of a wide variety of potential policy programs: Gothenburg systems, local dispensaries, local option and licensing options, as well as prohibition. Indeed, the dominance of the prohibition option did not become fully established in this discourse until about 1906, after which it became the preeminent policy alternative— with a disproportionate majority of prohibition articles reflecting positively on prohibition (Figure 3.4). That is to say, given the numerous prohibitions and repeals at the state level, the march to nationwide prohibition was hardly an inevitable outcome. Indeed, according to this analysis, for much of the Gilded Age there is little indication of the supposed inexorable march of temperance and prohibition that most historical accounts, with the aid of hindsight, credit for the ultimate adoption of the Eighteenth Amendment.25 The challenge for ardent prohibitionists was to promote a legislative solution to intemperance at the expense of competing policy programs. While systematic reduction of liquor outlets through a licensing system and the

Figure 3.1 Coverage of Prohibition and Liquor Control in Reader’s Guide to Periodical Literature, 1890–1914.

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Figure 3.2 Combined Percentages of Prohibition and Liquor Control Articles in Reader’s Guide to Periodical Literature, 1890–1920.

expansion of “dry” territory through local option were easily incorporated as stepping-stones toward prohibition, the Gothenburg/dispensary system provided a greater challenge, because it made the state ever more complicit in the liquor trade. Not surprisingly, during the wave of prohibition public sentiment that accompanied the American entry into World War I, many temperance tracts aimed to debunk the system by attacking its shortcomings in Scandinavia26 or the various U.S. dispensaries.27 These prohibitionists used emotive appeals to reframe the Gothenburg option as a morally reprehensible accommodation to the evil liquor forces,28 describing it as an unprecedented “orgy of corruption, scandal, and illicit activities.”29 They likewise vilified its proponents—such as the Committee of Fifty—as a “partisan” and “incorrigible” group scheming to impede the people’s will to end the liquor evil once and for all.30 While the Committee of Fifty and other advocates of a Gothenburg/dispensary system established a cognitive paradigm concerning the inherent un-enforceability of prohibition, which attracted followers among theorists, intellectuals, and anti-prohibitionists,31 it failed to attract sustained popular support for its recommendations. It was initially formed as a neutral, nonpartisan research group, but the lack of an organizational support base may be one reason that its paradigmatic policy understandings were so quickly and easily overcome—ideas and information frequently prove to be powerful sources of policy change, but in the society-dominated American domes-


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tic structure, they are ineffective when not promoted by organized groups able to overcome barriers to collective action.32 Once the major competing policy alternatives were effectively incorporated or disposed of, the push for national prohibition kicked into high gear under the guidance of the Anti-Saloon League after 1906.33 Following a small wave of statewide prohibitions that swept the American south in 1908, the ASLA made significant gains toward national prohibition through a pragmatic, piecemeal approach to federal interstate commerce legislation, effectively asserting federal powers into what had been considered state jurisdiction. After all, before the ASLA-backed Webb-Kenyon Act of 1913 prohibited it, there was nothing to stop drinkers in a dry state from ordering alcohol from a wet state and having it shipped to them. Only the federal government could regulate such interstate commerce in the interest of keeping dry territory dry. This shift of political venues from the states to the federal government was solidified in 1913 with the Hobson Resolution—a proposed constitutional amendment drafted by members of the Anti-Saloon League. The measure was debated in 1914, receiving a majority of votes but falling short of the required two-thirds majority. The debate not only made statutory prohibition an issue of public attention but also continued to shift responsibility for enforcement of alcohol-control laws from the states to the national government.34 The change of institutional policy venue would be accompanied by a dramatic shift in policy image with the looming war in Europe after 1914. The frenzied emotions associated with war mobilization allowed prohibitionists to channel such emotive appeals into a reframing of prohibition from an individual moral issue to one of patriotism, sacrifice, and security, which helped to secure wartime bans on distilling and brewing between 1917 and 1919.35 As James A. Monroe describes in his Hellfire Nation (2003), not only were President Woodrow Wilson’s efforts to take the United States into war premised on “making the world safe for democracy,” but the American instruments of warfare would lead their moral crusade by example. Much like their European counterparts, “The War Department organized ‘moral zones’ around training camps—no liquor and no prostitutes. The military emergency finally brought down the red-light districts . . . [a]nd it put the whole debate about alcohol in the context of national sacrifice and special virtue.”36 Patriotic news stories in both the temperance and mainstream press were quick to identify the millions of bushels of grain, tons of coal, and millions of American dollars “wasted” on making, transporting, selling, and consuming alcohol, all of which could be better used toward the war effort. Moreover, the American brewing industry—long dominated by Germans: Pabst, Blatz, Miller, and Schlitz—became easy scapegoats for subverting the

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war effort.37 As we shall see, neither the cult of military sobriety nor the intertwining of temperance, sacrifice, and patriotic sentiments (nor the vilification of alcohol producers along with the German enemy) was unique to the American war effort. The fact that all of these elements were broadly shared throughout the belligerent states of Europe—including the German Kaiser, who proclaimed that “the nation that will win the next war will be the one which is the most sober”—attests to the influence of temperance ideas effectively shared through the transnational temperance advocacy network.38 The increase in the media coverage of the rising prospects for nationwide prohibition was mirrored by an increased coverage of prohibitory legislation at both the state and international levels. The submission of the Eighteenth Amendment to the states for ratification in 1918 was preceded by a wave of prohibition legislation at the state level—between 1915 and 1918 the number of dry states increased from ten to thirty-two. Likewise, by 1918 the United States would join the ranks of Russia, Finland, Iceland, Canada, and Newfoundland as prohibition countries, with numerous other European states from England and France to Romania and Sweden increasing restrictions on alcohol production. Two elements of the final drive toward national prohibition are of particular interest: first is the explosion of positive media coverage accorded to prohibition. The number of prohibition articles between 1915 and 1919 increased more than fivefold over the previous five years (Figure 3.3). Moreover, the tone of these articles was overwhelmingly positive toward prohibition, with only 4 to 13 percent of the articles being coded as critical or otherwise reflecting negatively on prohibition (Figure 3.4). In the buildup to the war and constitutional prohibition, the positive tone toward prohibition did not differ significantly between the state, national, and international levels of analysis—prohibition in foreign countries and the various American states were all seen as positive developments, as were the prospects for a sustained, nationwide prohibition law. The second element of note concerns the rapidity of adoption of prohibition legislation. The crisis of war worked to shorten the decision-making time horizons of legislators at both the national and state level. In the words of Richard Hamm: The emergency surrounding war mobilization precluded long debate on the prohibition amendment. In 1916 and 1917 congressional consideration of the merits of national prohibition did not reflect the importance of the issue. Congress held no committee hearings on the subject. Little time was set aside for discussion of the matter, the House devoted less than six hours for debate on the proposed amendment, and the longer Senate deliberations centered on the side issue of a ratification time limit. . . . In general, the character of the debates in both bodies were as desultory as


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Figure 3.3 Coverage of Temperance and Prohibition in Reader’s Guide to Periodical Literature, 1890–1950.

Figure 3.4 Aggregate Article Tone toward Prohibition in Reader’s Guide to Periodical Literature, 1906–1935. they were nearly one-sided [sic]. The brewers and distillers were hopelessly and bitterly divided; wet spokesmen in Congress appeared leaderless and lost.39

Receiving the required two-thirds majority in both houses of Congress in such a timely fashion was indeed surprising; the ratification of the amendment by three-fourths of the states seemed an almost insurmountable obstacle, though in just over one year—by January 1919—thirty-six states had ratified the Eighteenth Amendment, which would go into effect

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one year later.40 The adoption of national prohibition came with a rapidity that stunned even the most optimistic dry proponents, who envisioned a three- to four-year process rather than a matter of months.41 By the time the Eighteenth Amendment and its legislative foundation of the Volstead Act came into effect in January 1920, the Great War had been over for months, and the wave of patriotic support for prohibition was soon to diminish. Yet the United States found itself locked into what would become a disastrous policy option—and thanks to the institutional barriers to policy change, the “noble” yet ill-fated experiment would prove difficult to undo.

PROHIBITION AS POLICY PUNCTUATION Moving beyond this all-too-brief history of American prohibition, an institutional model of policy change informed by the punctuated equilibrium model of policy dynamics suggests numerous characteristic elements in the history of American prohibition. We begin with the assumption of policy stability associated with negative feedback mechanisms. Before the outbreak of the Great War in Europe, the characteristic features of American alcohol policy—federal liquor taxation combined with questions of administration or restriction relegated to the individual states—remained stable, despite fluctuations in the number of states enacting or repealing their local prohibition measures at any given time. This stability can be attributed in part to the negative feedback mechanisms inherent in the American institutional arrangement: the federal division of powers which relegated policymaking capacity to the states provided an obstacle to nationwide statutory prohibition since opposition would invariably erupt from traditional proponents of states’ rights.42 Likewise, the super-majoritarian requirements for enacting a constitutional amendment posed an enormous institutional obstacle to the prohibition policy, as evidenced by the failure of proposed prohibition amendments in 1890 and 1913. Additionally, the existing institutional arrangement proved resistant to change because of a certain degree of path dependency43—inherent institutional features of negative feedback or veto players—especially considering that the government had a vested fiscal interest in maintaining the national alcohol policy,44 since federal alcohol taxes comprised 20 to 30 percent of the nation’s total tax revenues in the late 1800s.45 Beyond such institutional elements of negative feedback that buttressed the federal policy subsystem, bureaucrats and administrators tend to share similar policy images, encapsulating similar


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diagnoses of the policy, and therefore similar plans for action.46 Alcohol policy is no exception to these “policy images” or “governing ideas.”47 Since the operations of the alcohol policy subsystem did not attract much public attention, as is evidenced by the dearth of articles on alcohol policy in the Reader’s Guide before the mid-1910s, it seems rather uncontroversial to claim that until the outbreak of the Great War, alcohol control policy in the United States was marked by numerous elements of negative feedback and policy stability as suggested by the punctuated equilibrium approach. Second, the adoption of the Eighteenth Amendment and the Volstead Act was a dramatic policy shift, or punctuation, in national alcohol policy. Accordingly, we should expect to find a shift from negative to positive feedback mechanisms preceding the punctuation—and this is indeed the case— in terms of increased attention to the issue, shifting perceptions on underlying dimensions, anticipated prospects for success of policy change, and a shifting institutional venue. The harbinger of a shift from negative to positive feedback processes is heightened attention to the alcohol issue. We have already noted the fivefold increase in published articles on prohibition beginning about 1915 (Figure 3.3), the fact that these articles overwhelmingly cast prohibition in a positive light (Figure 3.4) and finally that by this time the prohibition policy had eclipsed all alternative policy programs (Figures 3.1 and 3.2). Moreover, with the European war looming, the underlying dimension of the “liquor question” was reframed from a moral shortcoming to an economic, security issue infused with patriotic sentiment. An increased expectation of successful policy change furthered the mimicking behavior and opinion cascade, as prohibition gains could be found at all three levels of analysis: not only was there perceived to be progress toward national statutory prohibition, but also the dry gains at the state level and reports of wartime prohibition in foreign countries all bolstered expectations for success of nationwide prohibition. The reframing of the alcohol issue likewise shifted the institutional decision-making venue away from the states and toward the federal government. While liquor policy was long considered to be a matter left primarily to the states, imposing wartime prohibition in order to conserve foodstuffs was considered a matter of national security—the sole jurisdiction of the federal government.48 While it has long been understood that times of national crisis open windows of opportunity for dramatic policy change,49 the experience of World War I prohibition gives us greater insight into exactly what that entails. The national crisis and buildup to war ultimately created a policy punctuation by (1) increasing public attention to the liquor issue, (2) shifting focus from one set of underlying views on the liquor issue to another, (3) increasing

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expectations for policy success by highlighting similar prohibition successes at both the state level and abroad, (4) shifting the venue for alcohol policymaking from the states to the national government, and (5) shortening the time horizons for in-depth debate over various options in favor of readymade solutions, such as prohibition. Such windows of opportunity are by nature temporary, since positive feedback mechanisms must end at some point. Baumgartner and Jones emphasize that an “important question is how much policy change may be enacted as a direct result of the heightened attention to the issue generated during this short burst of increased attention. Often, important policies are adapted remarkably quickly, even after the same issue has gone nowhere in previous years.”50 These same dynamics not only tend to prompt governmental action, but frequently result in policy overreactions.51 In brief, the punctuated equilibrium approach to American prohibition readily explains the most peculiar and seemingly inexplicable questions confronting students of the prohibition era: how could the American people and their leaders make such a disastrous policy choice, and how could it have passed such seemingly insurmountable institutional hurdles so quickly? Whereas previous studies look for explanations in individual conspiracies and organizational tactics, this analysis suggests that the answer lies in a switch from negative to positive feedback processes among both the public and policymakers, resulting in a dramatic policy punctuation. Finally, the institution of this new prohibition policy resulted in a new institutional equilibrium, developing new institutions, satisfying vested interests, and replacing the positive feedback mechanisms with negative feedback processes that would endure for more than a dozen years until repeal and the adoption of an alternative alcohol control policy program.

FROM PROHIBITION TO REPEAL IN THE UNITED STATES Once the wartime patriotic fervor began to subside, opposition to prohibition began in earnest from a number of diverse viewpoints. Beyond opposition from those with parochial economic interests, such as brewers, distillers and unions—which quickly withered when they were faced with the seemingly insurmountable reality of a constitutional amendment—many viewed prohibition as an unnecessary government curtailment of individual liberty.52 Some questioned the wisdom of the government’s legislating issues of individual morality. Others opposed prohibition on the basis of states’ rights: with an uneasy suspicion of the increased power of the federal


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government, many saw prohibition as an impingement on the ability of states and communities to make their own regulatory decisions.53 It was these general principles that served as the foundation for the creation, as early as 1919, of early anti-prohibition groups such as the Association Against the Prohibition Amendment (AAPA).54 A number of elements of the Eighteenth Amendment and the Volstead Act doomed the American prohibition experiment. First, contrary to the conventional understanding, prohibition did not prohibit the production or consumption of alcohol, but rather the “manufacture, sale or transportation of intoxicating liquors.” Second, enforcement was not explicitly relegated to the federal government or the states, but rather to both concurrently. Concurrent jurisdiction led to interagency confusion, disputes, and uneven enforcement, and it provided incentives for shirking and corruption of the law enforcement agencies; while the statute’s ambiguous wording meant that private production and consumption of alcohol were not illegal, and by extension created general ambivalence toward the law among a public that did not view occasional indulgence in alcohol as a crime. Perhaps no story better illustrates this general ambivalence than the response of Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes when he was offered a glass of champagne upon his eightieth birthday, in 1921. On the spot, the revered justice noted that “the Eighteenth Amendment forbids the manufacture, transportation, and importation. It does not forbid possession or use. If I send it back I shall be guilty of transportation. On the whole, I think, I shall apply the maxi de minimis, and drink it.”55 The corruption, gangland shootings, and general disrespect for law exemplified by the speakeasies of the 1920s have become the stuff of Hollywood legend. Especially in the major cities of the Northeast and Midwest, it soon became apparent that prohibition enforcement was an utter fiasco. Since prohibition was untouchably enshrined in the Constitution, policy debates of the early 1920s concerned the effectiveness of enforcement rather than calling the statute itself into question. As a result, while popular opposition to prohibition was increasing throughout the early 1920s (Figures 3.3 and 3.4), much of the congressional activity focused on increasing the effectiveness of administration. Despite these efforts, popular opposition to the policy continued throughout the mid-1920s. While a repeal amendment seemed impossible, the liquor issue increasingly became enmeshed with party politics: before the early 1920s, the issue generally cut across party lines—partly because of the influence of the Anti-Saloon League—yet with the league’s waning power and ever more vocal public opposition, the party stance on alcohol became a hot topic for Democrats and Republicans alike.56 The 1928 presidential election solidified party positions on the liquor question—the great wet hope Al Smith running on the Democratic ticket, versus Herbert Hoover, the Republican

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dry, who pledged a prohibition study commission if elected.57 While Hoover’s overwhelming 58 percent victory was the result of a complex of diverse social, regional, ethnic, and economic issues,58 the election was framed as a mandate for continuance of the prohibition experiment.59 Yet the 1928 election marked the beginning of a renewed movement to consider alternatives to prohibition, rather than simply to bolster efforts at enforcement. To that end, anti-prohibition organizations such as the AAPA redoubled their efforts, creating a department of research and information to publicize the effects of prohibition and to examine foreign systems of alcohol control.60 Moreover, Hoover’s National Commission on Law Observance and Enforcement—the Wickersham Commission, as it came to be known, after its chair, former Attorney General George Wickersham—began the most in-depth analysis of the liquor issue since the Committee of Fifty.61 The policy analysis begun by the Wickersham Commission continued despite the stock market crash of late 1929, which ultimately led to the Great Depression. Much as the political crisis of the Great War opened a window for policy change, the economic crisis of the Great Depression heralded the eventual downfall of national prohibition by introducing new social and economic concerns to the liquor discourse, which were debated vigorously in the media by a multitude of policy advocates (Figure 3.3). In addition to concerns over increases in crime and infringements on states’ rights, a persuasive economic argument was put forth—that in the midst of economic depression and government debt, a resurrected liquor industry was viewed as a respectable source of both tax revenues and badly needed jobs. AAPA propaganda furthered all of these arguments through its widely circulated pamphlets. Publications such as Scandals of Prohibition Enforcement (1928), Reforming America with a Shotgun: A Study of Prohibition Killings (1929), and Prohibition Enforcement: Its Effect on Courts and Prisons (1930) highlighted the increases in crime as a result of prohibition—not only from the bootleggers, but from corrupt enforcement agencies. Other AAPA publications, including Cost of Prohibition and Your Income Tax (1928) and Prohibition and the Deficit (1932), emphasized the fiscal impacts of prohibition: enforcement costs nearing $1 billion per year, in addition to the loss of an additional $936 million annually that could have been raised through a proposed federal liquor tax—hefty amounts, when one considers that both figures surpass the $883 million collected from federal income taxes in 1928. The newspaper circulation of these scathing AAPA reports reached nearly 80 million copies, as the economic concerns associated with prohibition deepened in step with the Depression.62 Other AAPA publications provided brief, systematic investigations of North American and European systems of liquor control as alternatives to American prohibition. Globally, the United States, Finland, and the

Figure 3.5 Quantity of Prohibition-Related Congressional Committee Hearings and Hearing Days, 1906–1935.

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Figure 3.6 Attitude of Congressional Hearings toward Prohibition, 1906–1935.

maritime provinces of Canada were the only territories that remained under statutory prohibition by 1929. Not surprisingly, AAPA publications negatively framed the prohibition experience in Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, Finland, and Norway’s recently repealed prohibition experiment.63 Other pamphlets reported favorably on the effects of liquor licenses and restrictions on the hours of alcohol sales in Great Britain, as well as the restrictively high liquor taxes in Denmark.64 Most favorably portrayed were the Gothenburg/dispensary systems of municipal control and elimination of the private profit motive, which had spread from Sweden to Quebec by 1921, and to the rest of Canada thereafter.65 Business mogul Pierre du Pont (of the DuPont Company), an influential founder of the AAPA, took great interest in the Gothenburg/dispensary alternative, even publishing a book to suggest it be implemented in the United States.66 DuPont was not alone: in January 1929 media tycoon William Randolph Hurst initiated a well-publicized contest—with a $25,000 cash prize—for the most practicable alternative to prohibition. Of the tens of thousands of entrants, most proposed returning alcohol control to the states, and many advocated a statewide dispensary system.67 Similar considerations were being made by the experts on the Wickersham Commission. After eighteen months of investigation, their conclusions, published in early 1931, advocated an increase in federal appropriations to


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aid law enforcement efforts, rather than outright repeal. A significant section of the final report compared the effectiveness of American liquor laws with Canadian and Northern European alternatives.68 The Commission’s recommendations reflected a deep division of opinion among the assembled experts; the camp that was convinced that prohibition was unenforceable and an outright failure consented to giving it “one more go” only because they understood that constitutional repeal would be a drawn-out process, if it was achievable at all.69 In addition to the committee report, each of the eleven commission members offered separate opinions. Committee member and former special assistant to the U.S. Attorney General Henry Anderson, having undertaken a substantial investigation of liquor control in Sweden and becoming convinced of its potential, issued a separate report containing a detailed plan to implement a Gothenburg/dispensary system, including the system of individual rationing, pioneered by Swedish Dr. Ivan Bratt.70 Interestingly, six of the eleven commissioners supported a state-level Gothenburg/dispensary system in their individual reports. With such blue ribbon commissions, essay contests, and the propaganda of organized anti-prohibitionists, the general tide of public opinion swung heavily against prohibition after the crash of 1929. A nationwide Literary Digest poll in 1930 revealed that only 30.5 percent of respondents favored continuing prohibition, and increasing pressures for statewide repeal referenda blossomed in every region of the country.71 Reflecting this popular sentiment, a tidal wave of scholarly and journalistic opinion concentrated on the search for alternatives—most often settling on some modification of a Gothenburg/dispensary system to be administered at the state level.72 Saddled by the Depression, the United States found itself the last country still trying to enforce statutory prohibition; and with increasingly vocal opposition to prohibition at home, more and more states were repealing their state prohibition statutes (Figures 3.3 and 3.4).73 It is not surprising, therefore, that not only was public opinion and media attention increasingly hostile toward prohibition, but following the expectation that “legislation conform to public opinion, not public opinion to yield to legislation,”74 legislative committee hearings responded with an ever-more negative assessment of prohibition (Figure 3.6). The beginning of the end of the great American prohibition experiment followed the (wet) Democratic election landslide of 1932, which not only swept Franklin D. Roosevelt to the presidency but also gave the Democrats an overwhelming majority in both houses of Congress. Since alcohol control was one of the few issues that clearly divided the two parties, the results were interpreted as a popular mandate for repeal, though the issue seemed increasingly trivial in the face of massive unemployment and economic depression.75 Responding to the electoral results, the outgoing Congress

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approved the proposed repeal amendment in February 1932, sending it to the states to be ratified by state conventions. During the ratification process and within nine days of inauguration, on March 13, 1933, President Roosevelt requested legislation to modify the Volstead Act to legalize 3.2 percent beer. The bill passed easily—making the United States the last country to relax its prohibition statutes. Just as thirteen years earlier, when the Eighteenth Amendment was ratified “with what was then the political equivalent of the speed of light,”76 the Twenty-First Amendment was ratified even faster (288 days versus 395 days), drawing the prohibition era to a close in December 1933, much to the surprise of both wets and drys, who had both prepared for a drawnout struggle.77 As James A. Monroe noted: “The states raced to repeal—eleven acted in the first month, thirty-nine within four months. For pure speed, no one beat the taciturn Yankees at the New Hampshire Repeal Convention. They did their work—from invocation to final farewell—in seventeen minutes.”78 Just as thirteen years earlier, when support for the Eighteenth Amendment was lopsided in virtually every region, the support for repeal was overwhelming and exhibited surprisingly little variation in regional or urban/rural differences.79 One implication of this “mad stampede for repeal”80 was that, with liquor control reverting to the states, state governments had precious little time to arrange a liquor control option, the result being a patchwork of different systems—fifteen adopting a state monopoly/dispensary system, twenty five adopting a central licensing system, and the remaining eight retaining statewide prohibition.81 With the eventual surrender of these eight dry strongholds—Mississippi holding out until 1966—the state regulatory systems adopted in the wake of repeal are largely the same systems that remain in operation today.82

REPEAL AS POLICY PUNCTUATION The repeal of prohibition is quite difficult to explain according to prevailing modes of political analysis. How can rationalists (who hold preferences to be stable) explain the incredible nationwide tides of opinion on the liquor question by the same electorate within a span of fifteen years? Can culturalists contend that those reactionary sociocultural elements that made prohibition seem inevitable in the early 1900s have changed so dramatically in that same timeframe? How can proponents of bureaucratic-politics and incremental approaches account for the complete and sudden destruction of the huge enforcement infrastructure? How does an emphasis on the number of “veto players” in the American system explain both the enactment of a bad policy


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and its retraction? Perhaps it is not surprising that most accounts of the Prohibition Era focus exclusively on either prohibition or repeal. A historical-institutionalist approach drawing upon punctuated-equilibrium theory offers a more satisfactory framework by viewing prohibition and repeal not as separate issues but rather as individual policy choices along a continuum of options. Moreover, punctuated equilibria are especially characteristic of the society-dominated American domestic structure, which often vacillates between inaction and overreaction. To this end, repeal can be viewed as a necessary “error correction” to what was a well-known bad policy.83 Yet, the fact that the new policy choice is construed as an error correction does not exempt repeal from the same policy dynamics that created the problem in the first place. The first element that we expect to find is a period of policy stability characterized by negative feedback processes throughout the 1920s. The most obvious aspect promoting continuity was the seeming permanence of prohibition that came with its enshrinement as a constitutional amendment. The daunting task of marshaling enough public opposition to overturn an amendment was compounded when one considers the overwhelming majority that had just instituted prohibition in the first place, making any organized efforts to oppose it in the early 1920s appear quixotic at best. Even prohibition’s most vocal opponents, including Clarence Darrow, who concluded in 1927 that the policy had been a “ghastly farce and failure,” had to admit that “an amendment repealing the Eighteenth Amendment cannot, in all human probability, be passed in the normal course of political events.”84 News reports as late as 1929 illustrated the perceived untouchability of prohibition in deference to a tidal wave of opposition: for example, two front-page articles in the June 2, 1929, Washington Herald offer contrasting—though not incompatible—interpretations of the Hurst prohibition-alternative essay contest: This contest has proven that in every section of our great country there are large numbers of people who favor some change back to common sense and normalcy. Even former ardent prohibitionists, according to their own statements in the plans submitted, have had a change of heart and realize the awful mistake that was made. All four plans agree upon the present impracticability of repealing or amending the Eighteenth Amendment, in the practicability of supplanting the present enforcement laws by more enlightened legislation, and, specifically or by implementation, in the desirability of returning to the States the fullest possible measure of control.85

Another mechanism of negative feedback stifling policy change was the predominance of the cognitive policy image that supported the administration and enforcement of prohibition laws. The endurance of this cognitive understanding can clearly be identified in the lack of responsiveness in terms of congressional hearings: although the general attitude

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toward prohibition seems to have cooled beginning about 1922 (Figure 3.4), the congressional response was to increase expenditures on enforcement rather than to consider repeal or modification (Figures 3.5 and 3.6). Indeed, this tendency is most evident in the hearings on prohibition in 1924 and 1926, and even the recommendations of the Wickersham Commission as late as 1931.86 More surprising is the resilience of these negative feedback mechanisms in the face of growing opposition to prohibition; maintaining the status quo policy despite an agitated—rather than apathetic—public in the 1920s (Figure 3.4). Like the prohibition policy punctuation, the repeal punctuation exhibits a switch from negative to positive feedback in terms of increased issue attention, shifting perceptions on underlying issue dimensions, and prospects for repeal success. In terms of issue attention, media coverage prior to repeal was double or even triple that which preceded the adoption of prohibition in the first place (Figure 3.3). This increased attention was coupled with ever more negative assessments of the prohibition policy as the 1920s progressed—the proportion of articles coded positively fell below 33 percent as early as 1925, and it would continue downward from there (Figure 3.4). Such figures are easily contrasted to the large proportion of positive articles that preceded prohibition. Moreover, these results corroborate early popular opinion polls, showing that the shift of public sentiment against prohibition between 1926 and 1930 was more rapid than that between 1922 and 1926.87 In many ways, the stock market crash of 1929 and the ensuing Great Depression proved to be the straws that broke the camel’s back. The crisis opened a window to policy change by shifting the focus on the relevant underlying policy dimensions. Before the crash, repeal of prohibition was advocated on law-and-order and states’ rights grounds. After the crash, repeal was recast as an economic issue, with a legalized liquor industry as a responsible corporate taxpayer and employer with the ability to jump-start a lagging economy by putting to work droves of unemployed men while simultaneously reducing the tax burden to the individual. Moreover, the unpatriotic German taint that served to demonize the brewers during the Great War had long since passed, and the revival of breweries big and small promised potential economic benefits. In other words: “All the arguments that had ushered in Prohibition were now turned inside out. Permitting liquor would create thousands of jobs, give local economies a sorely needed boost, and raise tax revenue. Farmers would find markets for their grains and hops. And the nation needed that tax money—the Depression had flattened income tax receipts.”88 Finally, political events at other levels of analysis dramatically increased expectations for the eventual success of national repeal. At the international level, by the late 1920s every country had repealed prohibition except


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Finland, and even the Finns would abandon it before the United States.89 At the state level, numerous states, including Wisconsin, Illinois, New York, and Massachusetts, were busy repealing or modifying their prohibition enforcement statutes.90 As a result, both at home and abroad, prohibition was seen as a curious relic from a bygone era—an anomalous intrusion against avowedly American principles of individual liberty, and a generator of “mischievous follies, petty tyrannies and entanglements” whose time to go had come.91 Just as national prohibition entered amidst increasing dry gains at all levels that provided optimism for successful policy change, prohibition’s demise would come in the wake of a tide of wet gains at the state, federal, and international levels, all providing increased expectations for eventual constitutional repeal. The surge activity at the state level likewise provided a change in institutional venue, as alcohol policy was reclaimed by the states. With the ratification of the Twenty-First Amendment, alcohol policy was depoliticized, and it has never again flirted with the realm of “high politics,” as contemporary policy decisions occur more or less incrementally within policy monopolies at both the federal and state levels. This policy stability is a hallmark of a return to negative feedback processes following repeal, as is the decreased public attention to the liquor question after 1934 (Figure 3.3). Finally, consideration must be given to the proximate cause of repeal: the Great Depression.92 Just as World War I opened a window for dramatic policy change resulting in prohibition, the stock market crash facilitated a punctuation in national alcohol policy, but in the opposite direction. Both events increased public attention to the perceived deficiencies of the status quo alcohol policy by shifting attention to alternative (security and economic) aspects of a complex and multifaceted public issue. Both crises occurred in an environment of heightened expectations for the success of policy change, and finally, the necessity for decisive action to be made in crisis situations precluded extensive debate over policy options—both within the government and by the public—leading to the eventual adoption of dramatic, ready-made solutions: absolute prohibition, absolute repeal. In sum, a historical-institutionalist approach based upon insights from punctuated equilibrium analysis better accounts for the most inexplicable element of national repeal: the overwhelming speed of ratification, and the overwhelming support that it received from what was, for all purposes, the same electorate that had ushered in prohibition just a dozen years earlier. Rather than resulting from conspiracies, pressure groups, or imperceptible cultural shifts, the switch from negative to positive feedback processes among both the public and policymakers better explains the error correction and dramatic policy punctuation known as repeal.

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CONCLUSIONS A historical-institutionalist approach to policy change in the case of prohibition and repeal yields a new appreciation of this peculiar and important chapter in American history. By examining the ability of individuals and governments to process information and prioritize problems related to the consumption of alcohol, we can better understand the competition of varying ideas and policy options in the public sphere, and can see in what ways these ideas can make a discernible and dramatic influence on policy. Additionally, this analysis satisfactorily accounts for the most inexplicable vacillations of early twentieth-century American alcohol policy: how the American people could have so overwhelmingly and quickly endorsed a policy that was predictably a disastrous failure—and how that same citizenry could even more overwhelmingly and even more quickly reverse track. The study of prohibition and repeal likewise enhances our understanding of the policy process within the American domestic structure, particularly the catalyzing role of external crises on the course of politics. Scholars have long understood that periods of crisis and war can act as destabilizing shocks resulting in dramatic changes to the dynamics of decision-making in matters of both foreign and domestic policy93—this study clearly delineates a number of ways in which external crises facilitate a switch from negative to positive feedback dynamics, resulting in radical policy shifts. By comparing the same catalyzing role of war on the same issue of alcohol control policy in two other domestic structures—the corporatist Swedish system and the autocratic Russian domestic structure, discussed in the next two chapters—we may discern to what extent the switch from negative to positive feedback processes differ across domestic structures. First, increased public attention can raise issue salience by shifting the focus away from those issue dimensions that provide the foundation for the stability of the status quo policy, toward normative economic and security dimensions that tend to dominate public discourse.94 The reframing of issues can also result in the issue spilling over into other decision-making venues. In times of crisis, it is usually assumed that the policymaking jurisdiction of the executive increases; to this we can add that in the study of prohibition the location of decisionmaking shifted from the state to the federal level. Additionally, the shortened time horizons associated with crises move issues from the agenda-setting to policy decision stages, resulting in a drastic curtailing of in-depth discussion and deliberation on competing policy options,95 favoring simple, dramatic, ready-made solutions over more subtle and complex arrangements. These factors can—and in the case of prohibition, did—lead to the enthusiastic adoption of a disastrous policy failure that would take more


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than a dozen years to correct. As subsequent comparisons will suggest, the degree to which decision makers are forced to curtail their deliberation may influence their propensity to adopt such a bad policy, and the insulation of such decision making is a function of domestic structure. Second, this study calls into question the agenda congruence assumption of punctuated-equilibrium approaches, namely: increased issue coverage in the media translates into increased legislative attention (as measured by frequency of congressional hearings), which in turn translates into policy change.96 A cursory examination reveals that the increased congressional activity as gauged by Figure 3.5 does not correlate particularly well with the increases in public attention in Figure 3.397—although the congressional tone toward prohibition in Figure 3.6 does correlate well with the tone of coverage in the public sphere of Figure 3.4.98 The revelation that a well-known bad policy such as prohibition was adopted without meaningful debate or recourse to any committee suggests that heightened committee attention may not be a reliable indicator of legislative attention, or indeed policy change at all. This result suggests additional lines of research on the interface between periods of crisis governance, social cascades, and policy punctuations. Does there come a point where the apparent unanimity of public opinion overwhelms the need for deliberation and debate? Are the shortened time horizons associated with war and periods of national crisis systematically less conducive for analysis in terms of punctuated equilibrium policy dynamics? How do these dynamics vary with respect to institutions of national policymaking? While this chapter greatly enhances our understanding of the rise and fall of prohibition in the American context, it remains only one piece of a larger puzzle of transnational temperance and prohibition. As we examine the dynamics of alcohol policy in Sweden and Russia, we must recognize that the adoption of the bad policy of prohibition—or any policy for that matter—is not due solely to the influence of particular individuals or organizations, but also of the institutional structure that empowers particular actors, marginalizes others, and creates mechanisms of policy feedback that ultimately determine the policy course.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT Portions of this chapter appeared previously as Mark Lawrence Schrad, “Constitutional Blemishes: Understanding American Alcohol Prohibition and Repeal as Policy Punctuation,” Policy Studies Journal 35, no. 3 (2007).

Chapter 4 Avoiding the Prohibition Pitfall in Sweden

Continuity and flexibility are the cardinal virtues in the Swedish plan of [alcohol] control. The American, leaping hopefully from one extreme to another, has much to learn from the Swede. —Walter Thompson, The Control of Liquor in Sweden (1935) By the accounts of the most astute observers of the day, it was Sweden’s destiny to lead the world by becoming the first country to go bone dry through nationwide prohibition. By the turn of the last century, more than 10 percent of all Swedes were card-carrying members of temperance organizations, plebiscites estimated that an overwhelming majority of the population looked favorably upon prohibition, and prohibitionist forces comprised a clear majority in the Swedish parliament, the riksdag. These realities led commentators and Swedish legislators to consider the coming of prohibition to be “as irresistible as fate.”1 Yet, as it turns out, fate proved to be less than irresistible: when the smoke cleared, Sweden became the only Nordic country not to institute prohibition, opting instead for a dispensary system and individual liquor rationing. What happened? How was Sweden able to sidestep the disastrous consequences of this bad policy despite overwhelming popular support for it? The purpose of this chapter is twofold—first, to demonstrate that traditional interpretations of the Swedish “liquor question” based on individual, organizational, and cultural factors overlook critical elements of the Swedish policymaking structure. Second, by understanding the Swedish prohibition drama and the institutional context in which it took place, we will be able to make useful comparisons with the American case from the previous chapter, and the Russian case to follow. This chapter embeds the Swedish prohibition story within a consideration of the domestic structural context, beginning with an examination of the broad sweep of Swedish political development and democratization, followed by consideration of the major institutions with the greatest influence on the Swedish policy process—normally subsumed under broad epithets such as


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“corporatist,” “paternalist,” or “big government.”2 We then turn to the liquor question, paying particular attention to the official Temperance Committee and the pivotal role of Dr. Ivan Bratt. As with the previous chapter, the prohibition story can best be understood as the interplay of ideas and actors within the national policymaking institutions. Using the American experiences with prohibition as a foil, we can determine the differential impact of the Swedish corporatist institutional structure in terms of policy feedback mechanisms, and their impact on the eventual decision against adopting nationwide statutory prohibition. Ultimately, I argue that a focus on the institutional arrangement of national policymaking is crucial to understanding why Sweden never adopted prohibition but instead opted for a novel system of alcohol control. In brief: the mechanisms of negative policy feedback inherent in the corporatist Swedish system provided greater autonomy for policymakers and discouraged a switch to the self-reinforcing positive-feedback processes that ushered in American prohibition. The insulation of the official Swedish Temperance Committee from the influence of public sentiments, coupled with the routinized incorporation of diverse vested interests within the Swedish committee system, dampened expectations for rapid policy change, while the long-term policy deliberations allowed the clamor for such a bad policy to pass without actually being adopted. While certain individuals—and Dr. Bratt in particular—were instrumental in bringing about this outcome, his efforts would have come to naught were it not for the institutional structure that empowered him to undertake such reforms.

HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE: SWEDEN FROM ABSOLUTISM TO DEMOCRACY Interest in Swedish political development usually focuses on its near-miraculous recovery from the Great Depression and sensible aversion to becoming involved in two disastrous European wars. Scholars frequently highlight particular corporatist and bureaucratic institutions emerging from some Swedish cultural penchant for consultation, moderation, and agreement.3 Much like those of Great Britain, Sweden’s political institutions of monarchy and popular representation developed in relative isolation from foreign influence. The Swedish riksdag, or parliament, has existed since 1435 as a consultative assembly of four estates—nobility, clergy, burghers, and peasants—exercising varying degrees of political influence vis-à-vis the Crown over the centuries. Unlike that of most European states, Swedish history is devoid of tumultuous social and political revolutions or civil wars to foment political activism and opposition to the medieval estates. As a

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consequence, political parties and representative democracy came relatively late to Sweden. The feudal estates provided channels for the expression of diverse political interests yet were unable to accommodate the political demands of nineteenth-century liberalism and individualism. While the dramatic reforms instituted by Minister of State Justice Louis De Geer in 1865–1866 provided for elections to a bicameral parliament, a system of weighted voting based on wealth ensured that the upper chamber continued to represent the privileged classes,4 while land ownership and income limitations created a split between rural farmers and urban landowners in the lower house, disenfranchising tenant farmers and industrial laborers. Moreover, De Geer’s reform did little to shake up the conservative oligarchy of Swedish bureaucracy that disproportionately favored the interests of landed wealth, industry, and status, as Swedish ministers continued to owe their positions of power to the Crown rather than to the parliament.5 The first Swedish political party, the protectionist and conservative Ruralist Party (Lantmannapartiet), was formed in 1867 by farmers in the lower chamber, calling for a reorganization of national defense and greater equality in the tax burden. The Liberal Party formed soon thereafter, championing manhood suffrage for the lower chamber, parliamentary control over the bureaucracy, and further separation of church and state. Yet such partisan activity remained the province of the politically articulate industrialists, farmers, landowners, and bureaucracy until tariff debates of the late 1880s, when the lower-middle classes found representation through the nascent liberal and socialist parties. Swedish democratization benefited from the channeling of social movement pressures into partisan political activity.6 Liberal calls for enfranchisement and religious freedom found expression in the suffragist and free church movements, while the economic dislocations from industrialization stimulated a mass socialist movement, which found common ground with liberals in their calls for universal suffrage.7 This near simultaneous emergence of liberalism and socialism in an open political system—where such nascent political opposition was spared the bitter prosecutions of their continental counterparts—created a moderate and pragmatic spirit on the suffrage question within the resultant Swedish Social Democratic movement.8 By the turn of the last century, the mass demonstrations and popular support for suffrage could no longer be ignored by the riksdag, where prospects for enfranchisement and electoral reform were marked by gridlock between reformist lower chamber headed by the Socialists and Liberals (Frisinnade Landsföreningen, led by the prominent lawyer and future Prime Minister Karl Staaff ), versus a recalcitrant, conservative upper chamber, which sought to maintain its oligarchic privileges. After the peaceful dissolution of the union with Norway in 1905, suffrage reform was guided by moderate


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premier, industrialist Arvid Lindman, who convinced conservatives that a compromise package was the only way that the conservative upper chamber could endure the rising tide of Liberal-Socialist influence. Ratified in 1909, the package introduced a proportional-representation electoral system for both chambers and universal male suffrage for the lower chamber, which led to a dramatic proliferation of parties, factions, and consolidation of party organizations. Both the Liberal and Social Democratic Parties gained significantly from the expansion of the franchise, though greater numbers meant a diversity of demands upon their party platforms. The sudden strengthening of the rural element threatened to splinter the Liberal Party over demands for prohibition and reduced defense spending, though Staaff adroitly managed such diversity until his death in 1915. The Social Democratic Party, led by Hjalmar Branting, likewise faced internal dissent from both revolutionary propagandists and pragmatic reformers, but remained true to its focus on enfranchisement—rather than revolutionary violence—as a means toward socialist empowerment. The Social Democrats would lose the more radical elements that were supportive of ideals of the 1917 Bol’shevik Revolution in Russia (forming the Swedish Communist Party) while Branting remained committed to nonviolent political change.9 The acrimonious relationship between the Crown, the cabinet, and the parties in both chambers of the riksdag also required resolution. Traditionally, the prime minister and his cabinet ruled in consultation with the Crown, remaining aloof from partisan competition. Attempts to maintain stable parliamentary support were frequently thwarted by the ever-shifting coalitions of parties, before finally coming to a head over the sole province of royal prerogative—national defense. In February 1914 King Gustav V openly broke with the Liberal government over defense expenditures, leading Staaff ’s cabinet to resign in protest. The wave of patriotic sentiment accompanying the outbreak of the Great War in August rallied the country (and the various parties) around the government, and in support of its policy of neutrality. The elections of 1917 saw a major gain for leftist elements, which immediately pressed for extending the right to vote to women and abolishing the remaining restrictions for elections to both chambers, meaning the Crown would be forced finally to yield to the pressures for parliamentary cabinet government.10 Leader of the Liberal-Socialist bloc Nils Edén was able only to secure passage of the reform measure in 1918, as the defeat of the conservative German Empire hastened the downfall of Swedish conservatism amidst calls for general strike, revolution, and the establishment of a Swedish republic. Ultimately, the conservatives reluctantly accepted universal suffrage and cabinet government in order to save the monarchy itself, while maintaining a system of proportional representation that would ensure that conservative sentiment could provide an adequate counterweight to “radical” majorities.

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The four-party system of Social Democrats, Liberals, Agrarians, and Conservatives that emerged from this formative period of Swedish democratic development has proven remarkably stable under the enduring dominance of the Social Democratic Party for most of the twentieth century.11

DOMESTIC STRUCTURE: ON CORPORATISM AND POLICYMAKING Accounts of Swedish political development are frequently eschewed in favor of examining the consultative elements of the Swedish bureaucracy known more generally as democratic corporatism—“the voluntary, cooperative regulation of conflict over economic and social issues through highly structured and inter-penetrating political relationships between business, trade unions, and the state, augmented by political parties.”12 Such studies are concerned with the orderly, stable, and predictable ways by which social pressures are channeled into policy change. These channels of structured consultation have deep historical roots which transcend the traditional divides between pre-democratic and democratic phases in Swedish political development. Two particular elements are of note: small ministries composed of elite bureaucrats, and the utilization of official commissions of inquiry to link government policymakers with social organizations in consultations over public policy.13 First, most government administrative activity has traditionally been relegated to small, autonomous, and professionalized ministries akin to the “policy subsystems” and “iron triangles” familiar to students of the American policy process. As a result, administrators concentrate on esoteric questions of policy implementation far from the gaze of the public or the parliament, while civil servants in those ministries work in close consultation with politicians in the cabinet and in the riksdag regarding policy adjustments.14 A second defining element is the system of continuous consultation with outside experts and interest groups over questions of policy. Such commissions, which annually number in the hundreds, are comprised of a ministerial secretary, representatives from various political parties, civil servants, representatives of the labor unions (the Swedish Landsorganisationen, or LO), business interests, experts, and other affected parties. As a result of this channeled, repetitive consultation over policy questions ranging from the dramatic to the mundane, Swedish interest groups and social movements have built large research departments to interface with ongoing commission work, a system that has nourished a durable structure of representation outside of, and even predating, the modern electoral-democratic system.15


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Special ad hoc commissions have traditionally been established in Sweden to confront hot topics in national policymaking, including defense, economic policy, and the so-called “liquor question.” Such commissions are appointed by the prime minister with the assistance of the ministers of finance and civil service, with a broad mandate for investigation and debate. Once appointed, these commissions operate virtually independently of the government. Understanding that the ultimate goal of the committee is to draft a unanimous report with concrete legislative policy prescriptions based upon extensive research and analysis, the committee chairman facilitates compromise proposals acceptable to all involved parties based on shared cognitive, paradigmatic understandings. Committee reports include specific recommendations for legislation prefaced by an extensive collection of statistical data, foreign studies, and historical surveys. The reports are issued to the riksdag, the press, the public, and major private organizations, where they are circulated and debated, before the cabinet and riksdag formally address the issue. As a result of this system, on important questions of national politics, government decision makers are provided with abundant factual information, as well as an account of the prevailing opinions among different political parties, bureaucrats, and interest organizations. According to Hans Meijer’s classic Kommittépolitik och kommittéarbete (1956): The essential advantages of investigation by commissions are, firstly, that the government is given an opportunity of including in the working team the most competent civil servants, scholars, and representatives of different parties and interested organizations. Secondly, this method of private deliberations between civil servants, politicians and representatives of interest groups is conducive to compromises, in which the prestige of the individual members or of the groups represented plays only a minor part.”16

Since the ad hoc committee is the workhorse of Swedish policymaking, much of the prohibition account focuses on the ad hoc Temperance Committee appointed by Prime Minister Karl Staaff in 1911. Yet in order to understand why the “liquor question” became a pressing issue of national policymaking in the first place, we must anchor our consideration of the Temperance Committee within the broader scope of Swedish temperance politics.

SWEDISH TEMPERANCE AND STATE REGULATION Today Sweden is associated with advanced, postindustrial capitalism, pragmatism, and progressivism, yet until little over a century ago the stereotypical image of Sweden was of a small, cold, backward country of drunken

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peasants mired in a swamp of distilled spirits, or brännvin.17 The sobering of Swedish society is closely intertwined with the history of Swedish economic development. Two areas of activity are particularly deserving of our attention: the expansion of temperance ideology and organization within Swedish society, and the consequential development of alcohol regulation at both the state and local levels. Chapter 2 demonstrated that early transnational temperance activism found fertile soil in Sweden, which has a long history of both mass inebriety and temperance admonishments dating from the sixteenth century.18 By the time American temperance emissary Robert Baird first visited Sweden, helping form the Swedish Temperance Society (Svenska Nykterhetssällskapet) in the 1830s, Swedes were imbibing liquor at a staggering rate: an astounding 46 liters of 50° alcohol per person—or roughly six times higher than current consumption rates.19 The rapid expansion of the Swedish Temperance Society from the 1830s through the 1850s was remarkable, as were the rapid decreases in alcohol consumption—down by roughly half, to 23 liters per capita in 1850.20 This early temperance organization, led by prominent pastor Peter Wieselgren and the physician Magnus Huss, followed the tactics of the American Temperance Society and the Washingtonians, promoting individual abstinence from distilled spirits by means of a temperance pledge.21 The movement also sought changes in liquor regulations, resulting in the Licensing Act of 1855, which outlawed home distilling.22 With this act, the Swedish Temperance Society believed its work to be done, and its influence and membership declined precipitously thereafter. The cause of temperance languished until a new generation of activism arose in the 1870s, based on total abstinence (teetotalism) and calls for greater restrictions to curtail the perceived evils of alcohol. Undoubtedly the most important early temperance development was the founding in 1879 of the first Swedish lodge of the Independent Order of Good Templars (IOGT—after 1902 the International Order of Good Templars), which marked the beginning of the temperance-cum-prohibition movement in Sweden. The organization, which according to contemporary temperance advocates “has been of more importance in Sweden than in any other country in the world,”23 expanded to 60,000 members in 1,500 lodges by 1890, and over 140,000 members by the 1910s—far outpacing IOGT representation in its native United States.24 Equipped with innumerable local lodges, libraries, and an active temperance press, the Templars became a driving force for both temperance and prohibition in early twentieth-century Sweden, with prominent members including the publisher Oskar Eklund, senator Alexis Björkman, Mauritz Sterner, and International Chief Templar Edvard Wavrinsky, who would all play key roles in later debates over official alcohol-control policy.25 Other Swedish


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temperance organizations arose to promote temperance through Christian teaching, linking with both the Swedish national churches and the burgeoning free church movement. The National Order of Templars (National Templarorden) was founded in 1884 as a more Christian version of the IOGT, while the Swedish Blue Ribbon Society (Sveriges Blåbandsförbund) formed in 1886, quickly becoming the second-largest temperance Swedish temperance organization, claiming over 94,000 adherents by 1907.26 By the early twentieth century the temperance movement was part of a quartet of popular movements influenced by TANs that ultimately sought change in Swedish politics and society: the free church, labor, and woman’s suffrage movements worked in concert with the temperance movement to advance the liberalization of Swedish politics through the creation of a modern civil society independent from—and initially defiant toward—the state.27 The free church movement sought tolerance for Baptists, Methodists, and other Evangelicals from the state-sanctioned Lutheran Church, which had branded them as nonconformist deviants threatening Swedish society.28 As elsewhere, the temperance movement easily found common cause with religious organizations, especially through the National Order of Templars and the Blue Ribbon Movement.29 As throughout Europe and North America, the trade union movement in Sweden sought to improve the lives of the working classes. The founding of the national peak organization for labor, the Landsorganisationen, and the Swedish Social Democratic Party (Sveriges Arbetarparti, or SAP), which would advance the cause of socialism and democracy in Sweden, found many fellow travelers within the temperance movement.30 In particular, the Verdandi temperance organization (Nykterhetsorden Verdandi, or NOV), which boasted a membership of 22,000 laborers by 1909, linked the temperance and labor movements, opposing alcohol as an instrument of bourgeois domination of the toiling proletariat.31 As in the United States, the Swedish movement for woman’s rights had many organizational and ideational links with the temperance movement.32 An important step was the establishment of temperance organizations that addressed Swedish women’s unique challenges, most notably the World’s Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (World’s WCTU), which was known nationally as the “White Ribbon Society,” or Vita Bandet, under the leadership of Emilie Rathou.The White Ribboners pursued a wide range of goals, from improving labor standards to practical temperance measures such as the establishment of local temperance cafes and restaurants.33 Beyond broad umbrella organizations, labor unions promoted the development of occupational temperance organizations, creating temperance unions for students (Sveriges Studerande Ungdoms Helnykterketsförbund), teachers (Sveriges Lärares Nykterhetsförbund), physicians (Svenska Läkarnas

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Nykterhetsförening), motorists (Motorförarnas Helnykterhetsförbund), rail workers ( Järnvägsmännens Helnykterhetsförbund), and a Parliamentary Temperance Society for members of the riksdag. During the early twentieth century, nearly two-thirds of the members of the lower house of parliament were members of the temperance movement.34 Such organizations demonstrate the breadth of Swedish temperance activism that would ultimately press for greater alcohol restrictions, including prohibition. Since temperance activism was overwhelmingly a grass-roots political development, it should not be surprising that pressures for increased restrictions of the alcohol trade and its associated evils would come from the local level. While national legislation was slow in coming, temperance-spirited individuals acting in the interests of public welfare developed noteworthy local initiatives, including the so-called Gothenburg system, and local option. A system of local dispensary was first established in the Swedish town of Falun in 1850: a private company was commissioned to take over the operations of all the saloons and alcohol retailers within the town without consideration of the profits that prompted saloon-keepers to maximize alcohol sales. With a mandate of curtailing rather than encouraging alcohol use, the company not only regulated the sale of alcoholic beverages, but also handed over its profits to local philanthropic organizations.35 Other towns, seeing the resulting decrease in negative social consequences, began to adopt the practice, including Sweden’s second largest city, by whose name the practice would gain international fame as the “Gothenburg system” (Göteborg Systemet).36 The key elements of the Gothenburg system of “disinterested management” included municipal control of the local liquor traffic through a private company headed by respected local citizens; a strictly limited financial return to shareholders (usually set at 5%), and the remainder of the profits to be turned over to the public for philanthropic ventures. As the practice spread by local initiative throughout Scandinavia in the late nineteenth century, efforts had to be made to prevent municipal governments—who received a surprising windfall from the liquor revenues—from replicating the sins of the tavern-keepers by encouraging liquor consumption for the benefit of their local budgets. A 1873 national regulation mandated that profits be divided between the cities or communes, county councils, and the national agricultural societies (hushållningssällskap).37 Only in 1905 did this system of liquor administration become obligatory for all municipalities nationwide.38 The temptation for local communities to increase alcohol sales was ever-present, eventually requiring the riksdag to legislate that all surpluses would accrue to the state, which would then return a fixed amount back to the municipalities.39


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The other significant development in alcohol control in the late nineteenth century was the spread of local option, or local veto (localt veto). The Gothenburg liquor control companies operated with the oversight of their local governments, which as part of the 1855 reforms, were authorized to license all alcohol retailers or grant residents’ petitions to refuse the licensing of alcohol outlets altogether. Subsequently, more than 2,200 of Sweden’s 2,400 rural districts were dry.40 The combination of temperance activism and alcohol controls reigned in the out-of-control drinking seen in the early 1800s. With temperance activism predisposing public sentiments against alcohol in Swedish society, calls for greater alcohol restrictions—including prohibition—became more vocal by the turn of the twentieth century. Yet for all of their influence on local politics, Swedish temperance forces would have to navigate the corporatist structure of national policymaking to enact statutory prohibition.

FROM TEMPERANCE TO PROHIBITION? IVAN BRATT AND THE TEMPERANCE COMMITTEE By the dawn of the twentieth century, Sweden had a robust temperance movement with a myriad of strong organizations and transnational linkages. Absolutist arguments against the liquor evil mirrored their American counterparts by going beyond simple moral suasion and personal abstinence to call for coercive state measures to stem the liquor tide in Sweden.41 The push for prohibition kicked into high gear in 1909, when grievances between the trade union movement and Swedish employers came to a head, culminating in a nationwide work stoppage. Earlier, representatives of the major trade union and temperance organizations petitioned the king and government for a temporary prohibition for the duration of what was anticipated to be a tumultuous ordeal. The government obliged, closing the liquor shops for the entirety of the five-week strike. Swedish troops were called out to suppress disorder but were happy to find no disorder to suppress. The relatively uneventful and orderly nature of the strike was credited by virtually every authority to the closing of the liquor shops.42 Seizing the initiative, temperance organizations undertook an unofficial nationwide plebiscite to gauge the support for making prohibition permanent in Sweden. The results were staggering: with over 55 percent of the population registering ballots, the nation voted 1,884,298 in favor of prohibition, and 16,715 against—or 99.1 to 0.9 percent.43 This expression of public

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sentiment was based primarily on the short-term law-and-order benefits of prohibition, since the negative consequences of bootlegging and corruption take more time to become evident.44 Although the results were unofficial and stilted in favor of the temperance forces (since the temperance organizations could more easily canvass their already organized localities), the results placed the prohibition issue squarely on the policy agenda. After 1909, prohibition was extensively discussed in churches, schools, clubs, and village gatherings and was debated intensely within government ministries and political parties. Pubic sentiments could be divided into three main blocs: well-organized temperance forces in favor of prohibition, an opposition leery of any state infringement on the people’s incrementally expanding freedoms, and a small group of pragmatic temperance activists in the middle. Foremost among such pragmatists was a Stockholm physician by the name of Ivan Bratt.45 Doctor Bratt was the quintessential Swedish hero: a nondogmatic, reasoned compromiser. With prohibition looming in 1909, he released two widely discussed pamphlets challenging the conventional prohibition wisdom, supplemented by a series of articles in Sweden’s foremost newspaper, Dagens Nyheter.46 With the aid of hindsight, Bratt’s practical objections to prohibition seem almost a prophetic list of the reasons for the failure of prohibition in every country in which it would be undertaken. First, he argued that prohibition is impossible to enforce so long as respectable and otherwise law-abiding citizens saw nothing inherently wrong in taking an occasional drink. Second, he asserted that prohibition would be ineffective because of the ease of home brewing and distilling, which had a long tradition in Sweden. His third, and strongest, objection to prohibition concerned the creation of an illicit alcohol trade with overwhelming profits, which would result in extensive underground traffic with the potential to breed lawlessness and corruption.47 Anyone familiar with the role of American prohibition in facilitating the rise of Al Capone, organized crime, and the gangland wars of Chicago can easily validate Dr. Bratt’s objections. Back in Sweden, the election of 1911—the first following the reforms of 1909 that instituted universal male suffrage for the lower chamber of the riksdag—returned 230 representatives, 135 of whom were avowed prohibitionists.48 The popularity of prohibitionist sentiment was evident in the addition of a prohibition plank to the platform of the Social Democratic Party in an effort to court more votes. The lower chamber petitioned the new government of Liberal Prime Minister Karl Staaff to initiate an ad hoc commission of inquiry into the liquor question. With the blessing of King Gustaf V, the Official Temperance Committee was appointed with a mandate of


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preparing, as soon as possible, the necessary legislation for the introduction of Local Veto over the sale and retailing of intoxicating spirits as well as wine and beer; and further, after a proper inquiry has been made, to submit a proposal for other well-grounded and active arrangements to be made in order to limit the injurious effects of the liquor traffic, firstly by reforming the so-called Gothenburg system, and further by producing a satisfactory explanation in regard to a general prohibition of the sale of liquors.49

If one were to predict the outcome of the work of the Temperance Committee by the “revealed preferences” of its members, it would be easy to foretell a quick victory for prohibition, because eight of the eleven committee members were avowed prohibitionists and respected leaders of the foremost temperance movements, while the remaining three—including Dr. Ivan Bratt—had expressed temperance sympathies.50 The committee was chaired by Liberal parliamentarian and head of the IOGT Svante Herman Kvarnselius. Esteemed temperance publisher Oskar Eklund, the founder of the Blue Ribbon temperance movement in Sweden, was one of the more visible committee members, while Liberal parliamentarian and future Swedish Prime Minister (1926–1928, 1930–1932) Carl Gustaf Ekman was considered Sweden’s leading proponent of total prohibition. The sole woman on the committee was Emelie Rathou, White Ribbonist founder of the World’s WCTU in Sweden and future president of the Women’s Central Prohibition Federation (Centralradet för Kvinnornas Förbudsarbete). Other avowed prohibitionists on the committee included Baptist head of the free church movement and Blue Ribbon temperance member Jakob Byström, Blue Ribbonist and Member of Parliament Ollas Anders Ericsson, and Social Democratic parliamentarian and labor representative Bernhard Eriksson. Södertälje mayor Jakob Pettersson exhibited prohibitionist leanings without being formally aligned with any particular temperance organization. Karl Gustaf Karlsson, riksdag representative from Gothenburg, along with physiology professor Torsten Thunberg, were both in favor of temperance, though not outright prohibition, and they quickly aligned with the reformist measures generated by the final committee member, Ivan Bratt.51 Seven of the eleven members of the Temperance Committee attended at least one of the International Congresses on Alcoholism, described in chapter 2, before or during their committee tenure.52 Given their influence within the committee, the major temperance organizations initially placed their full confidence in the work of the Temperance Committee and its subsequent reports.53 In January 1914 the first major report—presented in unanimity as per convention—was issued on the issue of local option.54 The suggested legislation embodied a compromise between Bratt and the prohibitionists: the prohibitionists forced through the local veto, which they viewed as a stepping-stone to complete statutory prohibition,

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while Bratt instituted his sales reform: a system based on individual control by means of a ration book (motbok), which he had promoted in his articles, pamphlets, and earlier committee work with the Swedish Medical Association as early as 1908.55 This recommended course of action was not immediately translated into policy, since in the corporatist system committee proposals are submitted to the public, the bureaucracy, and relevant organizations for feedback before parliamentary legislation is initiated. As was expected, the leading temperance organizations heartily endorsed the policy suggestions; however, prohibitionists were not the only individuals consulted: labor organizations were solicited for their input, and their criticisms of the plan proved devastating. The unions of glassblowers, brewers, distillers, and restaurant and hotel workers all argued that the proposal would ultimately lead to massive cutbacks and unemployment in their particular industries and would cause a tremendous drag on the national economy.56 Weighing the available evidence, the national Board of Health and Welfare (Socialstyrelsen)—established in 1912 as the first permanent national corporative body within the Swedish civil service57—ultimately opposed the committee’s proposal, thereby tarnishing the appeal of the temperance legislation before the riksdag. While the lower chamber would approve both the local veto and Bratt’s individual ration system in parliamentary sessions in 1914, 1915, and 1916, the upper chamber would consistently strike down such legislation—local option with particular vehemence—citing economic and employment concerns.58 Just as throughout Europe and North America, the coming of the Great War in the summer of 1914 whipped up nationalistic fervor, opening a policy window for rapid change in the name of patriotic sacrifice and war readiness.59 As elsewhere, the organized temperance forces marshaled this new spirit to demand a temporary ban on alcohol until the clouds of war dissipated. Again, the issue was placed before the Board of Health and Welfare, which included relevant interest groups and unions. Again, the labor movement and industry representatives played the unemployment card60—an argument that carried added weight given the crippling economic crisis arising from Sweden’s inability to conduct trade with its warring European neighbors. The threat of war and the looming food shortage during the crisis years of 1917 through 1919 ultimately prompted state limitations on sales, which were gradually lifted as the crisis eased.61 Unable to secure even a temporary prohibition measure, the Swedish temperance movement became increasingly incensed, voicing opposition in the media and on the street. As the demands for prohibition grew louder, so too did popular opposition to the proposal from new civic organizations, including the Association for Civic Freedom and labor leader August Palm’s Appeal (Appell) supporters. Labor opposition to prohibition did not square


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with the prohibition provisions of the official Social Democratic Party platform, threatening party schisms within both the Social Democratic and Liberal parties.62 While prohibitionists and liberals bickered over the advisability of total prohibition, Ivan Bratt and the forces of moderation were making significant practical advances at the local level. As an influential member of the Stockholm city council, Dr. Bratt was designated auditor of the city’s “Gothenburg” system company (systembolag) that oversaw the municipal liquor trade. In 1913 Bratt gave up his medical practice to organize a company to compete with the existing bolag, dubbing it the “Stockholm system” to differentiate it from the existing “Gothenburg system.”63 Arguing that his company would do a better job in achieving temperance and public welfare through the adoption an individual rationing system, he persuaded the Stockholm city council to let the charter of the old company lapse and grant the rights to the liquor trade to his Stockholm system. By February 1914 tippling Stockholmers were brusquely notified that future alcohol purchases would require application for a certified ration book (motbok), in which all liquor purchases would be recorded and limited to twelve liters every three months. Once the initial furor subsided, the Brattssystem of individual liquor control was born.64 Bratt’s system built on the legacies of the existing Gothenburg system by entrusting the municipal sale of alcohol to a central company, whose primary goals were to divorce the private profit initiative from the liquor trade, reduce alcohol consumption, and use the liquor revenues to fund civic welfare and philanthropic endeavors. What made the Bratt system distinctive was the institution of individual control of liquor consumption by means of the ration book and local boards, known as the Office of Supervisors of Temperance, to oversee local temperance efforts.65 Amidst deepening economic crisis, the 1917 riksdag finally passed a nationwide alcohol bill that had its roots in the work of the Temperance Committee reports of 1914, though in a striking defeat for the prohibitionists, the local veto once viewed as a stepping-stone to prohibition was excluded because of the conversion of the Social Democratic bloc in the lower house from championing prohibitionism to the Bratt system of alcohol control, which had scored impressive improvements in public health and social order in the capital over the previous three years.66 Also it was argued that the establishment of dry communities through local option would deprive the state, county councils, and rural associations of considerable revenues.67 In the words of historian Lennart Johansson: The parliamentary decision also meant that Bratt and the prohibitionists went their separate ways. What had once been fruitful cooperation on the

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Temperance Committee was now replaced by a struggle between Bratt’s restriction system and the general ban on alcohol demanded by the temperance movement. There were no other political alternatives.68

This antagonistic division between Bratt and the prohibitionists was especially evident within the Temperance Committee, which continued to meet through 1920. The final reports of the committee, released on August 5, 1920, included a legislative proposal for a general prohibition of all alcoholic beverages containing more than 2.25 percent alcohol.69 Not surprisingly—though quite contrary to the tradition of unanimity and compromise—the prohibition proposal was released with the dissenting objections of Dr. Bratt, who claimed that it ran against liberal Swedish traditions of justice. A vital component of the committee’s proposal was the assertion that prohibition not be “put over” on Sweden without the say of the people, ultimately by means of a nationwide advisory referendum.70 The prohibition referendum—the first such universal vote in Swedish history—was scheduled for August 27, 1922, and required a qualified majority of two-thirds of voters to compel the riksdag to pass prohibitory legislation. By the early 1920s prohibition was a political hot potato, threatening to splinter the main Swedish political parties, and all sides saw a referendum as a means of diffusing the tension by placing the issue directly before the people. Political agitation reached a peak in the lead-up to the vote: the main temperance organizations coordinated their activity through the cooperative National Committee of Prohibitionists; while the unions, employers, libertarians—with substantial support from brewers and distillers71—assembled as the National Association for General Temperance without Prohibition (Landsföreningen för folknykterhet utan förbud).72 Prohibitionists and anti-prohibitionists canvassed the country with speaking tours, brochures, and editorials. Each framed their respective pro- or anti-prohibition arguments in economic, medical, moral, legal, and cultural terms, as well as through comparisons—either flattering or scathing—with the course of prohibition in other countries, most notably the United States, and Sweden’s prohibitionist neighbors in Norway, Finland, and Russia.73 Ultimately, the prohibition initiative was defeated—51 percent opposed and 49 percent in favor—far short of the two-thirds majority requirement.74 After the electoral drubbing, prohibition faded from the national political landscape,75 although its defeat was not necessarily a defeat for the cause of temperance in Sweden. Spared the lawlessness, bootlegging, and corruption that doomed prohibition and discredited the temperance cause in most of Europe and North America, Sweden’s temperance movement escaped the prohibition era relatively unscathed. Sweden had an effective system of disinterested management, local oversight, and individual control over the


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liquor traffic and would soon add monopolization of the wholesale trade. Activists could promote temperance through oversight of their local systembolag, getting involved in the system of compulsory care for alcohol abusers, or manning the local Temperance Boards that issued ration books.76 Realizing the futility of the prohibitionist cause, many temperance organizations in Sweden expanded their focus to issues of drug, tobacco, and gambling addictions in addition to minimizing the harms associated with immoderate consumption of alcohol.77 What’s more, given the corporatist structure of Swedish governance, the state would co-opt much of the temperance movement by subsidizing temperance organizations, making them partners in the broader temperance cause, and giving them an enduring role in the drafting of future alcohol control legislation.78 Thus while the temperance TAN ultimately collapsed in much of the rest of the world, Swedish temperance organizations continued to flourish even after World War II.79 Partly as a result, Sweden continues to have some of the world’s most stringent restrictions on the alcohol trade, and the lowest rates of alcohol consumption, even after the abandonment of the motbok in 195580 and the national wholesale monopoly with EU accession in the 1990s.81

WHY BRATT? So, despite seemingly irresistible pressures for the adoption of nationwide prohibition by an entrenched and politically influential temperance movement during the 1910s, Sweden became the only Nordic country not to adopt prohibition, developing instead a novel system of individual alcohol control through the Bratt system. The logical question then becomes: “Why not prohibition?” Why Sweden ultimately sidestepped the disastrous policy of prohibition has confounded Swedish historians and social scientists just as the puzzle of American prohibition has vexed social scientists and historians in the United States.82 Just as in the American prohibition case, we can distinguish three historical approaches to the “dog that didn’t bark” in Sweden. One approach focuses on the individual role of Ivan Bratt: as the sole conspirator against the overwhelming prohibitionist forces on the Temperance Committee, Bratt either single-handedly saved Sweden, or denied it its right to go dry, depending upon the sentiments of the writer.83 This view paints a false picture of Bratt persuading the dogmatic prohibitionists in the Temperance Committee, and then the entire nation, of the errors of prohibition.84 This interpretation is at best partial, since it takes for granted the institutional structure of Swedish policymaking that enabled Bratt to play such an influential role. A second approach emphasizes the diversity of opinion within

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the Swedish temperance movement beyond a small, vocal cadre of prohibitionists.85 This diversity actually permeated the TAN, including organizations rooted in prohibition countries such as the United States and Sweden’s Nordic neighbors. A third explanation focuses on a Swedish political culture “characterized by compromises, political consensus, a holistic view of society” that would not permit harm to come to a large sector of the population through prohibition-induced unemployment.86 Yet this cultural exceptionalism argument runs counter to the historical record: much of the debate was characterized by vehemence and acrimony—even within the Temperance Committee there was little consensus, especially after 1914.87 A better interpretation places the ideas and activities of Swedish temperance organizations within the broader policymaking context. The following section extends the institutional analysis of the previous chapter into the Swedish context, with particular focus on those elements of negative feedback in the corporatist domestic structure that preempt positive feedback processes.

SWEDISH POLICY PROCESS ANALYSIS While it would be foolish to expect that all elements of punctuated-equilibrium analysis that developed in the context of American policy studies can be exported wholesale to investigate different national institutional arrangements, a number of tools can be fruitfully utilized, such as using press indices as a proxy for public attention to different issues, as well as conducting content analysis of index entries to gauge prevailing attitudes toward various policy programs—and prohibition in particular. As in the United States, Swedish press freedoms had long been established as a reliable expression of public sentiments—especially among the most literate and politically active segments of society.88 Greater difficulties arise in using committee hearings as a proxy for governmental attention to an issue. In the American context, hearings on particular policies and issues can be raised by a number of permanent subcommittees of Congress. Such hearings are typically quite brief and are concerned with gathering information rather than producing legislation.89 In the Swedish corporatist structure, committee work differs from its American counterpart both in quantity and in kind: as we have seen with the work of Staaff ’s Temperance Committee, even ad hoc Swedish policy committees often deliberate for years, rather than days or weeks. Moreover, Swedish committees are often the direct sources of concrete pieces of legislation. It is useful, however, to retain a general interest in how debates and ideas held within the public sphere translate into policy through the intermediaries of Swedish committees. These institutional


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differences prove to be critical in our understanding of the fate of particular policies such as the bad policy of prohibition. We may begin by considering those institutional features that provide negative feedback, and the resulting stability of Swedish alcohol policy at the turn of the twentieth century: the localization of policymaking, revenue interests, the rise of labor unions, and the shared paradigmatic policy images among Swedish bureaucrats.90 First, the relegation of the liquor interest to the municipal level—with the spread of local option and Gothenburg-type dispensaries throughout Sweden in the late nineteenth century—relieved the national government of the need to initiate policies. As a result, the riksdag and the national bureaucracy did not address the “big questions” of nationwide prohibition, dealing instead with standardizing, licensing, and fine-tuning the existing liquor control system, including preventing localities from becoming overly reliant on alcohol revenues.91 Second, revenue interests were an important consideration—while the official rhetoric lauded the removal of the private profit motive, liquor revenues contributed significantly to the coffers of the national government (up to 20% of national revenues), city and rural communes (2–12%), and rural economic associations (up to 60% in some cases).92 Rhetoric aside, it would be foolish to assert that such reliable returns to the treasury did not produce some opposition to dramatic policy change.93 Indeed, since alcohol revenues benefited such a wide array of state institutions, the opposition to dramatic changes such as prohibition may have been even more widespread. What’s more, the economic contributions of the alcohol industry—especially employment—were more easily defended by capital and labor representatives within the corporatist consultative structure, instead of being marginalized and steamrolled by prohibitionists as in the society-dominated American scenario.94 Third, the domestic structure of Swedish policymaking provided additional negative feedback mechanisms in opposition to radical policy change. The Swedish bureaucracy overseeing the nationwide Gothenburg/dispensary system operated under shared cognitive assumptions as to the value and proper functioning of the existing system. As in the United States and elsewhere, such shared policy images are resilient to change and thus provide an additional negative feedback mechanism impeding policy change. In a corporatist political system the bureaucracy not only oversees the dayto-day administration of the policy but also is a critical component of policy deliberation and formation; these “iron triangles” of policy prove to be more impenetrable than their American counterparts, making the Swedish system inherently more prone to incremental rather than revolutionary policy change.95 Thus, even prior to the instigation of prohibitionist forces in Sweden, there existed a number of robust institutional mechanisms of negative

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policy feedback that resist radical policy change. Government, capital, and labor interests combined with the consensual structure of deliberation and corporatist policymaking to establish a number of hurdles to the adoption of a radical policy such as prohibition. Yet even these safeguards can be overcome under heightened public concern and crisis governance. In any responsive polity, heightened public attention to a particular area is often a harbinger of policy action. In the previous chapter we saw how increased public attention to the prohibition issue in the United States, combined with the window of opportunity created by the Great War, initiated a switch from negative to positive feedback, ultimately facilitating the adoption of a bad policy. In the Swedish case we need to then examine the relevant policy dynamics given a similar set of conditions: heightened public attention to the liquor issue and the opportunity for policy change amidst the looming crisis of war. Figure 4.1 shows the level of public attention to issues of temperance and prohibition as expressed through listings of the Svensk bok-katalog—which includes books, pamphlets, and other nonserial publications in Sweden—

Figure 4.1 Coverage of Temperance and Prohibition Listings in Svensk bok-katalog, 1875–1935. “Jubilee Retrospectives” are short pamphlets celebrating the work of a local or national temperance organization issued on the anniversary of its founding. Such jubilees are listed in the Svensk bok-katalog, but are not appropriate for coding.


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from 1875 to 1935.96 As in the American Reader’s Guide to Periodical Literature, it exhibits a distinct upsurge in press attention from about 1906 until the prohibition referendum in 1922 (with a lull from 1917 to 1919, coinciding with the European War, economic crisis, and resultant paper shortages). Yet before drawing direct comparisons, we must first bear in mind the different alcohol histories in each country.97 In the United States, prohibition was long established as a potential option at the state level, while alternatives, such as the Gothenburg/dispensary system were “foreign” and were adopted only sporadically, as in South Carolina. In Sweden, the positions were reversed: the Gothenburg system had a long history throughout the Nordic countries, so its benefits and drawbacks were familiar to most Swedes, while prohibition was to be imported from “over there.”98 Finally, we must also remember the history of prohibitionism in Sweden set against the backdrop of the 1909 general strike, which brought many Swedes over to the cause of nationwide prohibition. Such considerations are reflected in the content analysis of the Svensk bok-katalog listings, which appear in Figure 4.2. While there was heightened attention to the liquor issue after 1906, there was less consensus on the desirability of prohibition, given the effective Gothenburg system already in place throughout Sweden. While ardent prohibitionists lambasted government complicity in an “immoral trade,” moderates pointed to the history of reduced drunkenness and benefits to temperance, charity, and social health

Figure 4.2 Aggregate Tone of Temperance and Prohibition Listings in Svensk bok-katalog, 1906–1935.

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provided by the existing system. Given these circumstances, it is hardly surprising that, although temperance advocates succeeded in placing the liquor question on the policy agenda (with the resulting assembly of the Temperance Committee in 1911), the committee was charged with examining the feasibility of multiple alcohol control policies—the Gothenburg system, local option, and others in addition to prohibition.99 Did the Temperance Committee effectively incorporate prevailing public sentiments into its work? In the previous chapter we saw that the general souring of the American public toward prohibition was reflected in the content of governmental activity (Figures 3.4 and 3.6).100 Given the insulated, corporatist committee system, the Swedish data show a greater congruence between public attention and committee activity, while the tone of the committee’s work toward prohibition appears more ambiguous. Figure 4.3 demonstrates that the majority of Temperance Committee hearings occurred between 1912 and 1916, with a perceptible decline thereafter— roughly approximating the decline in literary coverage of alcohol issues in Figure 4.1. Figures 4.4 and 4.5, through a careful examination of the incoming correspondences to the committee preserved in the Swedish National Archives (Riksarkivet), attempt to decipher whether there were perceptible influences by prohibitionists. As with other publications, these correspondences were coded as to whether they advocated or otherwise reflected positively on a policy of prohibition, leaned negatively toward prohibition, or were neutral or otherwise uncodable. Whether gauged by the number of correspondences (Figure 4.4) or the number of pages of correspondence (based on an assumption that lengthier correspondences hold greater weight, Figure 4.5), the results are ambiguous: that is, most correspondences to the committee were of a neutral, and often speculative nature, rather than individual appeals or popular petitions favoring or opposing prohibition. This result should hardly be surprising, given the corporatist institutional layout of the Swedish policy process. Knowing that the work of the Temperance Committee was being conducted in a consensual environment, with the active participation of leading temperance advocates, there would be little need for temperance organizations to petition the committee on the behalf of prohibition.101 Likewise, knowing that any proposals would be submitted for public scrutiny—and especially for input among those unions and industries likely to be impacted by subsequent policy decisions (namely brewers, distillers, glassblowers, and restaurateurs)—there would be little need for unions and vested interests to lobby the committee against prohibition.102 Ultimately, this discussion serves primarily to illuminate the degree to which the Swedish corporatist institutions insulated the committee from unsolicited public input.

Figure 4.3 Temperance Committee Activity: Meetings per Month, 1911–1919. Source: Nykterhetskommitténs (Nov. 17, 1911) protokoll, 1911–1919. Riksarkivet (YK85: AI: 1).

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Figure 4.4 Incoming Temperance Committee Correspondence Perspectives toward Prohibition, by Correspondence, 1911–1920.

This institutional insulation of policy committees has a number of practical implications that make the corporatist Swedish system less prone to the overreaction and policy punctuation that are the hallmark of the societydominated American system. First, the isolation of the committee acts a buffer against the increasingly vocal calls for policy change.103 The mere creation of an ad hoc committee signals that the government is actively considering policy change and that additional agitation is not necessary. Understanding their positions to be already well represented, individuals and groups become less prone to the mimicking behavior, or cue-taking, within society that is the basis for a switch from negative to positive feedback processes evident in the society-dominated context. Second, the incorporation of all interested parties into the process means that no side need worry about a quick decision being made without the chance to add their input.104 This is the oft-noted institutional penchant for creative and consensual solutions to problems within the corporatist structure. The need for cooperation fosters deliberation and innovation among the inner circle of the policymaking community. Hence it should come as little surprise that the originator of the innovative Bratt system of alcohol control that was adopted in prohibition’s stead—Dr. Ivan Bratt—was a central figure in both the prohibition debate and the Temperance Committee


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Figure 4.5 Incoming Temperance Committee Correspondence Perspectives toward Prohibition, by Correspondence-Pages, 1911–1920. Source: Nykterhetskommitténs (Nov. 17, 1911). Inkomna skrivelser, allmänt, 1911–1920. Riksarkivet (YK85: EI: 1); Inkomna skrivelser från finansdepartementet, 1911–1920 (YK85: EII: 1).

rather than being some disempowered critic or lone voice on the fringes of the debate. Thus the isolation from public sentiments as well as the anticipation of cooperation of diverse representatives not only defuse potential positive feedback mechanisms before they begin, they also empower certain actors to innovate, compromise, and alter policy directions. But what of the influence of political crisis on the policy process? In the previous chapter we saw how the looming threat of World War I opened a policy window and ushered-in American prohibition by reframing the liquor issue, shifting the institutional venue, and shortening the time horizons for in-depth debate. While the threat of continental war loomed much larger and closer for Sweden, the political and economic crisis of the Great War had a different influence on Swedish alcohol-control policy, in large part because of the different institutional arrangement. First, like their counterparts in the United States, prohibition advocates capitalized on the patriotic sentiment of sacrifice on behalf of national security to reframe the liquor issue, calling for greater restrictions on the liquor

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industry. There was even the tinge of anti-German sentiment associated with Swedish brewers of German descent—though not to the extent that they were vilified in the United States. Prohibition advocates also increased expectations for the ultimate victory of prohibition in Sweden by reference to developments elsewhere on the continent. They did not need to look far, since virtually all of Sweden’s neighbors had adopted prohibition at the outset of hostilities. Yet all of these arguments had to contend with the insulated and corporatist decision-making structure to have a palpable effect on national policy. Thus the political crisis that facilitated the prohibition punctuation in the United States—most notably the rising tides of public sentiment—was prevented from influencing the debate in Sweden. A second difference concerns the need for quick decisions and readymade solutions that are easily incorporated during periods of crisis. Here too the corporatist structure shows distinct advantages in defusing positive feedback effects: by the time the European War and economic crisis loomed over Sweden in the summer of 1914, the Temperance Committee had already been working on the alcohol control issue for two and a half years— and would continue to work on the issue for an additional six years—hardly a “snap” decision. A third manner in which the corporatist structure acts as a reliable instrument of negative feedback concerns the temporal element. In both the American and Swedish cases, the patriotic fervor and recasting of prohibition as an economic and security issue opened a window for immediate and drastic policy action. In the American case, the open institutional structure facilitated a switch to positive feedback processes that heralded the adoption of nationwide prohibition. In the Swedish case, however, the patriotic fervor for prohibition came and went while the committee was in the midst of its deliberations. By the time the issue was finally put to popular vote in the referendum of 1922, the clouds of war had long since dissipated, and better information was available as to the un-enforceability and negative consequences of prohibition in other countries. The insular corporatist system acted as a shield to the heightened public attention, calls for policy change, and potential positive feedback elements associated with normative public sentiments. In other words, whatever window for policy change was opened by the looming war and crisis was allowed to close slowly because of the corporatist structure of Swedish policymaking.105 Using the American experience as a foil, it is possible then to give a new answer to the question of why Sweden never adopted prohibition: the instruments of Swedish corporatist policymaking maintained those negative feedback processes that lead to policy stability and incremental change, rather than permitting a switch to positive feedback based on heightened public demands for policy change and the shortened time horizons of crisis


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decision making. Yet while these factors provide an adequate explanation for why Sweden never adopted prohibition, it does little to aid our understanding as to why Sweden ended up with the unique Bratt system of individual alcohol control. It is to this question that we now turn. Without a doubt, Ivan Bratt was the most influential individual in the history of Swedish alcohol policy. His innovative solutions highlight the importance of bricolage to the corporatist policy process. Bricolage is the process by which actors and policy entrepreneurs craft new institutional solutions through the recombination and adaptation of existing principles and practices, with the result that new institutional outcomes differ from— but still resemble—old ones.106 Often confused as a synonym for innovation, bricolage is an important element within institutional analysis, for it introduces actors as agents of institutional change and innovation, instead of simply being limited to existing policy options, while also recognizing constraints upon innovation by specifying the range of potential principles, practices, and frames to be recombined into new policies and new institutions. Bricoleurs, or policy entrepreneurs, are the individual agents of change who are responsible for the recombination of elements in innovative ways. Dr. Bratt clearly fits this bill. Following John Campbell, the appreciation of individual entrepreneurs such as Ivan Bratt begins not with an assessment of individual qualities, such as talent or charisma (which Bratt no doubt possessed in abundance), but rather with an appreciation of their location within a set of social relationships and existing institutions.107 In brief, the likelihood of policy innovation is greatly increased through the efforts of individuals or groups located at the intersection of multiple social networks, organizational fields, and institutions. Such well-placed individuals have larger repertoires of experience and are more likely to receive different policy ideas that can be recombined in innovative ways.108 Here again, Dr. Bratt fits the bill as a well-placed policy entrepreneur, or broker, benefiting from a strategic location within the corporatist institutional arrangement of Swedish policymaking. As a practicing physician, Dr. Bratt could draw upon ideas commonly held within the medical community concerning the proper, moderate use of intoxicating liquors—perceiving alcoholism as deviant behavior supported by traditions and social norms, with the best remedy being a strong motive to restrict or give up drinking.109 At the same time, as an active member of the policy community, he quickly became familiar with the practical limitations of enforcement and the ultimate failures of statutory prohibition, as well as the benefits of the existing system. Following the observations of Marquis Childs: “Eloquently Dr. Bratt argued that no act could be condemned as a crime which many reputable citizens regarded as an ancient and inalienable right. This sounds rather like the debate over

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prohibition repeal in the United States. The fact is that Sweden debated first and acted afterwards.”110 Finally, as an active member engaged in temperance debates, he well understood the positions, assumptions, intentions, and symbolic language of prohibitionist movement and was able to make effective arguments in the same language.111 By highlighting the role of policy entrepreneurs involved in the process of bricolage, it is easier to place the efforts of one individual, Dr. Bratt, into more generalizable terms of the study of institutional development. So ultimately where did the idea for the Bratt system of individual control through ration books coupled with national monopolization and dispensary come from? To be sure, it was an example of bricolage, par excellence. Given his examination of the Gothenburg system, and the licensed “system companies” that had been made compulsory throughout Sweden by 1905, Bratt noted that some System shops kept lists of individuals who were not permitted to purchase alcohol on account of frequent alcohol-related offenses. Drawn from existing institutional practices, Bratt’s innovation was to turn this restriction system on its head: instead of being an item that certain people could not buy, liquor shops should instead have lists of those customers who were entitled to purchase alcohol through individual licenses. Equating the use of alcohol with the use of dynamite—something that only responsible people should be permitted to do—Bratt saw individual control through ration booklets issued by local temperance boards as the most effective brake on individual consumption.112 Other elements of alcohol control—disinterested management, monopolization of off-premise sales, and licensing of bars and restaurants—were but incremental changes to the existing Gothenburg system. So was it Ivan Bratt the individual who ultimately “saved” Sweden from prohibition? Yes, Bratt’s role as a policy entrepreneur was pivotal in the ultimate choice away from prohibition and toward an innovative system of individual restrictions and disinterested management. However, Bratt’s policy initiatives would have borne little fruit were he not strategically empowered through the corporatist policy process. Indeed, the Swedish experience only confirms the insights of institutional scholars that, if such policy entrepreneurs lack access to the tangible resources and levers of political power, their innovations will ultimately fail to be adopted, no matter how brilliant their ideas may be.113 Moreover, Bratt’s location at the intersection of different communities and networks made him the most likely member of the Temperance Committee to develop and act upon such policy innovations that would serve simultaneously to reduce the harmful externalities associated with widespread alcohol abuse while avoiding the ultimately disastrous policy of prohibition.


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CODA: FINLAND AND NORWAY By now, some observers will note an apparent contradiction: the corporatist domestic structure helped Sweden avoid the bad policy of prohibition—but its corporatist neighbors Norway and Finland fell victim to prohibition: the former continuing its wartime prohibition via national referendum in 1919 (with a mere 62 percent voting in favor),114 the latter maintaining the tsarist prohibition while wresting itself from Russian rule in 1917115 How do we make sense of this? There is no perfect correlation between domestic structure and policy outcome—there are more moving parts here, so to speak. Institutional arrangements do not dictate the outcome of particular policy debates. As we can discern via structured comparison, different institutions have inherent feedback propensities, which varyingly empower or insulate policy entrepreneurs from the decision-making process. Sweden’s avoidance of prohibition was due largely to the efforts of Dr. Ivan Bratt, yet he would not have had the disproportionate policy influence were it not for his position within the corporatist institutional arrangement. The nascent corporatist institutions in Finland and Norway could have similarly empowered their own Bratt-like policy entrepreneurs, with potentially similar outcomes: the fact that a Norwegian or Finnish Dr. Bratt did not appear to fill that role does not mean there could not have been. Additionally, a nuanced investigation of these countries only confirms the basic policy dynamics associated with a corporatist domestic structure in terms of the battle for prohibition repeal in Finland and Norway. In Finland, for example, under prohibition in 1922, the Finnish government commissioned an “Alcohol Committee” almost identical to the Swedish “Temperance Committee.” During four years of deliberation, the Alcohol Committee called for staying the course, despite both evidence of prohibition’s failures and increasing public hostility.116 Later, in 1931, the so-called Bjorkenheim Committee was appointed to study the issue once again, now amidst mass anti-prohibition protests, repeal planks in all major political parties, and numerous unofficial polls showing over 90 percent of the Finnish population in favor of repeal.117 Once again, as if deaf to public sentiment, the Bjorkenheim Committee proposed continuing prohibition with only minor modification, again demonstrating the insulation of policymakers from the influence of public sentiment. Together, the Finnish Alcohol Committee and Bjorkenheim Committee demonstrate the same policy dynamics suggested by the study of the Swedish Temperance Committee. Also as in Sweden, the liquor question became such a political hot potato that it was ultimately put to a consultative referendum. In 1932, with over 70 percent of

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the country voting in favor of repeal, the Parliament was called into special session to override the prohibition policies advocated by the Alcohol and Bjorkenheim Committees, finally bringing the prohibition stalemate to an end. Similar events were evident in Norway—with insulated committees trying to maintain prohibition in the face of widespread opposition, before ultimately being undone by a nationwide referendum in 1926, when a 56 percent majority sealed the defeat of prohibition there.118 While Norway and Finland adopted a bad policy in the form of prohibition, how this failed policy was maintained and ultimately repealed only confirms the basic institutional dynamics of corporatist policymaking.

CONCLUSIONS Examining the temperance/prohibition narrative through an institutional lens not only brings a new perspective to understanding Sweden’s policy decisions, but also highlights salient differences between corporatist and society-dominated domestic structures. Rather than laying the credit (or blame) for the lack of prohibition in Sweden at the feet of particular individuals or Swedish cultural traits, this chapter suggests that conventional historical interpretations are incomplete without consideration of the national policymaking context as well as the placement of individual policy entrepreneurs within it. The implicit comparison with the American context also suggests how different domestic institutional arrangements can, ceteris paribus, predispose states to different policy alternatives. In this case the Swedish corporatist arrangement provided more effective mechanisms of negative feedback—promoting policy stasis and discouraging dramatic policy punctuations by reigning in or preempting those same social forces that promoted a switch to positive feedback in the United States. In particular, the isolation of the official Swedish Temperance Committee from the vacillations and tides of popular sentiment, along with the routine incorporation of diverse interests within the policy committee, served to dampen expectations for rapid policy change. The brief digression into the movement to repeal prohibition in Finland and Norway confirms these tendencies inherent in the corporatist domestic structure. Moreover, the duration of policy work allowed whatever pressures for the rapid adoption of prohibition coinciding with the Great War to pass without “leaping hopefully from one extreme to another,” to quote the characterization of American policymaking in the epigraph to this chapter. Finally, while influence of particular individuals such as Dr. Ivan Bratt can be quite pivotal, the influence of such innovations and ideas cannot be attributed to the strength of personal char-


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acter or the allure of the innovation alone. It is the institutional structure that enables policy entrepreneurs while marginalizing those not already integrated into the policymaking process. For those interested in Swedish policymaking more generally, the history of Swedish alcohol politics suggests the applicability of policy analysis based on (primarily postwar) notions of committees, corporatism, and consensus further back in time. This in turn suggests that these fundamental, corporatist elements of national policymaking may be more enduring than, and greatly disconnected from, other avenues of interest representation—representative democracy and electoral politics—that is the hallmark of vetoplayer analyses. While this chapter acts as a useful complement to the chapter on policymaking in the United States, our comparative undertaking is necessarily incomplete without consideration of an illiberal, nondemocratic institutional context, namely: late-imperial and early Soviet Russia. Do such notions of public sentiments, policy frames, and feedback mechanisms extend to the creation of public policy in an autocratic political system? This will be the focus of the next chapter.

Chapter 5 The Surprising Rise and Tenacity of Russian Prohibition

Russia, we may fairly say, has “solved the drink-problem.” She has done more. She has discovered to the world how simple the problem really is. —Ernest Gordon, Russian Prohibition (1916) From time immemorial countries waging war have been in want of funds. Revenue has always been sought by good or by bad measures . . . but never since the dawn of human history has a single country, in a time of war, renounced the principal source of its revenue. —Andrei Shingarev, rapporteur of Imperial Duma Budget and Finance Committees (1915) When the Eighteenth Amendment was ratified in 1919, ushering-in nationwide prohibition in the United States, temperance advocates rejoiced that the American example would be a shining example to “lead every land out of this great slough of despond,”1 while experts assumed that Sweden would be the first country to introduce nationwide prohibition to the world. Yet in the race to be the first prohibition country, the United States, Sweden, and all of the other temperance-minded countries of Europe would be beaten to the punch by an outside contender: imperial Russia, which instituted nationwide prohibition in 1914. How could this have come to pass? The tsarist regime had long stymied indigenous temperance forces and had a significant vested interest in maintaining an imperial monopoly on the liquor that kept the peasant population in check and provided more money to the treasury than any other source. As Russian alcohol historian Irina Takala explains, “Tsarist Russia arrived at prohibitory measures completely differently—without any kind of serious prior preparations or active, centuriesold organizational struggles—than in the USA.”2 In short, according to conventional “if temperance, then prohibition” logic, imperial Russia would be the last place one would expect to find prohibition, rather than the first.


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Russian prohibition has long been relegated to a mere footnote in prohibition history—perhaps with good reason. Prohibition in Russia was overshadowed by the overthrow of the most conservative autocracy in Europe and by the rise of the first communist state. Given the widespread political turmoil, the unprecedented crises of World War I, two revolutions, civil war, Communism, famine, and collectivization, this oversight is understandable. Imposed by imperial diktat, Russian prohibition is often dismissed as an ill-advised decision by a “tragically ignorant and weak” Tsar Nicholas II, destined to lead his people to ruin.3 Yet, if prohibition was simply another in a series of “Byzantine tricks”4 of an out-of-touch leader, how can we understand the extensive support for the policy by the public and the fledgling legislature, or the surprising durability of prohibition after the tsar was deposed in 1917? How do we explain that this bad policy was in fact the only policy agreed upon by the ultraconservative tsarist government, the liberal Provisional Government, and the revolutionary Bol’shevik government? Russian prohibition thus presents a double puzzle: how do we explain (1) the rapid adoption of a disastrous policy and (2) its surprising endurance amidst a whirlwind of political change? By highlighting the similarities between the policy institutions of both late imperial and early Soviet Russia as a centralized, autocratic, hierarchical state apparatus that is above—and disjointed from—a weak and fragmented civil society, we can examine how temperance ideas (and prohibition in particular) infiltrated the insular circles of imperial policymaking. As is characteristic in such autocratic structures, once a policy idea comes to prominence—usually through the efforts of policy entrepreneurs and in the presence of a window of opportunity—they are often implemented quickly.5 In such a hierarchical context, the leader, his ruling circles, and their understandings of policy are crucial. Thus, in terms of the liquor question in Russia, we need to focus not so much on mass attitudes—since the peasantry were largely absent from policy considerations—but rather on the prevalence of temperance sentiments among the elite, and the degree to which those attitudes influenced policy even as the decision makers themselves changed. In short, as in the United States and Sweden, we need to understand not only the role of particular policy ideas and social forces, but also the domestic structure of policymaking. This chapter begins with a brief historical overview—from the emancipation of the serfs in 1861 through the Bol’shevik Revolution of 1917 and into the brutal, autocratic reign of Joseph Stalin, who ultimately repealed prohibition in the Soviet Union—before it addresses the domestic structure of policy decision making in both late imperial and early Soviet Russia. While it is difficult to imagine a more stark contrast in the political ideology of the ruling classes, the basic structure of policymaking both before and after 1917 exhibits significantly more similarities than differences.6 We will then consider of the

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evolution of temperance and prohibitionist sentiments in imperial Russia, and their surprising resilience through the February and October Revolutions of 1917. These disparate threads will then be woven together into a new interpretation of the Russian experience with prohibition, which embeds consideration of the disproportional attention normally given to Tsar Nicholas II within a deeper understanding of the role of autocratic policymaking institutions.

HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE: FROM EMANCIPATION TO REVOLUTION Nineteenth-century Russian politics was marked by conservatism, insulation from European liberalism, and a chronic lack of economic and industrial development. Russia’s resulting “backwardness” was laid bare through embarrassing military defeats in the Crimean War, which prompted sweeping domestic reforms, including the emancipation of the serf population in 1861. Economic reforms were furthered by the influential minster of finance, Sergei Witte, who sought to maintain Russia’s great-power status through rapid industrialization focusing on heavy industry, the expansion of railways, and increasing control over the alcohol industry.7 The strains of this industrialization displaced marginalized populations and increased the allure of radical revolutionary ideologies, such as Marxism. The sudden death of Tsar Alexander III in 1894 brought to the throne the conservative Nicholas II, who rebuked every movement to increase popular representation in governance—equating moderate reform with subversion and revolution.8 Such recalcitrance pushed liberals further to the left, into sympathies with the rising Marxist groups that called for violent opposition to the tsar’s autocratic rule. Such revolutionaries drew upon the dislocations associated with Witte’s rapid industrialization and ultimately threatened the tsarist political order, most directly through a ruralist Socialist Revolutionary Party (SRs) and the outlawed Russian Social-Democratic Worker’s Party. The more moderate Menshevik faction competed with the Bol’shevik faction of Vladimir Ilych Ul’yanov (Lenin), who sought Marxist revolution by a small vanguard party. Russia’s disastrous war with Japan in 1904–1905 significantly weakened the ruling autocratic order and, like the Crimean fiasco, prompted dramatic political changes. Under pressure of mass unrest, mutinies, and nationwide strikes instigated by the St. Petersburg Soviet (council of elected workers’ representatives), Nicholas II relented by issuing the October Manifesto, establishing a popularly elected though extremely weak legislature—the Duma—based upon universal suffrage and basic civil liberties in order to save the institution of


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tsarism itself. The need for representatives prompted the establishment of the conservative, pro-regime “Octobrist” Party (Soyuz 17-ogo Oktyabrya), while liberal progressives and moderates found their way into a larger Constitutional Democratic (Kadet) Party. The first two Dumas, in 1906 and 1907, were dissolved as too leftist for the tsar’s tastes, and although the Third and Fourth Dumas endured (1907–1912 and 1912–1914),9 the tsar and his ministers viewed the legislature as a superfluous and potentially dangerous incursion into the absolute powers of the tsar, even while those powers were weakening within the elite salons of St. Petersburg.10 In response to the Austrian declaration of war against Russia’s main Balkan ally, Serbia, the tsar ordered a full mobilization of military forces and entered World War I against Austria and Germany in the summer of 1914. Roused by patriotic calls to defense of the motherland, public and legislative sentiments were favorable to the declaration of war, yet civilian (including Duma) authority was quickly overrun by expanding military control. The enormous Russian military losses in 1914 and 1915 aroused unrest within the legislature, as the liberal Kadets of Pavel Milyukov and moderateconservative Octobrists formed the “Progressive Bloc”—calling first for the replacement of incompetent ministers, then for limitations on the monarchy and greater government accountability to the Duma. The strains of total war were too much for the tsarist regime: the mobilization of 15 million men disrupted industrial and agricultural production at a time when both were needed more than ever. The breakdown of the railway infrastructure under the strains of war hindered the transport of food and fuel to Petrograd and Moscow. A wave of deserters from the string of military defeats further stoked dissatisfaction with the tsar and his regime. Nicholas II did little to stem the discontent: his inept personal handling of the war effort at the front and the rapid turnover of key ministerial positions made domestic governance uncertain, unstable, and ineffective. Tsarism finally fell in February 1917, as striking factory workers and hungry citizens staged mass demonstrations in Petrograd, which were supported rather than suppressed by the Petrograd garrison. In defiance of the tsar, liberal Duma deputies of the Progressive Bloc hastily formed a Provisional Government, while (drawing on the experiences of the 1905 Revolution) the workers created a separate representative body, the Petrograd Soviet, to speak for the urban proletariat and the soldiers. Upon being informed that he no longer had the support of his military commanders, Nicholas abdicated, ending 400 years of Romanov rule.11 What resulted was a weak, unstable, and uneasy arrangement of dual political power between the Provisional Government and the Petrograd Soviet, linked primarily by the liberal socialist Alexander Kerensky, who held influential posts in both assemblies. Unable to undertake domestic reforms and unwilling to abandon the war, Kerensky’s legitimacy faded

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quickly, reaching its terminus with the storming of the Winter Palace by the Bol’sheviks in October 1917. Time was of the essence for Lenin’s new revolutionary government, which deftly outmaneuvered its political opposition by outlawing rightist and centrist parties, including the Kadets, and by crushing the democratically elected Constituent Assembly dominated by the SRs. Through the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, Russia withdrew from World War I at the cost of painful economic and territorial concessions. Russia’s bloody international war was quickly replaced by a bloody civil war pitting anticommunist “White” forces against the communist “Red” Army from 1918 through 1921. The need to mobilize the limited resources available to the Bol’shevik government begot a harsh, dictatorial system of nationalized industrial production, gunpoint grain requisitions, and political terror against opponents of the new regime. While such iron-fisted tactics ultimately secured communist victory, three years of total war followed by civil war and famine left Russia economically devastated. In 1921 Lenin loosened the state’s stranglehold on the economy and permitted limited expansion of small-scale capitalist exchange to stimulate economic recovery, a step later known as the New Economic Policy (NEP).12 By the 1920s Lenin and an insular Communist Party consolidated political power in the Soviet Union. Within the new party-state, ultimate decision-making authority lay with Lenin’s inner circle—the Politburo. Following Lenin’s stroke and incapacitation in 1922, Joseph Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili (Stalin) utilized his position as general secretary to selectively place loyalists in important party posts, and outmaneuvered his Politburo rivals in ascending to power after Lenin’s death in 1924. While necessarily brief, this summary helps contextualize the prohibition narrative within the broader political context of autocracy and revolution. Ultimately, while the political differences between tsarist and Soviet Russia could not be more stark, the autocratic institutions of policymaking exhibit tremendous similarities. Thus it is important to go beyond monolithic interpretations of autocratic policymaking in which “what the leader says, goes,” to uncover how, even within a nondemocratic context, interests and ideas are represented and translated into policy.

DOMESTIC STRUCTURE AND POLICYMAKING: BEYOND THE MONOLITH Most accounts of Soviet and imperial Russian policy decisions are based on a monolithic, unidirectional, and ultimately misleading interpretation of the nature of autocratic policy formation: assuming that policy X was enacted


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solely because the autocrat dictated that it be so.13 Such interpretations often underestimate the contingent nature of policy decisions, the role of internal debates about the direction of policy,14 the institutional structure of decision making, and the constrained range of publicly acceptable policy decisions.15 This section transcends this monolithic conception of autocratic decision making by examining both the changes and continuities in bureaucratic institutions and the influence of Russian educated society (obshchestvo) on policy decisions in late imperial and early Soviet Russia. Prior to 1905, imperial Russia lacked representative legislative institutions, yet the tsarist regime was not completely ignorant of the needs of its people. Until the middle of the nineteenth century, the tsars relied upon provincial officials, imperial adjuncts, and ministerial fact-finding commissions to convey local needs and to remedy pressing problems of civil unrest, famine, disease, or governmental paralysis.16 Russia’s weak and sycophantic administrative structure was ill-equipped to handle the economic and social dilemmas arising from industrialization. In countries with “strong societies,” civil liberties overcome such informational deficiencies: rather than relying on servile adjuncts or commissions, policymakers respond to popular sentiments as expressed in the press or through collective petitions. In Russia, all social and political organization outside the state and the Orthodox Church were viewed with suspicion and were actively subverted. Moreover, official censorship in Russia dates from the late eighteenth century as a check on Western liberal ideas that threatened to undermine the autocracy.17 While the mid-nineteenth century reforms permitted newspapers and journals to report on government policy, overt criticisms made the writers, editors, and publishers liable to criminal prosecution.18 Despite such dangers, newspapers in imperial Russia highlighted social problems such as rural alcoholism, as well as the need for policy remedies—although outright criticism of the regime remained veiled.19 Thus, even with a degree of censorship, the imperial (and later Soviet) press could play a role similar to their Western counterparts as the primary medium of political discourse to place particular issues on the political agenda, thus making the intelligentsia of educated elites a source of political authority and policy information.20 Stymied by restrictions on expression and organization, informal pressures for improvements in public health, education, and welfare from the educated intelligentsia and elite obshchestvo, or high society, found expression in the 1880s and 1890s through the growth of voluntary associations under Alexander III. An interest in temperance as a remedy for the alcohol affliction of the impoverished classes was integral to this activism.21 Alexander’s successor, Nicholas II, opposed even the most moderate, civicminded obshchestvo initiatives, a stance that only bolstered frustration with the tsar from across the political spectrum. The establishment of the

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indirectly elected Duma in 1905 gave Russian obshchestvo an institutionalized, if weak, input into policy decisions. True to his autocratic nature, however, Nicholas II considered the Duma as a mere consultative forum rather than a legislative body. The new bicameral legislature consisted of the lower parliament, or State Duma (Gosudarstvennaya duma), comprised of popularly elected representatives; and the upper chamber, or State Council (Gosudarstvennyi sovet), comprised of tsarist appointees and conservative representatives of the Church and nobility. This upper house effectively checked the legislative authority of the popularly elected lower chamber, because either the council or the tsar could veto Duma policies. The tsar retained most of the levers of political power, including the right to appoint ministers, declare war, circumvent Duma budgets, dissolve the parliament, and unilaterally issue laws when the Duma was not in session. Despite such limitations, the new Fundamental Laws greatly enabled the expression of political sentiments and served as a new channel for the translation of ideas into policies: an elected body could now initiate legislation, scrutinize the budget, hold hearings, interrogate ministers, and openly criticize the monarchy and its policies. Ensuing laws on civil rights, which lifted press censorship and established a limited freedom of association and assembly, unleashed a tremendous upsurge in antigovernment protest.22 These changes are particularly important to an understanding of how divergent policy ideas would be translated into policy. While the reforms of 1905 broadened the scope of potential policy inputs emanating from educated society, the tsarist regime remained a closed, insulated decision-making body perched atop a hierarchical and centralized governance structure. Consequently, those who ultimately gained influence in the highest circles often owed their influence not to intelligence or merit, but instead to courtly intrigues. However, once access has been gained to the insulated world of imperial power, such “outside” individuals and ideas may have a disproportionate impact on policy decisions. Perhaps there is no better illustration of both of these tendencies than the rise and influence of the infamous peasant shaman Grigorii Rasputin on the Russian royal family and subsequent Russian policies in the last years of Romanov rule.23 The February 1917 Revolution decapitated the Russian policymaking structure, removing the tsar and the State Council from the equation, while there existed a degree of continuity between the imperial Duma and the Provisional Government. Amidst the turmoil of revolution, the bureaucratic instruments of policy development and administration survived intact— answerable now to the Provisional Government—as did a “monarchical psychology” of reliance upon a strong autocratic policymaker.24 The uncertainty of war and domestic upheaval led to a difficult situation in which policymaking authority was centralized within a Provisional Government that had no


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capacity to accumulate information and formulate its policies, much less enforce them. This situation coincided with a breakdown in the production and distribution of printed materials, hindering the media as a source of information regarding public sentiments.25 Ultimately, the breakdown of state capacity impeded both the development of policy and governance in general. Initially as weak as its Provisional predecessor, the system of Bol’shevik policymaking was highly centralized, with decision-making authority vested in the hands of the Politburo of the Communist Party and its general secretary, which would enact legislation by joint decrees of the Council of Ministers and the Central Committee of the Communist Party.26 Official censorship, control over information, propaganda, and repression combined to limit criticism of the regime and its policies, yet like its imperial predecessor, the Soviet political system was not completely devoid of popular inputs into policy.27 Official policy-oriented research organizations were vital during the early stages of policy formation,28 and while individual citizens were disenfranchised and prohibited from forming interest groups, many remained active in a more limited capacity. The Soviet citizen had the right—in fact, the duty—to appeal to trade unions, newspapers, the People’s Control Committee, and the Communist Party on various policy matters.29 The media, long viewed as crucial by Lenin and the early Bol’sheviks, in practice was not merely an organ of official propaganda, but also occasionally served as a channel of policy assessment, conveying information concerning local conditions, letters of dissatisfaction, as well as policy suggestions.30 Yet while the autocratic press failed to live up to its potential in conveying information and public sentiment, it did facilitate either negative policy feedback and policy stasis or a switch to positive feedback: by setting the policy agenda and stymying criticism of government policy, the autocratic media suppressed the increased attention and popular calls for policy change that would have been evident in more liberal contexts. But when the government significantly changed policy direction, the autocratic press, instead of offering needed criticism, would laud the wisdom of the change— even pressing for more dramatic change—thus facilitating a switch from negative to positive feedback. Such definitive institutional features of the autocratic policy process were in flux during the timeframe in question. Yet while significant changes occurred “at the top” of Russian politics, the basic domestic structure of policymaking after the tumultuous events of 1917 is remarkably similar to the tsarist system that preceded it. The tsarist, Provisional, and early Soviet regimes were highly centralized, with decision-making authority concentrated in the hands of the leadership and his ruling ministerial (or commissarial) oligarchy.31 Laws, policies, and decisions were typically made

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with little debate, little independent input from external actors, and little consideration of public sentiment. Independent political associations, including issue-oriented interest groups, were stymied by a lack of resources even when not being actively rooted out by the authorities. Censorship and repression promoted conformity of popular expression, even though public and obshchestvo sentiment was often quite diverse. The presence of nearperpetual crises further insulated decision makers from external influence. Finally, while this discussion highlights differences in the institutional structure of policymaking, it demonstrates a high degree of continuity of Russian policymaking, suggesting useful comparisons with the societydominated American domestic structure and the corporatist arrangement in Sweden. Such distinctions should be borne in mind as we consider the irony of a Russian state that discourages temperance, only to hurriedly adopt alcohol prohibition.

THE CONTENTIOUS ROLE OF STATESANCTIONED TEMPERANCE Both in Russia and abroad, vodka and drunkenness are seen as the quintessential symbols of Russian culture—a crude stereotype utilized so often as to be passé. Yet as chapter 2 demonstrates, a concerted temperance movement was late in coming to imperial Russia—because of the ban on independent political and social organizations. However, a new surge in quasi-temperance activism would begin in the 1880s, with the concern of educated Russian obshchestvo that “drunkenness among the peasants is a result of the latter’s poverty and wretchedness—that it is an attempt to escape for a time from the consciousness of hopeless misery caused by oppression and bad government,” and that it was the duty of the state and educated society to remedy this condition.32 Social organization was difficult, since the authorities had long since banned secular temperance societies, “prompted, no doubt, by a fear of a diminished revenue, and of their being made a cloak for Political combinations” (sic).33 Given this hostile environment, the remaining choice for temperance advocates was to work within existing professional organizations, such as among the clergy or physicians. Unlike the near universal hostility toward alcohol among Catholic and Protestant denominations, the Orthodox Church at best only reluctantly approved of temperance ideals, given the centrality of alcohol to peasant hospitality and religious celebrations;34 at worst, the Church was openly antagonistic toward temperance given its close connection to the imperial


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state and the need to maintain its monopoly on spiritual authority over the peasantry.35 In either case, it comes as little surprise that the first churchbased temperance movements in the Russian empire were initiated outside the geographical purview of Orthodox canons, most notably among the Finns, Lettens, and Esthens in the present-day Baltic States,36 as well as by the Catholic Church in the Polish and Lithuanian territories.37 The other channels for the promotion of temperance were through the Russian medical and public-health communities.38 The establishment of the Commission on the Question of Alcoholism (Kommissiya po voprosu ob alkogolizm) through the Russian Society for the Preservation of Public Health beginning in 1898 brought together temperance-minded obshchestvo members into a quasi-official consultative body on the liquor question.39 Temperance activism exploded following the lifting of censorship and restrictions on civic organization after 1905,40 including a riotous political encounter in 1909–1910, known as the First All-Russian Congress on the Struggle against Drunkenness.41 The raucous meeting, bristling with antiimperialist agitation, demonstrated the extent to which the temperance issue had become a politicized channel of “radical” opposition to the tsarist regime by exposing the tremendous revenues the tsar was reaping at the expense of the peasantry by means of the imperial vodka monopoly as well as its handmaiden, the Guardianship of Public Sobriety (Popechitel’stvo o narodnoi trezvosti).42 Introduced concurrently with Sergei Witte’s planned state retail monopoly on distilled spirits in 1895, the Guardianship of Public Sobriety was the sole, official nationwide temperance organ—though as an appendage of the Ministry of Finance, its actual purpose was to oversee liquor sales and advocate moderation in alcohol consumption, rather than outright abstinence.43 The guardianship established chapters in every province in the empire, drawing from the most prominent members of local educated society, clergy, professionals, and “state employees, who could not easily refuse the invitation to serve”44—making it a mass organization but hardly a voluntary, grass-roots political initiative.45 Given the subservience of this most influential “temperance” organization in the empire to the financial needs of a government reliant on vodka revenues, it would be foolhardy to expect calls for the curtailment of the vodka evils through prohibition to originate within the guardianship.46 The disastrous military debacle with Japan in 1904–1905 was a watershed event for the cause of Russian temperance by highlighting the embarrassing drunkenness of the Russian military. The Manchurian campaign reportedly “resembled a scuffle between a drunken guardsman and a sober policeman.”47 At Port Arthur, troops were known to stumble into battle drunk.48 Moreover, the comically tragic incident at the Dogger Banks, where

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the Russian Baltic Fleet opened fire on British fishing trawlers in the English Channel—believing them to be Japanese warships 7,000 miles from the Pacific—was similarly chalked up to the influence of alcohol.49 For many observers it was unthinkable that the great Russian war machine was laid low by an inconsequential foe in the form of Japan. The Russian troops must have somehow defeated themselves—through alcohol. The reports of war correspondents corroborated the lesson that “The Japanese did not conquer, but alcohol triumphed, alcohol, alcohol.”50 Mobilization for the war was even more chaotic than was the war itself: calling up new recruits en masse from Russian villages traditionally resulted in orgies of drunken debauchery and vodka-fueled riots at assembly points.51 Moreover, while “revolutionary” officers made a point of shunning vodka, the Revolution of 1905 was understood in conservative circles as having roots in inebriety.52 Noting that the first targets for mutinous mobs nationwide were state liquor stores (and claiming that Jewish tavern owners facilitated revolution by getting young soldiers drunk), conservatives viewed alcohol as the real instigator of revolution. Therefore, in terms of military performance, mobilization, and domestic revolution, the lesson of 1904–1906 for the tsarist regime was clear: alcohol itself was a threat to the imperial order.53 It was in response to such dramatic and threatening political developments that the idea of total prohibition began to get serious traction in Russia. Interestingly, some of the first proponents of prohibition cited the positive experiences of the United States and the 1909 Swedish general strike as evidence of the effectiveness of prohibition.54 As an open forum for both grievances and policy ideas, the Duma was a tremendous accelerant for temperance sentiment, especially in the elite and royal salons of St. Petersburg. While liberals and radicals in the Duma denounced the monopoly, and by extension the government, more surprising were similar calls for a “decisive and even radical revolution in the alcohol administration” among the most conservative, Octobrist delegates.55 Of particular note was conservative representative Mikhail Chelyshev of Samara, who vehemently denounced the guardianship, the liquor monopoly, and the resultant “drunken budget” of the empire through the Duma Commission on the Means for the Struggle Against Drunkenness.56 Despite the limited power of the Duma, by 1912 the friends of temperance could boast a number of reforms: a strengthened criminal code, extension of basic social services for children of alcoholics, stepped-up enforcement of existing regulations, the introduction of local option, and divorcing the guardianship from the Ministry of Finance to further the cause of temperance, rather than facilitating the continued economic exploitation of the lower classes.57 By the early 1900s there was widespread consensus—among educated obshchestvo, revolutionary circles, and even conservatives and within the


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government itself—that the imperial vodka monopoly was more a part of the alcohol problem than part of a solution, however given the entrenched financial interests of the imperial government, outright prohibition was considered impossible.58 Nevertheless, alternatives to the monopoly were openly debated, including local option, a Gothenburg-type dispensary, and even prohibition, especially among the newly formed temperance societies and the Alcoholism Commission.59 Even the founder of the monopoly, Count Sergei Witte, openly attacked his own creation in 1913, asserting that it had been corrupted by Finance Minister Vladimir Kokovtsev from its original purpose of furthering the cause of temperance.60 In addition to Witte and Chelyshev, other influential voices denouncing the tsar’s monopoly included Prince Meshcherskii, Grand Duke Sergei, Alexander, Prince of Ol’denburg, the tsar’s most trusted advisor on the peasantry A.V. Krivoshein, and even the infamous Grigorii Rasputin, who openly professed that “[i]t is unbefitting for a Tsar to deal in vodka and make drunkards out of honest people,” and that “[t]he time has come to lock up the Tsar’s saloons.”61 Yet perhaps the most influential temperance advocate in St. Petersburg was within the royal family itself: Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich Romanov, the favorite uncle of the tsar and sponsor of the minor All-Russian Labor Union of Christian Teetotalers (Vserossiiskii trudovoi soyuz khristian trezvennikov, or VTSKhT), who made frequent (though mild) temperance admonishments to Nicholas II and other prominent leaders.62 Of course, the most important individual to consider was the tsar himself. While it is difficult to speculate as to his mindset at any particular moment, it is clear that Nicholas II was gradually convinced of the undesirability of the arrangement by which the state was profiting from the misery of its people. He frequently expressed to his ministers his dissatisfaction with the efforts to counter popular drunkenness, and even demanded from them numerous studies on the liquor question, especially after the tumultuous events of 1905.63 By the early 1910, it appeared that Nicholas had himself become a temperance convert. In 1913 the tsar undertook an extensive tour of the countryside and was moved by “the painful pictures of public distress, the desolation of homes, the dissipation of economies, the inevitable consequences of drunkenness.”64 While his desired course of action was unclear, Nicholas fired Minister of Finance Kokovtsev—who had fallen out of favor for promoting the revenue-generating potential of the monopoly— and in January he appointed Peter Bark with the charge of not making “the treasury dependent on the ruination of the spiritual and economic forces of the majority of My faithful subjects.”65 Thus even before the clouds of a world war loomed, temperance sentiments penetrated much of educated Russian society. Liberals and radicals

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embraced temperance as part of their opposition to the autocracy and were increasingly vocal within the Duma, in the newspapers, and within the elite circles of St. Petersburg, where they won many adherents among conservatives in the government as well the royal family, and even the tsar himself.

WAR, PROHIBITION, AND REVOLUTION IN RUSSIA The proximate reason for prohibition in Russia was undoubtedly World War I. This should come as little surprise, since the war hastened the adoption of prohibition or other restrictions on alcohol in virtually every other “civilized” country of the day. Yet unlike other countries, where prohibition followed increasingly vocal calls for patriotic sacrifice, in Russia prohibition was adopted first, with widespread support for the decision arising only after the fact. In response to the Austrian declaration of war against Serbia, Russia initiated full-scale war mobilization in July 1914. According to the army’s regulations—recently revised to avoid repeating the drunken escapades of the previous decade—liquor stores were ordered closed in all districts where mobilization was taking place.66 Although research suggests that the 1914 mobilization was, if anything, more unruly than in 1904,67 the reports that reached St. Petersburg of speedy and orderly preparations bolstered the stature of prohibition among all strata of educated society, including the tsar himself. Writing in his memoirs, Minister of Finance Peter Bark noted: “[T]he Emperor added that the closure of the public houses during the mobilization had been a very opportune step. With a few trifling exceptions, the mobilization had been carried out everywhere with great precision and order, and His Majesty attributed this happy state of affairs largely to the fact that the young men who were joining their regiments had been unable to obtain drink.”68 The perceived successes of wartime mobilization coincided with a surge of support for prohibition throughout the empire, as is evidenced by a flood of petitions to the monopoly administration by villages asking to exercise their local option to enact prohibition—closing over a thousand alcohol outlets in the summer of 1914 alone.69 Yet to this point, the restrictions fell short of a universal prohibition: alcohol sales were exempted in those areas not actively being mobilized and in the first-class restaurants frequented by the upper classes. While an imperial decree of August extended such emergency measures for the duration of the war, the decision for prohibition in Russia historically dates from a published correspondence of September 28, 1914, between Nicholas and his uncle Konstantin Konstantinovich, head


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of the VTSKhT, proclaiming that Nicholas “had already decided to ban the state sale of vodka forever in Russia.”70 The response to the tsar’s prohibition decree was overwhelming: letters of thanks flooded the administration and the press from throughout the empire and abroad.71 As it turns out, in an atmosphere of tremendous discontent with the imperial regime, prohibition was the one policy that conservatives, liberals, and even radical socialists could agree upon—though it seems to have done little to enhance the tsar’s popularity.72 By 1916 the Duma had passed a bill making prohibition absolute and permanent, and although it never reached the State Council for ratification, because of the events of February 1917, it was subsequently issued in March as one of the first acts of the new Provisional Government.73 Predictably, prohibition caused more problems than it solved: moonshining, bootlegging, smuggling, and the use of poisonous surrogates.74 Most important, prohibition blew a massive hole in the state budget, since vodka revenues had accounted for one-fourth to one-third of all income to the imperial treasury.75 Making up for such shortfalls during the world’s largest war mobilization placed unprecedented burdens upon the empire’s finances and contributed to the financial disaster that marked the decline toward revolution.76 Based on a misplaced belief that prohibition would miraculously boost the economic productivity of the entire state, Minister of Finance Peter Bark relayed his conviction to the tsar that “the difficulties of the Treasury are only temporary and that a judicious financial policy will enable us to overcome them.”77 Consequently, Bark, with the aid of Sergei Witte and members of the Duma, patched the budgetary hole with a slapdash mix of bonds, foreign loans, and taxes on income, transport, tobacco, and textiles that would never meet the massive budgetary requirements of the wartime government.78 Already saddled with massive debt, the government turned to the printing press: Premier Ivan Goremykin was even quoted as saying, “What if we do lose eight hundred million rubles in revenue? We shall print that much paper money; it’s all the same to the people.”79 As it turns out, it was not all the same to the people; the resulting hyperinflation would bring down both the imperial and Provisional governments at the hand of popular revolution.80 Russian prohibition backfired in other ways as well. Army regulations dictated that alcohol stocks in areas near the front be destroyed in order to safeguard military discipline. Yet as the imperial monopoly was a retail and distribution monopoly—with vodka production and storage in private hands81—the private owners of the destroyed vodka petitioned for and were granted remuneration. In perhaps history’s greatest instance of “you break it, you buy it,” the wartime imperial government bought millions of gallons of unused vodka.82 What’s more, as the front encroached further and fur-

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ther into Russian territory under the German advance, Russia’s meager railway lines—notorious for their inability to supply the front adequately, and frequently cited as a major contributor to the urban food shortages83— were clogged with trainloads of vodka from fleeing distillers looking to save their valuable stocks.84 Finally, the elimination of the vodka trade disrupted the traditional urban-rural trade cycle: with vodka illegal and other commodities in short supply because of the war, the village had little incentive to trade with the city, as the peasant either hoarded grain, distilled it himself (samogon), or sold it to a handful of private distilleries that operated through 1916 in hopes of capturing a greater market share after a swift conclusion to the war.85 According to historian David Christian, the subsequent “failure of peasant producers to market their surpluses was, of course, a major cause of the grain shortages in major towns which helped provoke the urban insurrections which brought down the Tsarist government in February 1917.”86 Therefore, by exacerbating grain shortages, further stressing the transportation system, and irreparably debilitating the treasury, the tsar’s prohibition policy stoked the red-hot embers of revolution—to say nothing of the resentment among the working classes, who may not have enjoyed being forced to quit “cold turkey” from what was, in many cases, their sole solace.87 Ironically, the crowning achievement of the tsar’s prohibition came with the downfall of the monarchy in February 1917, in what historian Adam Ulam dubbed “a kind and considerate revolution.”88 When the sacrifices of war turned to popular insurrection in Petrograd, it did so in a surprisingly orderly manner, rather than devolving into drunken anarchy.89 Indeed, in such a tinderbox of revolution, the spark of an inebriated mob or rogue drunken police brigade could well have resulted in a reign of terror rather than the spirit of orderliness and good-natured camaraderie that for the most part characterized the February Revolution,90 leading one American observer to conclude: “This was one time when prohibition was a blessing to Russia. If vodka could have been found in plenty, the revolution could easily have had a terrible ending.”91 Following the dethroning of the tsar, the continued efforts of the Provisional Government to maintain and extend prohibition ultimately succumbed to its inability to broadcast its power beyond Petrograd. As a result, the sober and orderly February Revolution would give way to a spring and summer of in increased inebriety.92 Such was the alcohol situation on the eve of the Bol’shevik Revolution: as an astute English contemporary noted “[t]he chief contributory cause to the revolution was the prohibition in 1914 of the sale of spiritous liquors.”93 Moreover, the decisions of the caretaker Provisional Government to continue with the war and prohibition, as well as its inability to enforce its dictates on either front, represented the general


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political malaise and power vacuum that Lenin and the Bol’sheviks were about to fill.

OF BOL’SHEVISM AND BOOZE The ideological leaders of the Bol’shevik Revolution were revolutionary prohibitionists, viewing alcohol not as an evil of itself but rather as the tool of capitalist dominance of the working class.94 With the coming of the October Revolution, Vladimir Lenin and the Bol’sheviks recognized the pressing need for stringent alcohol control in the name of revolutionary discipline.95 Abstinence from alcohol was thought to be not just an emergency measure, but as something integral to the economic and moral well-being of society; the fact that the people needed to be forcibly prodded into sobriety for their own good fit the modus operendi and millennial beliefs not only of communist revolutionaries but of prohibitionists as well. As it turns out, the inherent pathologies commonly associated with prohibition—bootlegging, smuggling, subversion of state authority, and the ever-present allure of alcohol revenues—toppled Soviet prohibition just as easily as it had elsewhere in Europe and North America. Alcohol was much more prevalent in the October Revolution of 1917 than in the February Revolution, as weak governmental authorities in the interregnum could not stem the perceptible increase in drunkenness over the summer. Most of the objects looted during the overthrow of the Provisional Government and the storming of the Winter Palace came from the contents of the imperial wine cellar instead of the priceless artwork that adorned the palace walls.96 Awakened to the counterrevolutionary threat posed by a series of liquor riots in Petrograd, Moscow, Saratov, and Tomsk in late 1917, the communist leadership maintained a draconian prohibition. Indeed, some of the first antisabotage measures of the Military Revolutionary Committee included a decree of prohibition on alcohol, while existing liquor stocks were to be dynamited, and moonshiners to be shot on sight.97 New laws identified bootleggers and moonshiners as enemies of the revolution for their sabotaging of the state’s food supply by distilling grain stocks in the countryside.98 By the time the new government consolidated its power, the Council of People’s Commissars (Sovnarkom) nationalized the production of liquor and all existing alcohol stocks, and codified the prohibitory decrees of the Military Revolutionary Committee.99 When confronted with the prospect of reviving the imperial liquor monopoly in 1921, Lenin again refused, claiming that permitting the state to trade in spirits would lead Russia “back to capitalism rather than forward to communism.”100

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Accounts of Russian village life after the Revolution describe veritable explosion of home distillation (samogon) despite the draconian decrees, as well as civil war and famine conditions.101 Illicit alcohol prompted the development of a vast underground industry—for many, samogon was the only viable source of income, given the destruction of existing trades in flax, cloth, and grain, by the war.102 The economic “breathing space” of the New Economic Policy further stimulated this clandestine industry, as the relaxations in grain requisitioning meant that ever more alcohol would be made from grain surpluses.103 Subsequent increases in alcohol consumption were apparent to the government: the People’s Commissariat of Labor (Narkomtrud) noted dramatic increases in drunkenness at work, increased absences, fights, and assaults on managers at virtually all factories,104 while alcoholism within the ranks of the Communist Party also became an important concern.105 With a renewed interest in unlocking the economic potential of a new alcohol monopoly, Soviet leaders estimated that, despite stepped-up enforcement, samogon was consuming no less than 30 million pud (491 million kilograms) of grain annually.106 Such setbacks were met with official admonishments from the leadership as to the necessity of sobriety. In July 1923 Leon Trotsky publicly declared that “to develop, strengthen, organize, and complete the anti-alcohol regime in the country of reborn labor is our task. Our cultural and economic successes will increase as alcohol consumption falls. There can be no concessions.”107 Yet behind the scenes, the concessions had already been made to tap back into the lucrative revenue streams lost to bootlegging under prohibition—sale of light wines had been legalized in 1921, beer in 1922, and all drinks of less than 20 percent alcohol in early 1923. Russia’s “noble experiment” with prohibition finally reached its conclusion in 1925 with the legal reintroduction of 40 percent vodka, to be produced and sold through a nationwide Soviet monopoly.108 Defending the reintroduction of the monopoly as a perceived retreat from Lenin’s revolutionary prohibitionism, Stalin queried: “What is better, the yoke of foreign capitalism, or the sale of vodka? Naturally, we will opt for vodka . . . in the interest of our cause.”109 After repeal, the Soviet government changed tack with regard to alcohol control: the monopoly could regulate the supply of alcohol, while temperance admonishments would be made via propaganda110 and by a voluntary Society for the Struggle with Alcoholism (Obshchestvo po bor’be s alkogolizmom, or OBSA), whose founding members included such influential individuals as Nikoai Bukharin, Yuri Larin, Sergei Budennyi, and Demyan Bednyi.111 The OBSA would be short-lived, however: by 1930 Stalin had geared up the Soviet alcohol machine in the interests of state finance, directing Vyacheslav Molotov to increase the production of vodka to the


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maximum output possible.112 Thus by the time the clouds of European war reappeared on the horizon, Russia had already come full circle. Just as in 1913, Russia in 1938 had an all-powerful leader who used a nationwide alcohol monopoly to generate state revenue, stifled independent temperance organization, and subsumed official temperance organs to the financial interests of the state, which again derived up to a quarter of its income from the sale of alcohol to its own people. Indeed, given such similarities, it is interesting to speculate how the course of world history would have changed had Stalin repeated Nicholas’s mistake of declaring prohibition at the outset of Russia’s messianic struggle against Hitlerite Germany.

RUSSIAN PROHIBITION AND THE AUTOCRATIC POLICY PROCESS While Russia was the first country to adopt prohibition and was the site of its most momentous failure, aside from a small cadre of dedicated historians Russian prohibition has been given short shrift, even among those few accounts that claim to examine it in international and comparative context.113 Even less consideration has been given to the institutional context and decision-making process behind its adoption, extension, and ultimate repeal. To that end, the following section highlights those institutional mechanisms of negative feedback and policy stability in the autocratic policy process (whether in a government of the extreme right or extreme left) as well as particular features of autocracy that facilitate a switch from negative to positive feedback, prompting dramatic policy change that account for both the surprising adoption of prohibition in Russia and its remarkable endurance during a period of revolutionary change. In comparing mechanisms of negative feedback and policy stability, two aspects of the autocratic political system are especially noteworthy: the insulation of decision makers from the influence of public sentiments, and the unitary, hierarchical structure of Russian autocracy. The most apparent aspect of the policy structure of autocracy is the insulation of elite decision makers.114 What makes policymaking in imperial or Soviet Russia different from that in the United States or Sweden? The simple answer is that there are fewer channels for influencing policy, since the power of the leader is not dependent on the support of the citizenry. Obviously, the tsars never stood in elections; similarly, neither Kerensky, Lenin, nor Stalin owed their tenure to the ballot box. Thus an autocratic leader need not bend to the shifting breezes of public sentiment.115 However, with the absence of “traditional” mechanisms of democratic representation to defuse discontent with

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unpopular policies by providing an avenue for change, the autocratic leader need not fear defeat at the ballot box, but rather defeat at the hands of a palace coup or mass insurrection. To be sure, while the potential range of policies would appear much wider than those palatable in a more open, democratic context, the stakes are much higher for the leader: defeat for an autocrat rarely results in pleasant retirement—more often it results in imprisonment, exile, or execution. Were an autocratic leader fully knowledgeable as to the “breaking points” at which his decisions would lead to his forcible overthrow, there would be little problem; simply maintain those policies that placate the population, or else ensure the security of the ruling regime by more forcible measures. The problem is that the autocratic decision maker is also insulated from the information needed to assess such breaking points. Even without opinion polls, in open polities public sentiments can be inferred from coverage of issues in the media, popular protests, and the formation of single-issue organizations. Indeed, the two previous chapters presented detailed analyses of the coverage of temperance and prohibition in the popular press as a gauge of public sentiment. Such analyses would be inconsequential for autocratic policymaking, given both government censorship and self-censorship in the press, in addition to the brutal enforcement of laws prohibiting political opposition. Consequently, ascertaining the state of public sentiment on a particular policy is difficult, especially for the autocrat himself. An alternative mechanism to gauge public sentiments would be bureaucratic commissions of the autocratic administration. Yet, since autocratic bureaucracies are rarely meritocratic—with subordinates owing their position to the political influence of their superiors—such administrators were likely to convey information that conformed to their superiors’ expectations.116 Indeed, the sycophantic imperial and Soviet administrations prove no exception. This twofold insulation of policymakers is exacerbated by a second institutional feature of autocratic administration: a unitary, hierarchical government structure. As opposed to decision-making power being diffused (as in the United States), or localities having some degree of policymaking autonomy (as in Sweden), the political structure of late imperial and early Soviet Russia was marked by the centralization of decision-making authority in the hands of a small cadre of leaders in St. Petersburg/Petrograd/Leningrad. Provincial governors or administrators could do almost nothing of their own volition without the consent of leaders in the capitol. The difficulties of communication over such vast territories only exacerbated the process of obtaining permission to initiate new policies or to tailor existing policies to local conditions. Policy administration in an autocratic system is hierarchical and unidirectional: once policy decisions are made at the top, they are to be handed down and implemented uniformly and without question throughout the country. There is little


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if any room for information or innovations to percolate up from the provinces to the leadership. The practical consequence of such a unitary, hierarchical structure is that the interconnected body of policies is held together through the unswerving position of the ruling cadre, based upon the consistent beliefs of that leadership as to the utility of the existing arrangement. Thus, when considering imperial Russian alcohol politics, we would expect to find tremendous uniformity and continuity in alcohol policy, even amidst expanding popular discontent with the status quo. The persistence of the widely reviled imperial liquor monopoly, and its equally despised handmaiden, the Guardianship of Public Sobriety, provide empirical support for this notion. Uniform standards for the operation of the monopoly and the dictation of the membership and function of the nationwide quasi-temperance organization allowed little room for local innovation and policy change. The insulation of decision makers from external influence and the unitary, hierarchical structure are buttressed by the institutions of policy administration. In society-dominated, democratic structures, we speak of “iron triangles” of policy administrators who influence changes in policy only incrementally based upon innovation and local expertise. Yet in an autocratic structure, we expect much greater cohesion between administrators, since their position is based not only on shared understandings as to their institutional function but also upon their sworn allegiance to the leader. Thus we expect to find little tinkering with policy at the margins, and less incremental policy change. In alcohol-policy administration in late imperial and early Soviet Russia we therefore find the day-to-day functioning of the system to be rigid and unchanging.117 Indeed, real changes in Russian alcohol policy came under exceptional circumstances: local communities and administrators supported change only with the crisis of war, following the appointment of Finance Minister Bark with the charge of reducing the empire’s dependence on alcohol revenues. In addition to these institutional features of policy administration— which are generalizable to a diverse range of autocratic policies—we must examine negative feedback mechanisms in the alcohol trade that prevent dramatic change in policy: the government’s reliance on the massive revenues generated by the liquor trade. Of course, before the advent of modern income taxes, the alcohol trade was a major source of government revenue for most North Atlantic countries, as the considerations of liquor revenues impeding prohibition in the United States and Sweden in previous chapters have made clear. In Russia, however, vodka revenues had been a primary and reliable source of imperial government revenues for decades, if not centuries.118 With these alcohol revenues consistently contributing up to a third of all government income, revenue considerations were the keystone of the system of alcohol policymaking: so long as the tsar and his ministers

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understood the necessity of alcohol revenues, very little policy change could be expected. While the combination of insulated decision-making authority; a unitary, centralized, hierarchical administrative structure; and a reliance on liquor revenues provided durable negative feedback processes that impede policy change, this institutional configuration is inherently unstable, since these arrangements are quite susceptible to a switch from negative to positive policy feedback, occasionally resulting in dramatic policy change. A corollary effect of the autocratic decision makers’ insulation from public opinion and influence is the fact that once a particular policy-relevant idea penetrates to the ruling oligarchy, it may have a disproportionate impact on subsequent policy decisions.119 As the policy decision is reliant solely on the position of the autocrat (perhaps in consultation with his circle of ministers), the unitary structure of autocratic decision making inherently contains the potential for sudden and radical policy change. Indeed, this perspective resonates particularly well with those accusations that the string of notoriously bad policy decisions (both foreign and domestic) by the last tsar were often based on “the wrong advice given by the wrong minister.”120 Moreover, for the proponents of prohibition, this potential for radical change was seen as a laudable mechanism for instituting necessary reforms in the face of opposition. In the adoring words of the American ambassador to Petrograd: “Over all sorts of difficulties and predictions of disaster to the finances of the country in critical times, he persisted and carried a measure which entitles him not only to the gratitude of his country but to the commendation of mankind.”121 Additionally, the obsequious nature of the autocratic hierarchy suggests that when a radical policy decision is ultimately enacted—even a misguided one—it will be met with widespread accolade from within the administration. A meritocratic administration, in contrast, acts as a mechanism of negative policy feedback, providing a brake to rapid and ill-considered policy change, whereas the sycophantic autocratic administration facilitates an easy switch to positive feedback. Or, as Foreign Minister Sergei Sazonov once lamented: since they owed their positions, salaries, and other benefits to the tsar, “in Russia, ministers have no right to say what they really think.”122 This switch is especially evident in the prohibition narrative, as army officials repeatedly offered the tsar glowing reports about the effectiveness of prohibition in facilitating rapid and orderly war mobilization, despite widespread evidence to the contrary.123 Such positive reports accompanied letters and petitions to make the perceived health and welfare benefits permanent through a universal prohibition decree.124 Additional reports claimed that the tsar’s prohibition was “universally approved by all his official representatives and Russia’s best people.”125 In a similar fashion, the


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Ministry of Finance offered frequent reassurances that the loss of revenue from prohibition would be easily offset by a miraculous increase in productivity by unlocking the untapped potential of a sober populace, combined with the easy levying of alternative taxes—despite the widespread paradigmatic understanding that the staggering loss of revenue on the eve of total war would be an insurmountable challenge. Indeed, the continued insistence on the financial benefits of prohibition well after the economic realities were consistently pointing to the contrary is evidence of this institutional pathology.126 This situation speaks directly to the keystone of Russian alcohol policy stability: its massive influence on the treasury. While the centrality of liquor revenues long prevented dramatic changes in Russian alcohol policy, the positive feedback potential of the autocratic institutional structure overcame this enduring negative feedback mechanism.127 Once the leadership was convinced that revenue problems were inconsequential or easily surmountable, there remained few institutional checks to prevent such a disastrous financial decision. Indeed, once the tsar removed this keystone to alcohol policy stability, the entire system of imperial finances came crashing down, as did the empire itself. In this account, the entire autocratic system depends on the prevailing ideas and understandings of the leadership. The key, then, is to understand the formal and informal channels through which information and policyrelevant ideas ideas penetrate the insulated leadership structure and subsequently influence policy. In both imperial and Soviet Russia, the understandings of the autocrat himself held particular sway—yet since no leader could be an expert on all aspects of every policy, the leader relied on a close circle of ministers and confidants to be consulted in specialized policy matters. This system accounts for the attribution of particular policies to the initiative of particular ministers—such as the rural reforms of Peter Stolypin or the industrialization reforms of Sergei Witte—who were able to lobby the tsar to initiate their particular reforms, usually articulated in terms of the best interests of the country and the government.128 Certainly, the autocrat exercises tremendous influence not only in terms of what policy suggestions are to be accepted, but also in terms of selecting the body of ministers with whom he regularly consults. Indeed, in his unpublished memoirs, Finance Minister Peter Bark alludes to the dangers of independent ministerial action outside the centralized decision-making system, stating: “A Minister was liable to make a mistake when he acted individually and he was not justified in pursuing an independent policy whilst covering his decision with the Monarch’s approval.”129 Ideally, whether in a representative democracy or in a closed autocracy, the range of acceptable policy ideas is constrained by concerns over how

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such policies will be received by the public. Yet autocracies notably lack information as to the “carrying capacity” of the population, given the absence of avenues of political expression that come with political representation and basic civil liberties. Thus we should pay particular attention to the changes in the institutions of political representation that began as a result of the October Manifesto of 1905 and continued through the Bol’shevik ascent to power in 1917, which expanded the avenues for information concerning prevailing public sentiments. The expansion of grassroots social activism from temperance organizations to the proliferation of political opposition, popular demonstrations, and political parties may not have swayed the tsar, but at the very least he did acknowledge their existence. Indeed, while the new Duma had very limited political powers, the fact that the tsar had to dissolve it twice and tilt the voting rules to get a legislature to his liking surely conveyed the idea that not everyone was enamored with the status quo. In sum, we may rhetorically ask, which is the more important influence on the policymaking process: the actual sentiments of the public, or what decision makers perceive those sentiments to be? Surely, this is a valid question for policymakers in democracies and non-democracies alike. Beyond the formal—though limited—avenues of expressing public sentiments in autocratic policymaking, we must also consider the informal avenues of political suasion. Such influences are notoriously difficult to pinpoint and do not conform to the same sort of institutional scrutiny as do their formal counterparts, but we ignore them at our own peril. Thus while we may not be able to easily trace its genesis, the tsar’s idea to adopt prohibition owes much to the influence of temperance ideals of other members of the tsar’s inner circle, including Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich, Rasputin, and others who articulated their opposition to the imperial monopoly, which only Nicholas II could effectively change.130 While examining the institutional structure of autocratic policymaking and the formal and informal conduits of policy-relevant ideas enhances our understanding of the inherent propensities of the autocratic system, without some sort of external stimulus, the prevailing mechanisms of negative feedback would continue to operate in perpetuity. As in the American and Swedish cases, then, we need also to examine the proximate cause for policy change in Russia: the political crisis prompted by the outbreak of World War I. In the American case we saw how the political crisis of the Great War opened a policy window, promoting national prohibition by shifting the institutional venue of policymaking, reframing the liquor issue, and shortening the time horizons for in-depth policy debate in favor of ready-made, simple solutions. We find a remarkably similar pattern regarding prohibition in Russia.


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First, the gathering clouds of war made the liquor question a much more pressing concern, especially among military circles, the tsar, and his ministers. Remembering the disastrous performance of the Russian military in the war with Japan—conventionally attributed to alcohol—and the even more disastrous results on the home front, military leaders, including the commander-in-chief of the Russian army, Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich, as well as General Sukhomlinov, pressed for stringent antialcohol mobilization measures.131 This cognitive paradigm was widely understood at all levels of Russian government, society, and even internationally, with Kaiser Wilhelm II’s 1910 claim that the chief lesson of the Russo-Japanese War was that victory would go to the sober in Europe’s next war.132 Indeed, we may add “the cult of military sobriety” to the “cult of the offensive” as a dominant international military paradigm before the Great War.133 The filtered reports of mobilizational successes confirmed to many, including the tsar, the immediate benefits of complete prohibition. Thus the crisis of war in Russia reframed the understanding of the liquor problem from that of revenue generation to that of a pressing security need.134 This emphasis on military discipline found particular resonance with Nicholas, who romanticized military regularity in both his public and private lives, and for whom “orderliness was a cardinal virtue.”135 This thinking is reflected in accounts by members of the Romanov court who understood Nicholas’s prohibition decree as reflecting his sense that war was a matter of discipline and honor.136 Second, the shortened time horizons of decision making required decisive action on a number of pressing political issues, leading—as elsewhere— to the adoption of readily available and simple solutions to policy problems.137 Here the interpretation of Nicholas’s biographer Sergei Ol’denburg succinctly demonstrates this point: During the first days of the war, the most difficult domestic problems seemed amenable to easy solutions. The Emperor, therefore, seized the opportunity to carry through a bold reform which in past years had been especially dear to His heart, namely the prohibition of the sale of alcoholic beverages. . . . Only wartime conditions, which upset all normal budgetary considerations, made it possible to adopt a measure that amounted to a renunciation of the state’s largest source of income. Before 1914 no other nation had adopted such a radical measure in the struggle against alcoholism. It was a grandiose scheme, quite unheard of.138

Of course, such swiftly imposed “grandiose schemes” placed incredible pressures on the finance ministry to come up with even more grandiose schemes to compensate for the lost revenues, prompting the rapid introduction of an income tax, much to the lament of the minister of finance, who would have preferred peacetime reforms.139 Similar urgency later

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marked the initiation of radical taxation measures under the Provisional Government, prompting one editorial to note in May 1917 that “no country in the world has ever put through such a large tax reform as is being proposed in our country in such a short time.”140 This analysis yields a new explanation for the adoption of prohibition in Russia: the institutional features of Russian autocratic rule that are conducive to a switch from negative to positive feedback—including decision-maker insulation, and a centralized, hierarchical administrative structure—were activated by the political crisis of World War I. Attention shifted from the revenue-generation to the national-security attributes of the liquor issue amidst calls for quick, decisive action. Considering the tsar’s growing predisposition against alcohol, a radical policy change required only two conditions: the tsar needed reassurance that the income to the treasury could be maintained despite the loss of the vodka revenues, and some precipitating event. After the mobilization of July 1914, a commission of the tsar’s most trusted ministers—including Finance Minister Bark, former Prime Minister Witte, the ministers of agriculture, transportation, commerce, ministerial, and legislative representatives, and esteemed professors of economics— proposed a set of financial reforms that they claimed would offset the lost vodka revenues, and they were eagerly approved by Nicholas II in August 1914.141 With the revenue matter (supposedly) resolved, and with prohibition’s mobilizational benefits being lauded throughout the empire and abroad, there was little inhibiting the tsar from benevolently banishing the liquor evil that had long afflicted his dearest subjects. The death of Prince Oleg, son of Grand Duke Konstantin, in battle on the German Front in September 1914 provided the precipitating event for Nicholas’s final prohibition decree. While Russian prohibition may appear, then, as nothing more than a commemorative concession to a grieving father—the temperance advocate Grand Duke Konstatin Konstantinovich Romanov—the first and only Romanov war casualty merely added a personal dimension to implementing a policy decision rooted in the altered understandings of the role of alcohol, conditioned by the institutional structure of autocratic decision making. Indeed, this interpretation confirms the observation of historian David Christian that “[o]nly in an autocracy could so momentous a reform have been introduced in so slapdash a manner.”142 Yet what are we to make of the surprising persistence of prohibition through not one but two revolutions, and the transfer of political power from the most conservative monarchy in Europe to the first communist regime the world had ever known? We can explain this persistence with reference to the same institutional structure and enduring policy images among the decision-making elite. The relatively peaceful February Revolution


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only confirmed to Kerensky and the Provisional Government the paradigmatic understanding of prohibition as a necessary guarantor of domestic tranquility. As a result, “when the Imperial Government fell in 1917, there was no thought of changing the prohibition regime. The moderate liberals who took power in February were in large part representatives of the industrial, financial, and intellectual classes who had clamored loudly for the original decree.”143 While the Provisional Government was unable to broadcast political power, the same centralization of decision-making authority with the hierarchical, autocratic administration meant that the steadfast belief in the necessity of prohibition was all that was required to maintain the policy, however poorly enforced.144 The same logic holds in explaining the persistence of prohibition in early Soviet Russia. The necessity of prohibition to maintain domestic tranquility, shared by Lenin and the early Bol’sheviks, was further augmented by the provocative actions of liberals and conservatives who sought to topple nascent Bol’shevik authority by enticing the revolutionary masses with alcohol stocks.145 Thus, despite their radically different worldviews, conservatives, communists, and Kerensky all fundamentally agreed that the availability of alcohol was a threat to their power: for both the tsarist regime and the Provisional Government, prohibition was perceived as necessary to prevent revolution; for Lenin, it was necessary to prevent counterrevolution. The insulation of autocratic policymaking from external influence, plus the centralized, hierarchical system of Soviet administration, meant that the policy of prohibition would be maintained so long as the leadership believed it necessary. Since Lenin was a revolutionary prohibitionist, and most certainly a man of steadfast principle, one could not rightly expect aberration from the prohibition policy so long as he was in power. Accordingly, the road to repeal in the Soviet Union began only with the incapacitation of Lenin and his eventual replacement by Stalin—a man who had a different understanding of the role of alcohol in Soviet society: namely, as a necessary generator of much-needed revenue to facilitate collectivization, industrialization, and the rapid transformation of all aspects of Soviet society.146

CONCLUSIONS The first modern, nationwide experiment with prohibition can no longer be simply dismissed as a misguided decision by an out-of-touch emperor whose days were numbered, nor as an outlier to the trends of trans-Atlantic temperance and prohibition. By examining late imperial and early Soviet alcohol policy in terms of the structure of autocratic policymaking, we can better comprehend how certain ideas penetrate the insulated pinnacle of

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national decision making, where they may have a disproportionate influence on subsequent policy. By examining how periods of crisis open windows of opportunity for rapid policy change in an autocratic setting, and how they facilitate dramatic punctuations in alcohol policy by way of a switch from negative to positive feedback processes, we likewise enhance our understanding of the autocratic policy process itself. This approach not only explains the rapid pace of policy change, but also illustrates how similarities in the institutional structure of policymaking endure through periods of revolutionary change to operate in a similar fashion regardless of the autocrat’s governing ideology. Lest we think that this interpretive framework applies only to a particular series of decisions almost a century ago, we need only consider the history of Soviet alcohol policy since Stalin’s reintroduction of the vodka monopoly. In brief: the Soviets continued the time-tested reaping of revenues from the trade in vodka, thus preventing dramatic policy change. Subsequent Soviet leaders, including Nikita Khrushchev and Leonid Brezhnev, attempted to foster popular temperance and wean the populace from its apparent addiction to alcohol— both to no avail. The next initiation of dramatic change in Soviet alcohol policy came only with the rise to power of Mikhail Gorbachev, who initiated a near-prohibitory anti-alcohol campaign almost immediately upon his ascent to power in 1985. As if deaf to the lessons of the past, Gorbachev followed the path to autocratic ruin charted by Nicholas II almost step by step. Capitalizing on a window of opportunity generated by the shift to the younger generation of leadership replacing the Brezhnev-AndropovChernenko geritocracy, Gorbachev initiated his anti-alcohol policy in the face of entrenched opposition, based upon a belief that the ensuing budgetary shortfall could easily be made up by the unlocked productive capacity of the people themselves—eerily similar to the economic justifications for Nicholas’s ill-fated noble experiment. Like Nicholas, Gorbachev was convinced that it was safe to remove the liquor keystone of the national budget. Like that of Nicholas, Gorbachev’s decision would ultimately result in runaway inflation and mass discontent that would fan the flames of revolution and topple his regime.147 Yet, if there was any deviation from the path of the past, it had more to do with the course of institutional changes promoted by Gorbachev. His policies of workplace democratization (demokratizatsiya), economic restructuring (perestroika), and liberalization (glasnost’ ) altered the traditional feedback processes associated with autocratic policymaking. Thus, following the conventional outpouring of popular and organizational support for the anti-alcohol campaign, by 1988 there was widespread discontent with the policy, and thanks to glasnost’, this discontent found new avenues of articulation to the leadership. This gradual alteration of the institutional foundations of autocracy—allowing easier expression of popular


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dissatisfaction and more input into the policy process—parallels the gradual demise of the anti-alcohol policy itself in the Soviet Union of the late 1980s.148 These new understandings of both the institutional foundations of autocratic policymaking and the Russian experience with prohibition were acquired through examination of the operation of particular elements of the autocratic policy process and comparison with similar policy dynamics found in other, more democratic, cases—the United States and Sweden. Yet while these case studies have enhanced our understanding of the history of alcohol control and prohibition in each case, we have only scratched the surface of what this comparative, historical analysis can tell us about how different domestic structures channel and filter the policy-relevant ideas, which then inform policy decisions in different ways. The next chapter will examine how the course of prohibition politics in such diverse, “foreign” lands described in these chapters were understood and interpreted within the various domestic structures of the United States, Sweden, and Russia. In doing so, we will uncover greater variety of institutional propensities of policymaking in different institutional contexts.

Chapter 6 International Influences on National Alcohol Policymaking

It is unreasonable to think of applying at the same time the same legislation in countries which differ so greatly as a consequence of historical associations, social evolution, popular education, or other causes. However, the study of alcohol legislation shows that every country has nearly the same problems to solve. . . . [E]very country has to decide for herself whether she will introduce into her alcohol legislation a system which has already been in force in another country. Obviously it is very important that the legislators of these countries should know exactly not only the different kinds of legislation which are employed in other countries, but also something regarding their effects. They are therefore obliged to follow what goes on in these countries, and therefore here again the alcohol question becomes an international one. —Dr. Robert Hercod, Director, International Bureau against Alcoholism, Lausanne, Switzerland (1926) The preceding chapters have furthered our understanding of temperance and prohibition as truly international phenomena. In chapter 2 we examined the expanding linkages of the transnational temperance movement throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, while chapters 3 through 5 shed new light on prohibition politics and policymaking in diverse national settings. What remains, then, is to bridge these two analytical realms: in what ways do policy decisions and political outcomes in one country influence similar policy considerations in another? Can we speak of prohibition as policy “diffusion” or “contagion” from one country to another, or is there more to it? Does the existence of a mature transnational advocacy network facilitate the adoption of prohibition in any particular national setting? Finally, how do the notable differences in the channeling of policy-relevant ideas enhance our understanding of the institutional propensities of policymaking in different domestic decisionmaking structures?


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In addressing these questions, I argue that existing conceptions of diffusion and international policy learning are inadequate when one considers the international policy “wave” associated with alcohol control and prohibition in the early twentieth century. Understanding prohibition as bad policy allows us to dispense with the conventional assumption that decision makers simply scan the policy horizon and imitate best policy practices, and instead we can identify the particular mechanisms—transnational information networks—that facilitate such diffusion and learning. To be sure, the ways in which ideas are incorporated into policy decisions are determined largely by the institutional structure of policymaking, so an examination of the influence of “foreign” experiences with alcohol control—as a subset of the vast realm of policy-relevant ideas—sheds light on how different ideational aspects weigh in the making of policy decisions, and how those weights change both across domestic structures and in different stages in the policymaking process.

LEARNING FROM ABROAD Much has been written on lesson drawing, policy emulation, policy convergence, policy innovation, policy diffusion, and policy transfer in international policy studies.1 Such studies share an interest in explaining the processes by which knowledge concerning policies, institutions, and ideas in one setting are used in the development of policies in another.2 Based upon a narrow focus on bureaucrats, government policymakers, and concrete policy programs, policy diffusion models hypothesize that states (1) learn from one another as they borrow innovations perceived as successful elsewhere, (2) are in competition and are therefore pressured to conform to best practice, and/or (3) are pressured by the public to adopt policies adopted elsewhere.3 Yet prohibition embodies the diffusion of a bad policy over “best practice”—based not merely on consideration of its universal repeal, but also by contemporaries who understood prohibition’s financial, social, political, and criminal pathologies. Moreover, as the previous chapter on Russia details, prohibition was even adopted in the absence of public pressure. Thus it already seems that the conventional wisdom is insufficient to explain the diffusion of the bad policy of prohibition. We need instead to broaden our horizons and realize, first, that some abstracted “policymaker” is not the only actor involved in the adoption of national policy; second, that the adoption of policies is influenced by the institutional structure of national policymaking; and third, that concrete policy programs are not the only types of policy-relevant ideas that are diffused. Indeed, by dispensing with the assumption that policy diffusion is simply the emulation of best practice,

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the study of international learning associated with alcohol policymaking uncovers the particular ways in which international experiences are interpreted differently in different contexts. First we need to consider the diversity of policy-relevant ideas, and the actors commonly associated with them, returning to John L. Campbell’s typology of policy-relevant ideas described in chapter 1 (Figure 1.3, replicated here as Figure 6.1 for convenience). Conventional diffusion studies focus on decision makers’ interpretation of policy programs, or cognitive options, evident in the foreground of the policy debate—appearing in the upper-left of Figure 6.1. Such programs include concrete alcohol control policy prescriptions, such as prohibition, local option, and Gothenburg/ dispensary systems. Yet these are not the only ideas of consequence: the benefits and drawbacks of particular options also act as ideational frames— symbolic interpretations of the effectiveness and desirability of one option over another. Such normative considerations are actively mobilized by framers, who interpret the applicability of international experiences to the domestic social, economic, and political environment. International experiences also inform background understandings of the policy issue, including both elite assumptions (paradigms) concerning how the alcohol question is best approached and broader public sentiments, or shared understanding concerning the role of alcohol in society and the desirability of increased restrictions upon it, which constrain the range of acceptable political solutions. Campbell links these four ideational realms with reference to ideational brokers: those actors that span different organizational realms and convey ideas among them. At the domestic level, the media, political advisors, consultants, and think tanks often translate paradigms into programs, or frame programs to garner constituent support. In the international realm, ideational brokerage is provided by the media, epistemic communities, international governmental and nongovernmental organizations, “rooted cosmopolitans” and transnational policy activists4—in other words, the mature transnational temperance advocacy network described in chapter 2. We limit our considerations here to those aspects that are relevant to the policy experiences of other countries. Understanding how lessons are drawn from foreign experience will not only round out the international history of temperance and prohibition, but will also highlight variations in how ideas are corralled, manipulated, and ultimately translated into policy in different institutional settings. Just as a physician may inject an easily identifiable radioactive dye into the bloodstream to map the course of blood through the human body, so too we might utilize the readily apparent discourse of foreign experiences to highlight the course of ideas through different domestic policymaking contexts.

Concepts, theories and actors in the foreground of the policy debate

Cognitive level

Normative level

Underlying assumptions and actors in the background of the policy debate

Ideas

Actors

Ideas

Programs Ideas as elite policy prescriptions that help policy makers to chart a clear and specific course of policy action

Decision makers (politicians, bureaucrats, corporate managers, etc.)

Frames Ideas as symbols and concepts that help policy makers to legitimize policy solutions to the public

Framers (spin doctors, political handlers, campaign mgrs, advertising firms, etc.)

Actors Paradigms Ideas as elite assumptions that constrain the cognitive range of useful solutions available to policy makers

Brokers (pollsters, media, PR, advisors, consultants, think tanks, epistemic communities, etc.)

Public sentiments Ideas as public assumptions that constrain the normative range of legitimate solutions available to policy makers

Theorists (academics, intellectuals, etc.)

Constituents (public, voters, business elites, political elites, investors, courts, etc.)

Figure 6.1 Ideas, Actors, and Their Roles in Policymaking. Source: Adapted from John L. Campbell, “Institutional Analysis and the Role of Ideas in Political Economy,” Theory and Society 27 (1998): 385; John L. Campbell, Institutional Change and Globalization (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2004), 101.

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Ultimately, it is not merely the salience or attractiveness of particular policy ideas that leads to the adoption of one policy program over another: the institutions of national policymaking mediate the influence of such ideas in readily discernible ways that vary from one institutional structure to another—and vary over time, from the placing of a particular issue such as public inebriety on the public agenda, to the final policy decision. Moreover, rather than simply relying on unchanging distinctions between policy “lenders” that develop new policies and “borrowers” that draw upon the innovations of others,5 I argue that international policy learning involves a multidirectional and near-constant reevaluation of foreign experiences in which networks of transnational activism play a significant role. In braiding together our three historical cases, we begin by considering how Swedish experiences with the Gothenburg system and the dramatic experiences of Russian prohibition played out within the society-dominated structure of American policymaking, before examining how alcohol control policies in the American states during the late nineteenth century, and the American and Russian experiments with nationwide prohibition, were channeled through the corporatist system of Swedish policymaking. We will then examine how the experiences of American state-level prohibition and Scandinavian experiences with the Gothenburg system were understood in autocratic Russia, which leads into a comparison of the different ideational channels inherent in each structure.

FOREIGN INFLUENCES ON AMERICAN PROHIBITION To some, it may seem strange to suggest that decisions concerning American domestic policy might be influenced by anything other than American domestic political considerations. After all, in the policy studies literature, U.S. federal and state policymakers have long acted as policy “lenders,” inspiring similar developments elsewhere, instead of simply “borrowing” ideas from others.6 This assertion is doubly contentious in terms of temperance politics, which has been cited by historians as a cultural-imperialist endeavor by puritanical Americans seeking to foist their moral disdain for alcohol upon an unsuspecting planet.7 Yet with the development of the transnational temperance network, prohibitionists and anti-prohibitionists were increasingly attenuated toward policy choices, political developments, and innovations with respect to the control of alcohol in different countries.8 While opponents to prohibition advocated that “in seeking the best solution of the drink problem, the experience of European countries should be


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Table 6.1 Coverage of Foreign Temperance Developments in Reader’s Guide to Periodical Literature, 1890–1935 Rank

Country

Articles

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Canada U.K. Sweden* Russia Finland Norway France Mexico

60 52 30 27 22 16 13 4

*

Includes articles on the Gothenburg system, but not Scandinavian, British, Canadian, or American experiments with Gothenburg-type dispensary systems.

carefully noted, for they have the failures and successes of many centuries behind them,”9 prohibition’s proponents similarly concluded, “No doubt in bringing about the final step [of prohibition,] events in Europe had a great influence on America.”10 Looking back at Figure 3.3, we see that roughly 12 percent of all articles on temperance and prohibition in the Reader’s Guide to Periodical Literature concerned developments abroad. Of those articles, Table 6.1 suggests that, beyond coverage of Canada and the United Kingdom (attributable to geographical proximity and longstanding cultural and economic linkages), the greatest media coverage concerned developments in Sweden and Russia—each of which will be considered in turn.

More than a Footnote: The Swedish Impact on American Alcohol Control Policy As was mentioned in chapter 3, a great deal of American public and intellectual interest was aroused by the Gothenburg system in Sweden in the late nineteenth century.11 As state-level prohibition policies were being repealed as failures in the face of rampant smuggling, bootlegging, and disrespect for law in states like Iowa, South Dakota, New Hampshire, and Vermont, news of a more effective solution to the “liquor problem” based on the Swedish experiences with disinterested management held great allure. Indeed, in the 1890s considerations of the Gothenburg or dispensary system in the American press greatly eclipsed prohibition throughout that decade (see Figures 3.2 and 6.2).

Figure 6.2 English-Language Studies of the Gothenburg/Dispensary Option over Five-Year Intervals and Proportion of Studies Critical of the System, 1870–1919. Source: Data for Figure 6.2 are from Mark Lawrence Schrad, “The Prohibition Option: Transnational Temperance and National Decision Making in Russia, Sweden, and the United States” (University of Wisconsin–Madison, 2007), 489–93.


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Other North Atlantic countries were also debating the merits of the Gothenburg option, most notably the United Kingdom and Canada, which (as was previously noted) garnered significant public attention in the United States as well.12 This attention coincided with a similar surge of interest in the practical functioning of the Gothenburg system within the biennial international congresses on alcoholism.13 Temperance-minded American scholars and policymakers initiated in-depth investigations of the Gothenburg system beginning in the 1870s—first via inquiries to Swedish officials, then through extensive fieldwork in Gothenburg and throughout Scandinavia.14 Given the glowing reports of decreases in Swedish drunkenness, crime, and bootlegging, in addition to the moral rejuvenation of village life, the Gothenburg system was initially hailed by American temperance activists as a blueprint for reducing insobriety and advancing the cause of temperance. Consequently, the 1890s saw a flurry of American Gothenburgtype dispensary experiments at the state and local levels—often as an improvement on ineffective statewide prohibitions, which were plagued by bootlegging and smuggling while not providing any tax revenues. The South Carolina dispensary was the most noteworthy example of incomplete policy transfer: though based on the Gothenburg system, instead of being earmarked for local philanthropic concerns, the lucrative liquor revenue stream ran first through the state treasury, which begot corruption and the subversion of the principles of disinterested management. Ultimately, despite initial successes, the South Carolina dispensary was depicted as merely replacing the greedy saloon-keeper—unscrupulously promoting alcohol consumption for personal gain—with greedy, unscrupulous state bureaucrats, who likewise promoted the consumption of alcohol for increased revenue.15 The most resounding endorsement of the Swedish experience with the Gothenburg system came from the Committee of Fifty for the Investigation of the Drink Problem (1893–1905), an independent research association committed to the objective study of the alcohol issue and the merits of various legislative palliatives, divorced from the influence of temperance dogmatism. The committee came to conclusions similar to those resulting from later Swedish and Russian examinations of American state-level prohibitions—it was an unfeasible, and therefore undesirable policy because of the increases in smuggling, bootlegging, corruption, and disrespect for law that inherently accompany such draconian measures. The committee instead endorsed a Gothenburg dispensary system of disinterested management and removal of the private profit motive from the liquor trade as practical means of increasing public well-being and economic productivity while avoiding the inherent pathologies of prohibition.16

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In the American context, the most controversial aspect of the Gothenburg system was the central role for the government in regulating the alcohol trade. For American moderates and pragmatists, the Gothenburg system made the state a partner in the cause of temperance; for absolutists, it made the state complicit in promoting the “deplorable” alcohol trade. According to contemporary observers, “the Gothenburg system is called sometimes a great success and sometimes a great failure, according to the taste and fancy of the speaker.”17 Thus by the dawn of the twentieth century a schism emerged within American temperance circles: an effective Gothenburg alternative posed a great challenge to ardent prohibitionists bent on no concessions to the liquor evils, making alcohol control debates into a zero-sum game between prohibition and the Gothenburg system. Consequently, organized prohibitionists such as the Anti-Saloon League of America purposefully reframed the Swedish experience in the most unflattering terms. Firebrands such as William E. “Pussyfoot” Johnson, Guy Hayler, and Ernest Gordon penned scathing investigative criticisms of the Gothenburg system in Sweden18—openly describing their ruthless condemnations as “ammunition” for the cause of prohibition.19 Such muckraking investigations were credited with halting dispensary systems in Massachusetts and California.20 Attacks on Swedish experiences with the Gothenburg system were accompanied by similar broadsides against “the Gothenburg–South Carolina matter”21 as well as personal attacks against the “pro-alcohol pedants on the Committee of Fifty.”22 Accordingly, as Figure 6.2 suggests, although American interest in the Gothenburg/dispensary system peaked in the late 1890s, it increasingly came under attack by ardent prohibitionists, reflecting the rise in absolutist sentiments within the movement. Unsurprisingly, at the same time that American prohibitionists were deriding Sweden for its unsavory Gothenburg system, they also lauded the Swedes for demonstrating the utility of prohibition as an emergency measure during the general strike of 1909.23 Ultimately, in the zero-sum game of framing alcohol control policies, prohibition won out, while its Gothenburg-inspired rival slowly faded away. Interestingly, as American prohibition was succumbing to its inherent pathologies in the early 1930s, it was again confronted by interest in the Gothenburg and Bratt systems of alcohol control in Sweden. Glowingly framed by anti-prohibitionist organizations and endorsed by individual members of the Wickersham Commission on prohibition, the Gothenburg model provided a useful blueprint for a number of state-level dispensary systems adopted after the repeal of prohibition.24 The durability of the Gothenburg system further demonstrates how, within the society-dominated American institutional structure, ideas reflecting best practice are not assured adoption. While administratively and practically superior to


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prohibition, the Gothenburg system did not have enduring and organized supporters to defend its merits in the face of the increasing wave of absolutist attacks until the repeal movement strengthened in the late 1920s. Consequently, the downfall of prohibition and the rise of state-level, Gothenburg-inspired dispensaries are attributable more to the influence of social organizations rather than to the unchanging merits of the Gothenburg system as “best practice.”

American Interpretations of Russian Prohibition Unlike the heated debates over Swedish practices, Russian experiences garnered interest abroad only after Nicholas II’s wartime prohibition in 1914. Before World War I, Russian temperance organization was anemic and lay only on the distant periphery of the transnational temperance mainstream. If anything, American prohibitionists viewed the imperial Russian vodka monopoly as one despicable example of government complicity in the alcohol trade, and as an example of the failure of monopolization (including municipal control, as in the Gothenburg option) of the liquor trade.25 This view changed quickly in the summer of 1914 with the announcement that Russia had become the world’s first country to adopt prohibition. American prohibitionists were delighted, since it demonstrated the universality of the prohibition cause: if even the leaders of such a distant, foreign land could understand the value of prohibition, then why couldn’t we at home? Almost overnight, the most reactionary European autocrat was hailed for his benevolent and progressive (!) reforms that served as a shining example for all civilized countries to follow.26 American prohibitionists described the heroic—and instantaneous—results of prohibition in Russia to an increasingly receptive audience.27 Every victory of the “dry” Russians became a victory for the argument of prohibition in America: the supposed ease of military mobilization, the miraculous increase in productivity, health, and wealth of the Russian peasantry, and the early victories of Russian troops in the summer of 1914 were all evidence of the universal benefits of prohibition,28 to say nothing of the reports of unanimous support for prohibition from every conceivable stratum of Russian society.29 Even in the face of mounting evidence of Russia’s economic woes, American temperance journals were filled with reassurances from Finance Minister Peter Bark that “Russia’s finances rest upon the most solid foundation in the world. The economic prosperity of the Russian people is now greater than was ever conceived possible before the beginning of the war,” and that this condition was “accounted for principally by the growing thrift and economy of the

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peasants since the enforcement of prohibition.”30 As part of the positive feedback mechanisms in the American system, even into early 1917, American temperance advocates claimed that the lesson of Russian prohibition was that only a radical shift in policy such as prohibition would be effective: “Russia has demonstrated that we need no graded course—regulation, Gothenburg System, local option, education of sentiment up to prohibition. . . . The more radical and general the prohibition, the more successful. Prohibition ‘fails’ not because there is too much of it, but too little.”31 This unflinching belief in the virtues of the Russian reform would be of little interest if all it did was bolster the existing sentiments of already committed prohibitionists. However, within the American system, where organized interests groups can effectively sway public sentiments and help elect like-minded policymakers, the influence of the Russian prohibition experience—as framed by American temperance organizations—may have had some influence on the coming of prohibition in the United States, in terms of both popular awareness and approval of the Russian prohibition, and as an influential electoral tool.32 Indeed, in the critical election of 1916, tracts such as “Regenerated Russia” topped the list of temperance pamphlets that WCTU members actively circulated in hopes of swaying voters toward the benefits of prohibition.33 While the Russian experience served as but one arrow in the quiver of American temperance arguments, prohibitionists believed it to be the most effective one. Partly as a result of these temperance efforts, in 1916 the United States delivered a new, “dry” Congress heavily predisposed toward a prohibition amendment, which was promptly approved in 1917, along with other drastic alcohol restrictions such as the Lever Act, the Reed Amendment, and in 1918, a wartime prohibition measure. The 1916 election was the only opportunity for American prohibitionists to frame Russian experiences to further their own policy aims. Russian military defeats, domestic discontent, and rampant inflation undermined the prohibitionists’ image of sober harmony and prosperity in Russia. Yet temperance advocates continued—even the downfall of the tsar during the February Revolution was framed as a victory for prohibition: not only was it spun that “it was an alcohol-less, and therefore, a bloodless revolution,”34 but also that casting off the shackles of vodka bolstered the army and laboring classes to shed the tsar’s autocratic yoke in favor of a “provisional democratic government,” whose first act was to affirm prohibition.35 Until late 1917, then, American prohibitionists framed Russian prohibition as a universal elixir for a wide variety of sociopolitical ills: increasing economic productivity, decreasing crime, making for a more effective war machine, and being a democratizing force.


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Unfortunately for American prohibitionists, the October Revolution in late 1917 quickly rendered such interpretations laughable. Bol’shevism was demonized as a threat to the international political order, and to all things American.36 The lesson that Russia’s financial debacle was rooted in its renunciation of its primary revenue stream was apparent to even the least astute observer. Plus, it did not help that Lenin and the Bol’sheviks were ardent prohibitionists, an association that tainted American prohibitionists. American “cowboy philosopher” Will Rogers perhaps most succinctly captured this sentiment, writing in 1919: “Any time a dry is up talking just mention one word and he is through—Russia.”37 Not surprisingly, American prohibitionists brusquely abandoned their favored foreign prohibition experience: Table 6.2 shows that, whereas articles lauding Russian prohibition in the WCTU weekly Union Signal were appearing at least monthly until late 1917, after the Bol’shevik Revolution the international heavyweight of American prohibitionist arguments disappeared from the temperance press without a trace.38 The Year Book of the AntiSaloon League tells a similar story: in 1912 Ernest Cherrington solemnly concluded his quarter-page summary on Russia: “Temperance reform in Russia under present conditions is almost a forlorn hope.”39 In 1916 the Year Book began with six pages on the victory of Russian prohibition as a shining example for America to follow.40 From 1917 through 1920 Cherrington’s yearly tour d’horizon receded from the front pages, yet consistently retold the same tale of the benefits of Russian prohibition (with the story ending conveniently in mid-1917) before finally removing any mention of Russia from 1921 onward.41 Thus almost overnight the favored foreign prohibition frame was recast as the foremost expression of opposition to American prohibition. After 1917 the few considerations of Russian experiences with alcohol only reflect poorly upon prohibition in America: in addition to contributing to the rise of the Communist regime, anti-prohibitionists framed prohibition’s limitations on personal freedom as being “tsarist” or “bolshevist” in

Table 6.2 Articles on Russian Temperance and Prohibition in Reader’s Guide to Periodical Literature and the WCTU’s Union Signal, 1913–1923 Year Union Signal Reader’s Guide

1913 1914 1915 1916 1917 1918 1919 1920 1921 1922 1923 1

5

30

11

16

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

4

12

5

1

0

2

0

1

0

1

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spirit.42 By the late 1920s it was apparent that American prohibition was ineffective. Responding to prohibitionist claims that more effective enforcement was necessary, opponents turned to the Soviet experience, arguing that with regard to prohibition they found in the course of eight years, that despite the possession of a far greater measure of arbitrary authority than is given to the enforcement officers in the United States, despite the exercise of that authority in a manner far more vigorous than would be tolerated in the United States, despite their control of the press, the Communist Party, the labor federations and every means of propaganda—despite all this, they found that prohibition could not be enforced as long as it was contrary to the habits and desires of the mass of the nation. So they abandoned it.43

Indeed, if prohibition could not be effectively enforced even by Soviet dictators, what chance did it stand in the United States? It is clear that foreign political developments have a discernible impact on American policy debates. Foreign ideas and experiences come in the form of concrete programmic policy options, such as the Swedish Gothenburg and Bratt systems, or as frames for existing policy options, such as the changing lessons to be learned from Russian prohibition. Yet these ideas do not—to quote Thomas Risse-Kappen—“float freely.”44 Their impact on American prohibition and repeal is mediated by the particular institutions of American policymaking. In a society-dominated structure, where organizations act as informational brokers and framers, interpreting and spinning foreign ideas to win public sentiment to their cause, the salience of foreign experiences to the adoption of policy relies on the power and influence of organized interests: in this case, the extensive temperance-cum-prohibition movement. So, then, how did foreign experiences influence American prohibition? In brief: the Gothenburg option was a widely heralded, viable, and in many ways superior alternative to prohibition by reducing the social harms associated with drinking, while preventing prohibition’s rampant bootlegging, corruption, lost respect for law, and loss of state revenue. The fact that many American states adopted a Gothenburg-type dispensary plan after repeal further supports this assertion. Although the Gothenburg alternative presented a pragmatic solution to a pressing policy problem, it did not sit well with absolutist prohibitionists, who claimed that any attempt at government regulation would make the state complicit in an “evil” trade. Thus although the Gothenburg option—or some American variant thereof—was supported by moderates and non-dogmatic theorists, bureaucrats, and political elites such as the Committee of Fifty, it was viewed by prohibitionists as a formidable obstacle to their preferred policy of complete and universal alcohol prohibition. Therefore American prohibitionists exercised tremendous


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effort to cast doubt upon the Swedish experience, vilify its supporters, and highlight deficiencies of its implementation throughout Scandinavia, Canada, and South Carolina. Alternatively, the Russian experience with prohibition provided a frame to legitimize prohibition in the United States, but only so long as its effects could be interpreted as positive. While questions concerning the financial wisdom of imperial prohibition could be papered over with the reassurances of Finance Minster Peter Bark; the October Revolution destroyed any illusion that Russian prohibition had positive results. Thereafter, it was impossible for American prohibitionists to salvage their Russia frame. It lay fallow for years, only to be salvaged by anti-prohibitionists, who used the failure of Russian prohibition to further the cause of American repeal. In either case, the salience of Russian experiences to the development of American alcohol control policy was dependent upon the framing ability and the political power of organized interests: first the prohibition movement, then the repeal movement.

TRANSNATIONAL INFLUENCES ON THE REJECTION OF PROHIBITION IN SWEDEN Many models of the spread of particular policies or ideas emphasize regional diffusion: a state or country is more likely to learn from the experiences of its neighbors than from more distant lands. Accordingly, given Sweden’s location and the sheer number of its neighbors on the European continent, one might expect much greater attention there to foreign experiences. Yet, only 13 percent of listings in the Svensk bok-katalog address foreign or international alcohol developments (Figure 4.1), as opposed to 13.7 percent in the American case. Moreover, Swedish attention was focused primarily on liquor control in the United States rather than in its European neighbors: there were more books and pamphlets concerning alcohol developments in the United States than in all of Sweden’s Scandinavian neighbors combined (Table 6.3). Given the long history of Swedish temperance organizations based on American foundations (see chapter 2), plus the innovation of prohibition at the American state level, this disproportionate influence is understandable. Yet, how were American experiences with alcohol control understood by Swedish policymakers, and how did those understandings change with the adoption of American prohibition and the change of policymaking institutions from committee corporatism to a society-dominated referendum in 1922?

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Table 6.3 Coverage of Foreign Temperance/ Prohibition Developments in Svensk bok-katalog, 1875–1935 Rank

Country

1 2 3 4 5 5 7 8

USA Norway Finland Denmark Germany U.K. Switzerland Russia

Listings 41 16 13 10 9 9 7 4

Source: Mark Lawrence Schrad, “The Prohibition Option: Transnational Temperance and National Decision Making in Russia, Sweden, and the United States” (University of Wisconsin–Madison, 2007), 486.

Interestingly, given the geographic proximity and compatible development of social democratic thought, there seems to be much less Swedish consideration of Russian alcohol experiences than one might expect, with roughly ten books or pamphlets examining American alcohol policy for every one on Russia (Table 6.3). Why would faraway prohibition developments in the United States elicit so much popular and policymaker interest while similar developments nearby elicited so little? By an examination of the role of foreign experiences on the Swedish prohibition debate, this discrepancy can best be understood as a manifestation of the changing institutional context of Swedish policymaking.

Swedish Insights from the American Policy Incubator One of the virtues of the American federal system is that state and local governments act as “laboratories for social experimentation,” per Supreme Court justice Louis Brandeis’s famous 1932 adage.45 Nowhere was this experimentation more evident than in the wide variety of state-level alcohol control systems across the American states in the late nineteenth century. While statewide prohibition experiments in Maine, Kansas, Iowa, and elsewhere piqued the attention of foreign audiences, so too did other states’ licensing and local option regulations. Scandinavians and others could examine how Gothenburg-type dispensary systems functioned abroad, being adopted most famously in South Carolina. Given the perceived


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homogeneity of the American states, and the widespread availability of temperance information and social statistics, observers readily isolated and compared—both qualitatively and quantitatively—the results of four different alcohol control arrangements: prohibition, local option, high license, and Gothenburg/dispensary options.46 As a result, numerous European governments and foreign temperance societies undertook extensive examinations of American alcohol control, usually based on expansive tours and multiyear fact-finding missions across the states, to determine which option was preferable for their own social circumstances.47 Importantly, such researchers were rarely concerned with the moral and often dogmatic policy justifications from die-hard prohibitionists—instead focusing on the practical ramifications of each policy. As a result, most foreign studies more closely resemble social-scientific tomes, forgoing the usual American puritanical temperance zeal for a sober examination of poverty, crime, and other social statistics. Swedish researchers led the European scrutiny of the American alcohol control policy smorgasbord. The emphasis on practical and consensual solutions—already noted as a hallmark of the Swedish policy process—tempered enthusiasm for prohibition except among the most steadfast absolutists.48 Extensive fieldwork in prohibition states allowed researchers to ascertain the state of public sobriety beyond the one-sided rhetoric of American prohibitionists. Even at the state level, the enforcement and implementation shortcomings of prohibition were apparent, leading Swedish studies to disparage the American state “prohibition comedy” (förbudskomedien).49 Indeed, the 1906–1907 study of H. J. Boström began its extensive consideration of American state prohibition with the observation that seventeen states had experimented with prohibition, but it had been repealed everywhere except Maine, Kansas, and North Dakota, with the former two having only been recently reinstated following repeal episodes.50 Noteworthy too is the facilitating role of the transnational temperance network. European researchers did not wade blindly into the American policy morass, but rather exhausted the existing Anglo-American alcohol control literature, consulted with temperance leaders and policymakers, and interviewed eminent experts and scholars. Given the similarity in terms of scientific, non-dogmatic scrutiny of the alcohol question, virtually every extensive Swedish investigation of American alcohol policy bears the hallmark of the Committee of Fifty, which likewise found against prohibition in its own investigations in the 1890s. Many studies were based on extensive readings of the committee’s works and included in-depth cooperation of former committee members.51 Thus, while Swedish temperance organizations put prohibition on the Swedish political agenda, subsequent studies of American policies informed and motivated both the public and elite policy debates.52

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The on-again, off-again experiments with prohibition in the American states did little to aid Swedish absolutist arguments, in terms of either practical implementability or a unidirectional progression toward the ultimate victory of prohibition. Before the establishment of the Swedish Nykterhetskommitté in 1911, short, moralistic diatribes framed American state prohibition as an effective policy, while in-depth investigations found greater promise in local option—allowing localities to outlaw the alcohol trade according to prevailing communal sentiments—which performed better in terms of crime and poverty statistics while suffering fewer problems of enforcement against unwilling populations.53 One of the hallmarks of Swedish policy committees is the prefacing of findings and recommendations with a thorough review of relevant developments in Swedish history, as well as a professional survey of related policy developments in other countries.54 The Temperance Committee was no exception: the first order of business was a broad survey of liquor control arrangements in other countries—with particular emphasis on the United States55—while one of the committee’s earliest reports proposed an international conference and permanent international institute to act as a clearinghouse for objective studies of the alcohol question.56 Given the institutional emphasis on deriving workable solutions to social problems, the Temperance Committee compared prohibition against other policies in terms of economic productivity, employment, home life, mortality, smuggling, bootlegging, crime, and poverty.57 As in prior studies, local veto (local option) seemed an amicable compromise, and indeed served as a point of consensus between Ivan Bratt and the prohibitionists on the committee.58 In addressing each of these aspects, the committee again looked to foreign experience, and again turned to the United States (Table 6.4): the Temperance Committee’s investigation of the links between alcohol and poverty drew heavily from the examinations by the Committee of Fifty.59 Given the different institutional structures of policymaking—Swedish investigations give primacy to scientific study and workable policy alternatives, versus a more open American system in which such arguments were cast aside by prohibitionist pressure groups—the works of the American Committee of Fifty, ironically, were arguably more influential in dissuading against prohibition in Sweden than in the United States. The lessons of American experience changed dramatically as the United States—like other North Atlantic countries—adopted prohibition during World War I. Foreign events were framed by Swedish temperance activists as evidence of the rising tide of prohibition worldwide, bolstering their increasingly vocal calls for Swedish prohibition. These policy developments were followed closely in temperance circles, in the media, and within the Temperance Committee itself.60 By the early 1920s alcohol control had become such a political hot potato that, following the conclusion of the Temperance


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Table 6.4 Number of Pages Covering Foreign Alcohol Control Policy Alternatives, Swedish Temperance Committee Report VI, 3 (1914) and IX (1920) Alcohol Control Study (1914) Rank

Country

Pages (local option states) (prohibition states) (dispensary states) (high license states)

1 2 3 4 5 6 6 8 9

USA Australia U.K. New Zealand Denmark Finland Norway Germany Russia

Prohibition Study (1920)

(18) (7) (4) (3) 32 12 10 9 7 6 6 4 3

Rank

Country

1 2 3 3 3 3

USA Finland Canada Iceland Norway Russia

Pages

30 2 1 1 1 1

Source: Nykterhetskommittén Betänkande VI, 3: Redogöre lse för några främmande staters lagstiftning angående handeln med rusdrycker (Stockholm: 1914); Nykterhetskommittén Betänkande IX: Underdånigt betänkande med föslag till lag om alkoholvaror m. m. (Stockholm: 1920).

Committee’s activity, an advisory referendum was held in August 1922 to finally resolve the prohibition question. The referendum had all the hallmarks of a modern, open, democratic campaign, including extensive media coverage, advertisements, campaign posters, as well as the mobilization of significant propaganda resources for both prohibitionist and anti-prohibitionist forces. American prohibition had been in force for five years, so prohibitionists could continue to laud the achievements and moral advances of the American people, while prohibition’s opponents could point to the increases in corruption, bootlegging, smuggling, and other readily apparent policy failures. Foreign examples of prohibition’s supposed effectiveness in Finland, Norway, and especially the United States were framed as the foremost justifications for adopting prohibition in Sweden. Figure 4.2 shows a dramatic upsurge in media attention to the liquor issue in the runup to the 1922 referendum, while Table 6.5 shows the extent to which American experiences were brought to bear on the issue.61 These accounts differed significantly from the scientific investigations of earlier years—Swedish prohibitionists, organizationally united in the Förbudsvännernas rikskommitté,62 utilized their transnational network contacts to solicit brief propagandistic testimonials from the most famous American prohibitionists

Table 6.5 Listings on American Temperance and Prohibition in Svensk bok-katalog, 1875–1935 Years Entries

1875– 1879

1880– 1884

1885– 1889

1890– 1894

1895– 1899

1900– 1904

1905– 1909

1910– 1914

1915– 1919

1920– 1924

1925– 1929

1930– 1935

3

2

0

2

4

1

3

6

1

12

5

1

Source: Mark Lawrence Schrad, “The Prohibition Option: Transnational Temperance and National Decision Making in Russia, Sweden, and the United States” (University of Wisconsin–Madison, 2007) 486.


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of the day, including Bishop James Cannon and Howard Hyde Russell of the Anti-Saloon League, Cora Frances Stoddard of the World’s WCTU, Professor Irving Fisher of Yale University, and Congressman Andrew Volstead, whose name was synonymous with prohibition.63 Moreover, numerous American prohibition leaders undertook speaking tours of Sweden to promote the cause, often at the expense of their transnational temperance organizations, such as the IOGT, World’s WCTU, and WLAA.64 For many transnational temperance organizations, the Swedish referendum would be the last major effort to secure prohibition in a foreign setting, as many were already undergoing financial hardships during the declining stage of transnational temperance activism. Swedish anti-prohibitionists did not have the same transnational network resources as their prohibitionist counterparts.65 Consequently, there were far fewer critical accounts of the increases in criminality and unemployment associated with American prohibition.66 Arguments concerning prohibition’s financial and economic detriments—plus arguments about the importance of alcohol in Swedish culture, and against impinging upon long-established personal liberties—are credited with ultimately defeating the prohibition referendum.67

The Russian Experience in the Swedish Policy Debate Russia was on the periphery of the North Atlantic “core” of the transnational temperance network: without conventional grass-roots temperance activism, Russian representation at international conferences consisted of official government delegates and a thin stratum of elite obshchestvo interested in temperance. The traditional hostility of the tsars to temperance organization and the perception of the exploitative imperial vodka monopoly meant that Russian temperance garnered little attention in Europe, despite the proximity of St. Petersburg. European proponents of alcohol control had to deflect unflattering comparisons between Russian monopolization of the liquor trade and Swedish municipalization. This undertaking was easily accomplished by their highlighting the differences between Russian state-sponsored “temperance” through the imperial Guardianship for Public Sobriety versus effective grass-roots Swedish temperance organization, and between the palpable economic and communal benefits of the Gothenburg system versus persistent alcohol problems in Russia. Ultimately, the Russian imperial monopoly became a warning of the problems of “strong centralization,” whereby the financial benefits of the alcohol trade accrued to imperial coffers rather than to municipal charities and social interests.68

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Russian prohibition came as a great surprise to many Swedes. While news reports trickled in concerning the increases in morale and order in Russia, the crisis of World War I made it difficult to obtain reliable information as to the general influence of the prohibition reform throughout the country.69 Temperance Committee members utilized their transnational network linkages with Russian counterparts to deliver more substantive studies.70 The only in-depth Swedish study of Russian prohibition, Anton Karlgren’s Ryssland utan vodka (1916), concluded that despite increases in smuggling and the use of alcohol surrogates (and with the usual caveats concerning the exceptional political conditions), the palpable increases in the living standard and decreases in crime established “a new epoch in Russian history.”71 When it came to the vital question of the lost imperial revenues, Swedish investigations mirrored their American counterparts in their reliance on the reassurances of Finance Minister Bark that the problem was easily overcome through astonishing increases in national economic productivity and a patchwork of supplementary taxes.72 Also as in the United States, the relation between imperial prohibition and Bol’shevik revolution meant that Swedish prohibition advocates shied away from reference to Russian prohibition after 1917. Indeed, the same 1920 Temperance Committee report that exhausted thirty pages on the benefits of American prohibition included only four sentences on Russia— simply noting that prohibition had been maintained even by the new Soviet government.73 Thus Russian experiences had little palpable influence on the 1922 prohibition campaign, as prohibitionists and anti-prohibitionists framed the better-known virtues and drawbacks of prohibition in Norway, Finland, and the United States rather than entertaining notions of prohibition and violent revolution. This brief examination demonstrates how foreign policy experiences influenced developments within Sweden. As with American policymaking, foreign ideas and experiences can come in the form of concrete policy programs—here in terms of prohibition or local option policies as developed in the various American states—or as frames to “spin” existing policy alternatives, such as the changing lessons of American and Russian statutory prohibition. Yet the ways in which foreign experiences are utilized to justify domestic policies depends on the structure of Swedish policymaking. Particularly instructive here is a comparison between the traditional corporatist institutions of policymaking of the Temperance Committee (1911–1920) and the more open, “American-style” campaigns preceding the prohibition referendum of 1922. Given the traditional corporatist emphasis on in-depth examinations of the practicality (and enforceability) of particular policies, the American incubator proved to be an interesting testing ground for all of the alcohol control


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programs under consideration: prohibition, local option, dispensary, and high license systems. Since the corporatist policymaking process does not rely on swaying the hearts and minds of voters, but rather depends on providing information for practically minded policymakers interested in the promotion of a broader public good, early considerations of American alcohol policy were detailed investigations based upon extensive fieldwork to determine the practicality of different policies, rather than brief, rote sermons against the alcohol “evil.” Utilizing their contacts through the transnational temperance network, the objective Swedish investigations found a preference for the objective research of the Committee of Fifty over moralistic admonishments of American temperance organizations. Shifting the venue of policymaking from the closed, corporatist committee arrangement to a popular referendum more like the society-dominated American structure entailed a dramatic change in the mechanisms of transnational influence on Swedish alcohol policy, as well as a changed role for transnational activism. Given the need to mobilize nationwide voter support to the prohibition cause, lengthy studies on the practicality of different American alcohol-control programs gave way to a blizzard of brief, propagandistic leaflets on the moral benefits of American prohibition. In other words, in the switch from corporatist to society-dominated policymaking structures, the American experience went from a source of concrete policy programs to a source of policy frames for Swedish activists to advance their particular policy ends. Moreover, Swedish prohibitionists were aided by the direct lobbying efforts of transnational temperance organizations such as the WLAA, World’s WCTU, and IOGT. Such direct pressures would have been ineffective when policymaking was left to corporatist committees. The notable absence of Russian experiences within the Swedish prohibition debate is likewise attributable to the institutional structure of policymaking. In the United States, Russian prohibition was most effectively framed by the American temperance organizations as a campaign tool for the elections of 1916—when such experiences still reflected positively on prohibition. At that time in Sweden there was little need for prohibitionists to frame Russian experiences to justify their positions, since there was no electoral mechanism of translating foreign advances into domestic policy gains. By the time the structure of decision making opened to the input of mobilized social organizations and pressure groups, the alleged benefits of Russian prohibition had already given way to revolution. This situation again highlights the temporal aspects of Swedish corporatism, sheltering policymakers from the rising and falling tides of public sentiment: one would imagine that, had the prohibition referendum been held in 1916 rather than 1922, Swedish prohibitionists would have readily seized upon Russian experiences as a frame for promoting a prohibition policy.

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Thus the changing roles of American and Russian prohibition experiences highlight the importance of changing the structure of alcohol policymaking in Sweden. The switch from corporatist to society-dominated structures entailed a switch in the form and content of foreign ideas for domestic consumption—from ideas-as-policy options to ideas-as-legitimating frames. This switch necessitated a shift in transnational information sources: from insights of those aligned with the anti-prohibitionist Committee of Fifty, to the more dogmatic arguments of American prohibitionists. Moreover, the inability of Swedish prohibitionists to utilize Russian experiences as a legitimizing frame for policy change, as did their American counterparts, highlights the temporal aspects of foreign lessondrawing: with the corporatist system sheltering policymakers from the tides of public opinion, by the time such legitimating frames were relevant, the content of those frames—in terms of the lessons of Russian policy experience—changed dramatically. What remains, then, is to complete this analytical triptych by examining how Russian prohibition was influenced by foreign policy developments—American and Swedish experiences in particular.

TRANSNATIONAL INFLUENCES ON RUSSIAN PROHIBITION Historians have consistently highlighted Russia’s never-ending quest to “catch up” with the West economically, politically, and culturally. Thus it should come as little surprise that elite obshchestvo in late imperial St. Petersburg was attenuated to European developments in alcohol policy, especially as temperance interests spoke to elite concerns about raising up the peasant and working populations.74 Yet, given the autocratic institutional structure, wherein policymakers are largely insulated from external influences and public sentiments, how could foreign ideas, policies, and debates have influenced Russian policy developments? We shall examine this question with particular reference to the ways in which the experiences of the United States and Sweden were channeled through the autocratic policymaking structure.

Russian Insights from the American Policy Incubator While many Europeans turned to the American policy laboratory to compare diverse alcohol control policies in a single national setting; for Russian


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observers the American experience also included consideration of social organization and civil-society activity that were barred in imperial Russia. Here, then, we must differentiate between insights concerning American temperance activity as a form of social organization, and those concerning prohibition as an alternative policy. Each will be addressed in turn. American temperance crusader Robert Baird in the 1840s made early note of the difficulty of establishing temperance societies within the Russian autocratic system, as well as the possibilities associated with making effective contacts at the highest levels of imperial decision making (chapter 2). Restrictions on popular association prevented the germination of internationally linked temperance organizations such as the IOGT and its successors.75 Consequently, any Russian transnational temperance activism would have to be initiated by Russians rather than adopted from foreign sources.76 Indeed, while transnational temperance linkages were far less developed in Russia than in the rest of Europe and North America, those existing contacts had a sizable impact on domestic temperance advocacy within the empire. The main conduits for transnational temperance were the affluent, multilingual, and often European-educated members of Russian elite obshchestvo who diffused progressive ideas of European liberalism within the privileged strata of St. Petersburg society. With extensive social, cultural, and familial ties with the educated communities of Europe, and the congruence of the temperance cause with the plight of the Russian lower classes, the expansion of interest in foreign temperance developments is understandable.77 Thus, like their continental counterparts, members of this mobile stratum of Russian high society undertook numerous studies of foreign temperance developments exhausting the European temperance literature and undertaking American fact-finding tours.78 Russian studies cited effective results of independent temperance organization in the United States, Canada, and England due primarily to the “durability and stability” of grass-roots organizations.79 Indeed, Lev Tolstoi’s esteemed confidant, Dr. Peter Alekseev, prefaced his About America—an 1886 investigation of American hospitals, schools, and prisons—in this way: “Neither the wonder of wild nature in the Rocky Mountains nor the menacing might and grandeur of Niagara, produced such an impression on a Russian as the success of the fight with drunkenness—the temperance movement.”80 So impressed with the effectiveness of American social organization, Dr. Alekseev began extensive temperance agitation within Russia. Yet with no tradition of social activism and a government intent on asphyxiating it, accounts of widespread American temperance organization seemed lamentably distant to members the Russian elite who knew the impossibility of transplanting such organizations onto Russian soil. Indeed, Russian skeptics scoffed at such initiatives,

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warning against “following in the footsteps of American temperance societies, like fanatics from the Middle Ages.”81 With social activism unfeasible, greater attention was paid to alternative alcohol-control programs—viewed as readily adoptable, top-down policy solutions requiring neither democratic input nor effective social organization. Indeed, from 1898 to 1913 a Commission on the Question of Alcoholism (Kommissiya po voprosu ob alkogolizm)—comprised of a veritable “who’s who” of obshchestvo temperance experts (many of whom were actively involved in international temperance conventions)—was instituted as a quasi-official consultative body on the moral, economic, and legislative aspects of different policies.82 The commission’s first order of business was to compare the extent of Russian intemperance with that in foreign countries, as well as undertake an in-depth examination of foreign means of regulating the alcohol traffic.83 In the words of the Commission chair, Mikhail Nizhegorodtsev, “if we don’t have our own experiences, then the example of other countries will be particularly instructive.”84 Yet strangely, for all of the interest in American temperance organization, temperance education, medical attitudes, alcohol regulations in the military, and so forth; American state-level prohibitions elicited very little interest among the collected experts.85 Unlike similar policy debates throughout Europe, American prohibition had few, if any, defenders. Drawing upon his international contacts as official representative of the Russian Ministry of Finance to the 1895 International Congress on Alcoholism in Basel, Ivan Mintslov conducted a detailed survey of foreign alcohol control systems (Table 6.6), that served as the basis for discussion. Mintslov cites the failure of prohibition, and its eventual repeal in fourteen of the twenty-one states, since “It is said that after the passing of [state prohibition] laws, drunkenness increased, and neither the number of crimes, nor divorces, nor deaths decreased as a result of the prohibition of strong beverages.”86 While one could attribute Mintslov’s hostility to prohibition as simple self-interest as a member of the Ministry of Finance, it is striking that his assertions were rarely challenged, even by the wellinformed members of the commission. Indeed, some official reports later recognized the failure of American prohibition,87 while others lambasted its “promotion of law evasion.”88 The most charitable consideration of American state prohibition among the Russian temperance experts came from chairman Mikhail Nizhegorodtsev, who concluded that “the lessons of the prohibition system in the fight against alcoholism cannot be considered fully resolved on the basis of obtainable evidence”89—hardly a glowing endorsement. This opposition to prohibition endured even after the October Manifesto of 1905, as Alcohol Commission meetings with Duma representatives cited


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Table 6.6 Pages Dedicated to the Study of Foreign Alcohol Control Systems, Ivan Mintslov’s Report to the Commission for the Study of Alcoholism (1898) and Mikhail Fridman’s Study of Foreign Alcohol Monopolies (1914) Ivan Mintslov (1898) Rank

Country

1 2 3 4

Sweden (Gothenburg system) Switzerland (Monopoly) USA (Prohibition states) France (Monopoly)

4 4

Germany (Monopoly) U.K. (Monopoly)

Mikhail Fridman (1914) Pages

Rank

10

1

7 4 1

2 3 4

1 1

5 6 7

Country Switzerland (Monopoly) France (Monopoly) Germany (Monopoly) Sweden (Gothenburg system) Belgium (Monopoly) Norway (Gothenburg system) Finland (Gothenburg system)

Pages 173 156 101 50 37 12 11

Source: Mikhail Fridman, Vinnaya monopoliya, tom I: Vinnaya monopoliya v inostrannykh gosudarstvakh, 2 vols., vol. 1 (St. Petersburg: Pravda, 1914); Ivan R. Mintslov, “Monopoliya torgovli spirtnymi napitkami v nekotorykh inostrannykh gosudarstvakh i v Rossii,” Trudy Kommissii po Voprosu ob Alkogolizm: zhurnaly zasedanii i doklady I (1898).

American bootlegging, lost treasury revenues, and the ruination of gentry distillers as harbingers of the failure of prohibition and other legislative measures against liquor in Russia.90 Even through the turbulent First All-Russian Congress on the Struggle with Drunkenness of 1909–1910, calls for prohibition were conspicuously absent. Indeed, the eclectic body of delegates consensually declared that wherever drastic restrictions are placed on alcohol, “corruption blossoms” (shinkarstvo protsvetaet).91 Thus, despite increased attention, right up to the outbreak of war, the consensus of Russian obshchestvo held that the alcohol problem was symptomatic of the imperial state’s subjugation of the lower classes and therefore not amenable to “simple” legislative solutions. A wide swath of educated Russian elite, realizing the intransigence of the tsarist government, concluded that proposing prohibition as a palliative to Russia’s vodka seemed foolhardy at best. In the words of Professor M. M. Kovalevskii, “of course, the growth of alcoholism cannot be curtailed through a single prohibition of spirituous liquors.”92 Thus, on the eve of war, even though virtually every Russian expert on alcohol and temperance was calling for radical measures in opposition alcohol and the spirits monopoly, almost no one considered prohibition as practical or desirable, especially given American experiences with it.

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Questioning the Russian Practicality of the Swedish Gothenburg System Already in vogue in European temperance circles, the Swedish Gothenburg system elicited a good deal of interest, in part because the short distance between Stockholm and St. Petersburg permitted numerous firsthand investigations.93 The Gothenburg system—considered a variation on a monopoly system of government control like the state-run monopoly in Russia—was considered more viable by experts,94 by the temperance-minded clergy, and even at the highest levels of the imperial government.95 Not surprisingly, then, the earliest debates of the Russian Alcoholism Kommissiya addressed the Gothenburg system, its functioning in Sweden, Norway, (Russian) Finland, and its applicability to Russian social conditions. Temperance activists such as Dmitri Borodin enumerated decreases in drunkenness under the Gothenburg system as well as the elimination of the illegal alcohol trade, and he praised the philanthropic use of Swedish liquor revenues at the local level rather than their being funneled into the national treasury.96 Even representatives of the Ministry of Finance conceded that “the system is theoretically better than ours,” claiming that similar benefits should be expected in Russian conditions.97 In an argument that resonated with the paradigmatic understandings of elite experts regardless of political leanings, the Kommissiya ultimately concluded that despite its theoretic superiority, the Gothenburg system could not operate in Russia, because of the insufficiently cultured society (vsledstvie nekul’turnosti obshchestva) and the insurmountable difficulties of finding honest administrators to resist the corrupting temptations of the immense liquor revenues.98 The government, of course, was unwilling to experiment with granting municipal or provincial autonomy necessary in a Gothenburg system while simultaneously alienating the state’s primary source of revenue.99 Ever cognizant of the insurmountable hurdles to dramatic policy change, the committee reluctantly concluded that “In light of present cultural conditions, the Russian monopoly system as a means for battling alcoholism is more beneficial than the Swiss, Gothenburg, and prohibitory systems.”100 Thus, given the insulation of autocratic decision making and the dependence of the empire’s finance on the maintenance of the status quo, the autocratic structure not only stifled debate over the two foremost foreign challengers to the monopoly—prohibition and the Gothenburg system—but also precluded the adoption of an admittedly superior alcohol control system. The received wisdom as to the undesirability of prohibition and the impracticality of the Gothenburg system endured even after the establishment of the new Duma. Even Mikhail Fridman’s exhaustive 1914 investigation of foreign alcohol monopoly and dispensary systems concluded that the


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Gothenburg system was “the best legislative weapon in the fight against alcoholism,” but only because it worked in concert with a cultured society actively seeking to decrease the use of alcohol—a situation that had no counterpart in Russia.101 Given the structure of autocratic decision making in late imperial Russia, foreign experiences with prohibition and the Gothenburg system elicited great elite interest and intense debate but ultimately had little impact on policy. The transnational temperance advocacy network permitted Russian elites to share in cutting-edge developments throughout Europe and North America, but given the social and political bifurcation within Russia, the background cognitive (paradigmatic) understandings of Russian obshchestvo rendered both the prohibition and Gothenburg programs as unrealistic. For conservatives and the intelligentsia, the prohibition and otherwise-desirable Gothenburg programs threatened the financial and autocratic foundations of the empire (respectively) and were thus too radical to ever be adopted.102 Given these limitations, temperance-minded elites pushed for more practical and incremental sales restrictions. For socialists and revolutionaries, the alcohol problem was symptomatic of the economic subjugation of the lower classes and could not be addressed until the proletariat were relieved of the shackles of autocracy. As “mere” legislation, neither the prohibition nor Gothenburg programs could, in this view, address this root cause of drunkenness. In Russia, as elsewhere, the “lessons” of foreign experience are translated within a domestic structure that constrains the range of options. While foreign alcohol control ideas and experiences were of great individual interest, they could not be easily mobilized into pressure for policy change in an autocracy. But if the American and Swedish experiences were only of marginal interest to Russian policymakers, how then do we comprehend prohibition as ultimately adopted by Nicholas II? The answer lies in the reframing of prohibition as a vital military issue rather than a financial or moral one. Chapter 5 demonstrated how the idea of prohibition initially came to Russia to ease military mobilization and make for a better fighting force. The lessons of the Russo-Japanese and Balkan Wars, the experience of American states, and the Swedish emergency alcohol restrictions in 1909 all enhanced the desirability of prohibition in extraordinary circumstances. It was, therefore, in military circles rather than among the intelligentsia that the prohibition idea gained the most traction.103 Since alcohol restrictions within the military, up to and including forced abstinence, were thought to have perceptible benefits without threatening imperial finances, the Alcoholism Commission made numerous suggestions to the War Ministry, including abandoning liquor rations, increasing recreational facilities, and instituting temperance

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education. Ultimately, it was the linking of prohibition as a military/security issue that found particular resonance within the imperial leadership: “The grand, if improbable, notion of an abstemious army was never wholly abandoned by members of the Alcoholism Commission. . . . Nevertheless, there was one secret convert to the idea who was far more able than they to see it realized: the tsar himself.”104 Thus, if we are to speak of Russian prohibition as an example of policy “learning,” we must make explicit the different channels by which such ideas influence policy within the autocratic context. Whereas American and Swedish policy entrepreneurs press for the adoption of their favored alcohol control option, in Russia prohibition was adopted in the complete absence of any calls for it, even from the most active policy communities. The narrow understanding of prohibition as a military measure by a small group of influential military leaders, members of the royal family, and the tsar himself, meant that while prohibition was “not a necessary or natural consequence of war,” it was a likely consequence, given the shared understanding of its utility and the shifting attention to security issues.105 Moreover, while foreign experiences informed policy debates within Russian obshchestvo more so than in the American or Swedish contexts, the institutional isolation of tsarist decision making meant that those international lessons learned by the elite policy community did not necessarily percolate up to imperial decision makers.

USING INTERNATIONAL EXPERIENCES TO TRACE DOMESTIC IDEATIONAL PATHS This meta-discursive analysis concerning “who thought what about whom” has a utility well beyond simple historical curiosity—it nicely illuminates distinctions concerning how different institutional arrangements mediate ideas within the policy process. Foreign experiences can take many ideational forms: they can provide new concrete policy programs, offer frames for understanding different policy options, and inform background paradigms and broadly held public sentiments. Whatever their form, ideas with an international component are particularly useful in tracing the ideational channels within different policymaking structures. First, the novelty of foreign ideas and experiences widens and enriches the policy debate. Inherently less well known than more familiar domestic policy programs, frames, and experiences, foreign ideas challenge conventional understandings concerning courses of policy. Novel solutions for a shared policy problem cannot be easily dismissed. Transnational advocacy


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networks are often responsible for injecting the foreign element into the domestic debate. Likewise, transnational connections are strengthened through foreign experience, since more extensive contextual study is required in order to verify the appropriateness of foreign palliatives for domestic problems.106 Second, invoking foreign policy alternatives or experiences presupposes a threefold analysis: consideration of policy operations within the particular social, economic, and political context of the host country; a comparative evaluation of those salient contextual elements within the domestic setting; and finally, consideration of whether perceived differences are consequential enough to disparage the application of foreign experiences to the domestic context. This notion is encapsulated within the familiar maxim that we study abroad to learn more about ourselves. Third, foreign experiences and ideas are readily identifiable because of their perceived novelty. Since they cannot be dismissed without some justification, debates over foreign experiences tend to include greater analytical detail, making them less likely to be lost in the shuffle of argumentation. Such extended study is evident within ideas at the cognitive level: paradigms and programs based on objective study. Fourth, foreign policy experiences frequently become synonymous with the broader scope of political developments within that country. Such shorthand notions allow for the simplification of the wide panoply of related social, economic, and political considerations of a particular policy. Indeed, when invoked, domestic actors “anchor” their positions on domestic policy to the fate of policy developments abroad, which are out of their own control. Take, for instance, the following simplification of foreign experience within the American policy debate: “Sweden has the Gothenburg system, and drunkenness decreased. Russia tried prohibition and ended up with communist revolution.” Without further consideration, such remedial comparisons would certainly predispose individuals to the attractiveness of one policy option over another. These simplifications are more evident at the normative level: especially those frames used to influence background public sentiments. Finally, foreign experiences provide a manageable, yet easily visible, sample of the vast array of ideational elements informing a policy debate. Examination of how foreign ideas and experiences are corralled, are manipulated, and ultimately inform understandings tell us a great deal about how ideational elements are channeled through different domestic structures. Utilizing the typology of domestic structures of Thomas Risse-Kappen and others, who argue that differences in domestic contexts mediate the policy impact of transnational actors, what follows is an examination of how international ideas flow through different domestic policymaking structures.107

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These findings are presented in Figure 6.3, which summarizes the influence of different policy-relevant ideas in both the agend-asetting and decision-making stages of policy formation.

Primacy of Normative Appeals in Society-Dominated Structures Society-dominated structures exhibit strong social interest pressures for policy change, mediated by decentralized and fragmented political institutions. Legislative authority is not concentrated in a small group of decision makers, while representatives translate prevailing constituent pressures—


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most effectively expressed through social movements and organizations— into workable policies. This arrangement most aptly describes representative democracy in the American context but also characterizes the relegation of policy authority to popular referendum, as in the 1922 Swedish prohibition referendum. In the agenda-setting stage of policy formation, when an issue is established as worthy of decision-maker attention, we find comparatively less attention to policy frames than to policy programs, paradigms, and public sentiments in a society-dominated structure. This should come as little surprise, as within the agenda-setting stage, actors mobilizing such “background” ideational considerations do much of the legwork of raising issue awareness, rather than advancing particular solutions. For our study, those background considerations include the efforts of nineteenth-century temperance societies in decrying the evils of the liquor traffic, thereby strengthening public sentiments in favor of increased controls. Greater transnational interaction through a mature network effectively placed temperance issues squarely on the political agenda by the early twentieth century—not only in the United States but in virtually every Western country with active transnational temperance ties. In addition to public sentiments, cognitive paradigms are important background ideas to consider during the agenda-setting stage. In the United States, the Committee of Fifty objectively evaluated the workable range of potential alcohol control policy programs devoid of prohibitionist dogmatism. They concluded that draconian and illiberal measures were doomed to fail, pointing to the Swedish Gothenburg system as a superior program. Interestingly, across all three case studies, at the agenda-setting stage we find significant activity of theorists and intellectuals in refining cognitive paradigms concerning alcohol control: the Committee of Fifty in the United States, the Nykterhetskommitté in Sweden, and the Russian Kommissiya po voprosu ob alkogolizm. Noteworthy too is that in building on foreign experiences as transmitted through the transnational temperance network, all three came to similar conclusions that prohibition was a bad policy idea, especially when compared with the Gothenburg alternative. Intellectual debate over the acceptable range of options presupposes the existence of programs within the agenda-setting stage. In late nineteenth-century America, retail restrictions, local option, high license, and prohibition had long histories, while the Gothenburg/dispensary program drew significant interest only near century’s end. At the agendasetting stage, attention to the Gothenburg system was primarily of a fact-finding nature, with its practicality and ease of implementation leaving a positive impression. At this early stage, normative frames for

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evaluating the desirability of the Gothenburg program were nonexistent, since temperance entrepreneurs were themselves divided on the issue. Policy preferences coincided with underlying normative ideas: if an individual understands temperance as actively reducing social harms, then the Gothenburg program would be an acceptable solution; if the individual’s understanding conflates temperance with absolute prohibition, then the Gothenburg program would be unacceptable. Indeed, the American agenda-setting stage was marked by such ambivalence within the temperance movement, with respect to both the goals of temperance activism, and the best means for achieving them. This state of affairs changes palpably when we move beyond the agendasetting stage and approach policy choice, as we expect those “background” policy-relevant ideas to fade into the background, and “foreground” considerations—such as cognitive policy options and normative frames—to come to the fore. Yet in the society-dominated structure of American policymaking, the shift from agenda-setting to policy choice results in a disproportionate focus on normative ideational elements: policy frames and public sentiments. Once a policy window has opened, cognitive elements take a back seat to normative ones: the policy options are in place—a choice simply has to be made between them. Scientists, intellectuals, and other “cognitive” elites likewise recede in importance relative to social issue organizations and their influence on public sentiments. Accordingly, at the transnational level epistemic communities that diffuse cognitive ideational notions take a back seat to transnational advocacy networks active in the promotion of normative frames aimed at affecting the state of public sentiment. The ability of organizations such as the Anti-Saloon League and the WCTU to predispose public sentiment in favor of radical prohibitory measures amid the patriotic hysteria of World War I did more to influence the adoption of American prohibition than did cognitive theorists such as the Committee of Fifty and their followers. Likewise, in the foreground of the policy debate, the society-dominated structure prioritizes normative frames over cognitive policy options. By the time we move to policy adoption, the range of programmic policy solutions has been set, although public preferences for one option over another have not. Thus an astute policy entrepreneur would recognize the utility of framing— glorifying desired policy options over their vilified rivals in an effort to sway public opinion. We see evidence of this situation in the positive framing of Russian experience to legitimize the prohibition program in the crucial election of 1916. Indeed, the changing focus from programs to policy frames during the switch from agenda-setting to policy choice is also exactly what is found in


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consideration of the Swedish Gothenburg system. Figure 6.2 shows a dramatic upsurge of American interest in the Gothenburg program during the agenda-setting stage of the 1890s, while few of these fact-finding studies offer scathing criticism. After the turn of the twentieth century, however, the Gothenburg system was established as a rival program within both public and policy circles. The detailed, empirical studies are replaced by articles and pamphlets by ardent prohibitionists who viewed the Gothenburg system as a threat to prohibition. These criticisms are frames for discrediting the Gothenburg system, presenting prohibition as a morally superior policy program. Thus the society-dominated structure of American policymaking grants disproportionate influence to normative ideas in the transition from agendasetting to policy debate and adoption. The particular ideational elements and associated actors can be easily identified through a focus on how foreign experiences are invoked within the domestic policy process. Such findings are consistent with the literature on American policymaking, whereby moments of policy punctuation are often described as a “herdlike phenomenon” as policymakers hurriedly respond to the shifting predilections of public sentiments.108

Primacy of Cognitive Ideational Elements in Corporatist Structures When it comes to agenda-setting, the ideational influence within corporatist systems is virtually identical to that in their society-dominated counterparts; however, differences in the transition from agenda-setting to policy choice could not be more stark: whereas the society-dominated structure gives primacy to normative notions, the corporatist structure is inclined toward cognitive ideational elements, partly because of powerful intermediate organizations operating within an institutional arrangement biased toward workable, compromise solutions. As in the United States, in the agenda-setting stage in Sweden, we find very little policy framing, and more activity in terms of policy programs, paradigms, and public sentiments. Here the focus on international experience is telling: the large degree of “borrowing” transnational temperance organizational forms (such as the establishment of Good Templar lodges based on the American model) as well as extensive ties with European and American temperance compatriots highlight the increasing popular attention to the liquor problem in Sweden during the late nineteenth century. In stark contrast to the situation in the autocratic structure in Russia, this ability to import foreign ideas and organizational forms that influence public perceptions in the background of the policy debate is greatly aided by the

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preservation of civil liberties within a liberal-corporatist domestic structure. As a result, by the late nineteenth century the liquor question was squarely on the Swedish policy agenda. As in the United States, Swedish scientists, theorists, and intellectuals were active in developing cognitive paradigms, which took the form of numerous, exhaustive, and objective studies of foreign alcohol control systems. These presuppose the existence of multiple alcohol control programs, including prohibition, local option, Gothenburg dispensaries, monopolization, and other alternatives. Thus, at the agenda-setting stage within the corporatist system, in terms of foreground policy considerations we see greater attention to alcohol control programs over the activation of particular frames by policy entrepreneurs. As a result, in Figure 6.3 the agendasetting-stage ideational profile of the Swedish, corporatist structure is similar to the society- dominated American model, with primary activity in the background of the debate, and a preference for cognitive elements over normative frames in the foreground. Yet these similarities end abruptly when we move to policy debate and decision making. Unlike in the mobilization of normative elements in the American case, in a corporatist system normative appeals serve little use once an ad hoc committee is formed to draft workable legislation. The emphasis on practicality and consensus is reflected in the dominance of cognitive ideational elements over their normative counterparts. The committee system insulates policymakers from the ever-changing tides of public perception, so that they can more rationally determine the optimal course of policy based on objective—cognitive rather than normative—criteria. As with the Temperance Committee (1911–1920), Swedish committees are comprised of diverse interests, including preeminent scientists, theorists, and other thinkers—Ivan Bratt serving as the quintessential example. The predisposition toward incorporating theorists and their cognitive-level paradigms is evident in the work of the committee itself— conducting extensive interviews with professors, economists, and health experts rather than answering to petitions of pressure groups. These cognitive elements permeate the entire series of committee reports for proposed legislation, which despite being drafted by leaders of temperance organizations, universally forego normative, dogmatic appeals to public sentiment in favor of policy proposals based on rational anticipation of the vast range of consequences. Thus, in the corporatist system, at the policymaking stage—with legislation entrusted to ad hoc committees— decisions rely more on cognitive paradigms than on normative public sentiments. Therefore we expect that, ceteris paribus, epistemic communities that communicate cognitive paradigms exhibit greater influence on the corporatist policy process than transnational advocacy networks


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disseminating normative frames with an aim of influencing public sentiments. The other cognitive elements that receive greater attention at the policymaking stage are the policy programs themselves. Compared to a society-dominated context, where decision making comes down to a choice between available options, in the corporatist system we find the opportunity for bricolage and policy innovation both inside and outside of the committee system. Debating legislative proposals among a small number of theorists allows for the cross-germination of ideas, ultimately resulting in concrete legislative proposals that may be different from the range of alternatives available in the agenda-setting stage. The Temperance Committee was initially charged with analyzing the available range of alcohol control programs: local option, Gothenburg, and prohibition systems. Yet when the work of the committee was done, the innovative Bratt system of individual alcohol rationing won out, despite not being one of those initial programs. Thus, while the society-dominated and corporatist structures of policymaking exhibit tremendous similarities at the agenda-setting stage of policy formation, once the shift is made toward policy debate resulting in policy choice, the predictable channeling of diverse interests through the corporatist committee structure leads to an across-the-board predisposition for cognitive elements over their normative counterparts. This finding is broadly consonant with the existing literature, which lauds the rational and deliberative—if sometimes slow and dull—creation of public policies in corporatist countries like Sweden.109

Bringing “Foreground” Ideational Elements to the Fore in Autocratic Structures Autocratic domestic structures are characterized by the concentration of political power in the hands of a small, insulated cadre of decision makers, who are ambivalent toward and actively discourage societal organization. While there may be some external pressures for policy change “from below,” outside of revolutionary or regicidal episodes, the impetus for policy change in autocratic systems is likely to come through indirect mechanisms of interest representation. Compared with corporatist and society-dominated structures, we should then expect to see a different pattern of salient ideational elements within the autocratic structure at both the agenda-setting and policy-choice stages. The agenda-setting stage within an autocratic structure bears some similarities to more open structures, given the predominance of cognitive

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elements. Indeed, as it relates to the Russian liquor question, we find significant attention to the development and evaluation of alternatives to the imperial monopoly in the late nineteenth century. Members of Russian obshchestvo, including scientists, physicians, and academic theorists, were engaged in paradigmatic debates over the possible range of alcohol control programs and over the applicability of foreign alternatives to Russian domestic conditions. Such debates presuppose the existence of the various alcohol control programs already in existence in the foreground of the policy debate. Thus, in considering cognitive policy aspects of the liquor issue in the agenda-setting stage, we find similarities between the “closed,” autocratic system in Russia and more “open” systems in the West. Indeed, within the educated strata, we see fact-finding missions and objective alcohol control debates analogous to their Western counterparts, which came to similar conclusions against the bad policy of prohibition. The ability of Russian theorists to draw upon transnational linkages to inform their objective paradigms like their American and Swedish counterparts is also worthy of note. The most glaring difference in the autocratic structure is the virtual absence of public sentiments from policy agenda-setting. The suffocation of independent temperance organizations under both the tsars and the communists—and especially those organizations with international ties— impeded mass familiarity with the temperance ideals commonly held in the West. Thus not only is the citizenry absent from the policymaking process, but isolation from the influence of transnational sentiments also makes it difficult to consider the proto-temperance, anti-government, anti-monopoly, and anti-alcohol sentiments in Russia to be analogous to the organized public temperance sentiments in the West. As with each previous case, the switch from agenda-setting to decision making dramatically alters the active realms of policy-relevant ideas and actors. Given the institutional insulation of autocratic decision makers, the primary ideational realms associated with the adoption of policy consist of those elements in the foreground of the debate: the cognitive policy programs and the normative frames. Background elements and actors are further marginalized: theorists and constituent pressures had little impact on the Russian prohibition decision, except as part of the chorus of patriotic support that provided a positive feedback mechanism following the wartime-mobilization prohibition. More important are the policymakers—the tsar and his ministers and advisors—in choosing one program over another. This concentration of authority is reflected in the search for causes of Russian prohibition from within the closed world of courtly intrigues and the psychology of the tsar, rather than as a benevolent response to temperance sentiments of the


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Russian masses or intelligentsia. The normative frame is crucial in guiding the decision makers’ choice of a policy program in these political circumstances.110 Given the perceived necessity of military sobriety with the outbreak of war, the most resonant normative frame called for prohibition as a wartime measure, if only the revenue-generation issues could be overcome. Once financial concerns were allayed, the military frame trumped the revenue frame, paving the way for Nicholas II to implement nationwide prohibition. In sum: when it comes to setting the autocratic agenda, actors and ideas at the cognitive level—including policymakers, programs, elite theorists, and their paradigmatic debates—are favored over the normative frames and public sentiments. The shift from agenda setting to policy decision can come quickly, as autocratic leaders, unconstrained by institutional counterweights to their authority, can decree the immediate implementation of dramatic policy changes based on shared frames as to the necessity of the policy change. Such findings are in accord with not only studies of the autocratic policy process, but also the literature highlighting the amplified impact of transnational activists—having gained access to autocratic policymaking circles—through the manipulation of normative frames held by the leaders themselves.111

CONCLUSIONS Tracing ideas with an explicit “foreign” connotation highlights discernible patterns of how different policy-relevant ideas are corralled, manipulated, and incorporated in different institutional structures. Across the board, tremendous similarities exist at the agenda-setting stage. Although public sentiments are effectively disenfranchised in the autocratic system, elite theorists and their cognitive paradigms are active in agendasetting regardless of system. The primary differences arise during the move from agenda-setting to policymaking stages: moving from the left side to the right in Figure 6.3. Each institutional structure favors particular actors and related ideational types in the policy decision: greater mobilization of normative elements—frames and their affected public sentiments—in the “herdlike” clamor for prohibition in the United States, as opposed to corporatist Sweden, where normative considerations take a back seat to objective, cognitive elements—programs, policymakers, elite theorists, and their paradigms—as they are channeled through the committee system. Finally, in the autocratic case foreground elements in the policy debate—policymakers, their cognitive policy options, and normative frames—trump background ideas and actors, including obshchestvo and mass sentiment.

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This interpretation is firmly rooted in predominant understandings of the policy process in each system, while inter-case comparisons further substantiate these propensities. For instance: by 1920 the Swedish Temperance Committee was at an impasse—Bratt initiated his innovative rationing system in Stockholm, the ardent prohibitionists clamored for nationwide prohibition, while the liquor issue threatened to splinter each of the main political parties along wet–dry lines. As a way out, political leaders took the question directly to the citizenry as the 1922 advisory referendum: if two-thirds of the public voted in favor, legislators would be compelled to adopt prohibition. To be sure, this was a dramatic deviation from the corporatist system, more resembling a society-dominated structure. If the institutional structure changes dramatically, we should expect to see similar changes in the salience of different ideational types and their related actors. This is exactly what was found: with decision-making authority switched from a small committee to the entire citizenry, we find an immediate mobilization of the heretofore latent normative elements in the Swedish alcohol debate. The run-up to the August 1922 referendum included campaigns by both wets and drys to sway public sentiment by mobilizing different normative frames. Figure 4.3 shows a sudden and dramatic upsurge in attention to the alcohol issue, and Table 6.5 reveals increased consideration of American and other foreign experiences with prohibition, framing the particular virtues or drawbacks. Earlier “thick descriptions” associated with the development of nuanced cognitive paradigms disappeared in favor of brief, propagandistic leaflets intent on swaying public sentiments. In short, the switch from the corporatist to society-dominated decision-making structure predictably spurred a shifting emphasis from cognitive to normative ideas and associated actors. Examining foreign influences on national policymaking furthers our understanding of the relevance of different ideational elements within different decision-making contexts. First, it allows us to move beyond simple, unidirectional learning from foreign experiences. Rather than examining the roles of policy innovators who “lend” their experiences and ideas to other countries to be adopted, we must understand international policy-relevant learning as a complex and multidimensional exchange. Even within a “lender” country, policy innovations and experiences abroad are constantly “borrowed,” examined, and utilized. Each structure exhibits a constant process of repeated analysis and, continual reframing of foreign experiences, though the particular channels for foreign penetration and influence differ. Additionally considering prohibition as bad policy highlights these particular ideational mechanisms of policy diffusion, rather than blindly assuming convergence on international best practice. Second, this incorporation of foreign experiences highlights the importance of transnational issue networks for national policymaking.112 While


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the transnational temperance network can be credited with diffusing concern for public sobriety among a wide variety of receptive publics, even where those normative understandings are stymied by autocratic domestic systems, they may still affect the alcohol discourse through sharing elitelevel cognitive paradigms and the potential policy alternatives themselves. Thus, just as policy learning is continuous and multidimensional, so too is the role of networks of transnational issue advocacy, depending on the particular domestic political structure. As a result, we expect to find greater influence of epistemic communities’ cognitive policy ideas on developments in corporatist structures, and advocacy networks’ normative appeals on policy in society-dominated structures. Third, the focus on ideas with an expressed international component accentuates how different domestic structures relate to different ideational forms at different points in the policy process. Public sentiments, cognitive paradigms, and the policy options themselves are actively developed in the agenda-setting stage, but once we move to policy decision, normative ideational concerns—public sentiments and ideational frames—dominate the society-dominated structure. Conversely, the corporatist system emphasizes cognitive elements—paradigms and policy programs—at the expense of normative elements. In the autocratic structure, foreground policy considerations—policy options and frames—dominate over public sentiments and elite paradigms. Finally, for contemporary studies of transnational networks as conduits of information and ideas, this analysis suggests that strategies of information politics should vary according to both the institutional structure of the target state, and the stage in the policy debate.113 For instance, when it comes to policy debate and choice, ceteris paribus, normative appeals are more likely to resonate in a society-dominated system, cognitive ideational aspects are more likely to resonate within a corporatist system, while activists must work to gain access and influence the foreground policy considerations within a closed, autocratic structure—promoting desired policy programs and new frames through which to view them. This chapter demonstrates how policy ideas and transnational influences on the policy process vary with respect to political structure. What remains is to combine these insights with earlier considerations of the different feedback processes implicit in each institutional structure to complete the picture of how the interaction of transnational ideas and national decision making structures produced the prohibition policy “wave” of the early twentieth century. This will be the task of chapter 7.

Chapter 7 Transnational Activism and National Policymaking

Why have U.S. political scientists addressed this country’s policymaking in a fashion largely innocent of international comparisons? . . . Why did X happen in many places? can sometimes give better traction than: Why did X happen in the United States? —David Mayhew (1994) Rather than being “put over” by some uniquely American cultural movement, prohibition in the United States was but one part of a global policy wave against alcohol and its attendant “evils.” Fully half of all countries then in existence increased restrictions on alcohol at approximately the same time in the 1910s, with the United States joining ten other Western countries to adopt the quintessential bad policy of prohibition.1 But why should that be? To be sure, the crises associated with World War I provide the most obvious explanation for the imposition of dramatic alcohol controls in so many countries, especially in Europe. But why should the crisis of war provoke a clampdown on alcohol? From the Franco-Prussian War and the Balkan Wars through World War II, no other conflagration on the European continent produced a prohibition wave similar to that of World War I. This suggests that, in addition to ideational and institutional elements—reflected in transnational temperance and national decision-making structures respectively—temporal considerations are also necessary in explaining the prohibition wave. In other words, why did World War I become a catalyst for dramatic changes in alcohol control policy when other crises did not? Each of the previous chapters scrutinized different elements of the prohibition puzzle. Chapter 2 charted the development and strengthening of the transnational temperance advocacy network, which transmitted different ideas—policy programs, frames, paradigms, and public sentiments—across national borders and policymaking contexts. Chapters 3 through 5 examined the process of alcohol policymaking in the United States, Sweden, and Russia, highlighting important differences in the institutional structures of policymaking in each country. Chapter 6 weaved these diverse experiences


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together, demonstrating how each institutional structure channels ideational elements differently. This chapter completes the comparison by laying bare the differences in the policymaking process in these three different cases, ultimately enhancing our understanding of both the international prohibition and alcohol control policy waves, and the importance of institutions in affecting policy choices. This comparison will tell us a great deal about of the interplay of ideas and institutions in the formation of social policies. Rather than being content that “ideas matter” or that ideas and institutions interact to produce particular policy outcomes; bringing together the detailed comparisons of previous chapters will permit us to understand precisely how they interact, and how that interaction differs across institutional arrangements.

EXPLAINING PROHIBITION John Stuart Mill famously noted that “ideas, unless outward circumstances conspire with them, have in general no very rapid or immediate efficacy in human affairs.”2 In order for ideas—good or bad—to have an influence on policy, they must come to the attention of those who make policy, and the channels through which issues come to the attention of decision makers is determined by the institutional structure.3 Consequently, if we are to speak of temperance ideas influencing the adoption of prohibition in different national settings, we must also consider the context of decision making, including variations in the domestic structure of policymaking and statesociety relations, the subsequent differences in policy feedback mechanisms in each structure, as well as changing political and economic considerations—the influence of World War I in particular—in influencing the receptivity and policy salience of different ideational elements. Such comparisons will help us to understand why different states did or did not adopt the disastrous policy of prohibition, and also how different policymaking systems respond to external stimuli such as political and economic crises.

Domestic Structure and State-Society Relations More than a decade ago, in an influential volume testing various propositions on the policy influence of transnational ideas, Thomas Risse-Kappen concluded that “domestic structures mediate, refract, and filter” ideational elements into national policies, and that variations in domestic institutional structures go far in explaining differences in policy outcomes when these ideas are exposed to similar external stimuli.4 In this book, we have extended that analysis by examining the influence of three distinct domestic structures

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on the quality of policy decisions: the society-dominated structure as in the American case, the corporatist structure as in Sweden, and the autocratic structure as was evident in late imperial and early Soviet Russia. A comparison of alcohol control policy in each country illustrates the institutional dynamics that conditioned the acceptance of the bad policy of prohibition over more effective alternatives (or rejection, in the case of Sweden). The most notable dynamics involve the disproportionate influence of normative ideational elements over their cognitive counterparts in society-dominated and autocratic structures, different institutional mechanisms of policy feedback, and the impact of World War I in opening a window for rapid policy change by hastening the process from agenda setting to policy decision. Each will be addressed in turn. In his path-breaking 1936 work, Sweden: The Middle Way, Marquis Childs had a straightforward explanation for why Sweden did not succumb to the same clamor for prohibition as in the United States, stating simply “that Sweden debated first and acted afterwards.”5 His quick comparison underscores that policy outcomes are mediated by the institutional constraints of the corporatist system. These constraints inclined policymakers to more fully consider practical policy implications based on cognitive, paradigmatic understandings rather than simply reflecting the vacillations of public opinion. Two particular institutional elements deserve to be highlighted here: the isolative and temporal. First, the insulation of the official Temperance Committee from the tides of popular sentiment—including appeals to patriotic sentiment with the outbreak of war—along with the routinized and predictable incorporation of diverse interests within the policy committee dampened expectations of rapid policy change. Second, the sheer duration of committee work (1911–1920) permitted the prohibitionist pressures that arose with the Great War to pass without resulting in drastic policy change. In other words, the window for policy change associated with World War I was allowed to close as prohibitionist public sentiment gradually abated. Together, these institutional elements predisposed policymakers toward cognitive elements—paradigms and programs— based on practicality and consensus, over normative frames and public sentiments in both the setting of the policy agenda as well as in the ultimate formation of Swedish alcohol policy. Childs’s implicit comparison further highlights those elements of the society-dominated system that he faulted for America’s prohibition follies: the lack of debate in the mad rush toward prohibition. One of the most striking elements of American prohibition history, as described in chapter 3, is that the American prohibition “debate” elicited virtually no debate in the legislature at all. There were no congressional hearings on the advisability of prohibition; normative arguments concerning the moral necessity


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of prohibition went unchallenged, and conscientious objectors citing earlier state-level prohibition failures were branded as unpatriotic, if not outright German collaborators. As a result, ratification of the Eighteenth Amendment “‘came with a speed and an avalanche-like irresistibility’ that surprised both wets and drys.”6 Juxtaposed against the corporatist system, we see how this striking lack of policy debate arose from the institutional constraints of the American policymaking system. The society-dominated system lacks particular institutional features that facilitate debate and preclude rapid shifts in policy. First, legislators bent on reelection are highly attuned to the shifting whims of public sentiment and are charged with translating the preferences of their constituents into policy, even where the representative may have strong personal misgivings. Thus, while there existed a longstanding paradigmatic understanding among policymakers going back to the investigations of the Committee of Fifty as to the impracticality of prohibition and the benefits of the liquor trade to the treasury, such cognitive considerations easily gave way to the normative tidal wave of public sentiment in favor of the prohibition program. Indeed, for such representatives, it was better to be “wrong” with prohibition than to be “right” with its competitors. Second, when faced with such overwhelming pressures for a particular program, especially during periods of political crisis, the society-dominated structure facilitates rapid adoption of legislation despite other institutional checks against rapid action. While prohibition’s infringements on individual liberties necessitated the passing of a constitutional amendment—a process that was meant to take a great deal of time to ratify, plus an additional year to go into effect—even this obstacle could be side-stepped if prohibition was rapidly adopted as a military mobilization measure, while the work of making the policy permanent could be conducted by prohibitionists capitalizing on a patriotic sentiment largely sympathetic toward such sacrifices. Using the exigencies of war to bypass constitutional hurdles against rash policies and circumvent the normal process of congressional hearings and deliberation must be understood as inherent aspects of a society-dominated structure that predispose normative ideational aspects at the expense of cognitive paradigms. Similar to the American case, prohibition was adopted in Russia with no debate. This is hardly surprising, of course, given that in this institutional structure of autocratic policymaking, the tsar could decree whatever legislation suited him, especially during wartime. Yet the comparison with the American and Swedish cases further highlights those elements of the autocratic structure that predisposed Russia toward the disastrous prohibition program. First, while there was no debate over prohibition in the United States because there was near-unanimous support for it; there was no debate in Russia because there was near-unanimous opposition to it. That Tsar

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Nicholas II was able to adopt so radical a measure over the paradigmatic opposition of the Petrograd policy elite speaks volumes about the lack of institutional constraints on policy decisions within the autocratic context— even after 1905. Second, being able to forego policy debate based on paradigmatic understandings or public sentiments allowed for the rapid adoption of prohibition—first as a mobilization measure, then as a permanent policy—and demonstrates the dominance of foreground elements in the autocratic policy process (policy programs and shared normative frames) over the background paradigms and public sentiments that would subsequently fall in line to support the wartime policy. Moreover, it demonstrates the ease with which normative policy frames can overcome cognitive considerations of practicality and policy effectiveness within the autocratic structure. Thus, while the autocratic system may be insulated from the influence of public sentiment (as in the Swedish case), it is prone to quick changes in policy (as in the American case), given the absence of institutional checks on the power of the autocrat, especially during a period of crisis.

Policy Feedback In 1986 the world’s worst civilian nuclear disaster occurred at Chernobyl in Soviet Ukraine. In laying blame for this horrific tragedy, nuclear engineers pointed to a combination of human error and lack of fail-safes with an inherent flaw in such Soviet-designed reactors. As it turns out, all nuclear reactor designs exhibit different “void coefficients” of reactivity, which mediate the likelihood of a nuclear meltdown. Boiling water reactors generally have negative void coefficients—negative feedback mechanisms—that dampen rather than exacerbate core reactivity. Some reactor designs have no void coefficients at all, while others have a slight positive void coefficient. The Chernobyl-type water-cooled, graphite-moderated (RBMK) reactor, however, has a dangerously high positive void coefficient—a positive-feedback mechanism—that compounds reactivity, making the likelihood for runaway reactions and tragic meltdowns exponentially more likely in Soviet-built RBMKs than in any other model of nuclear reactor on earth.7 We can think of domestic structures as analogous to nuclear reactors— with different institutions providing different propensities for either positive or negative feedback. All policymaking systems have numerous mechanisms of negative feedback that promote stability and incremental change. Yet like nuclear reactors, these systems differ in how easily these negative-feedback processes can be overcome by a switch to self-reinforcing positive feedback to cause a sudden policy change. Viewed this way, the American society-dominated system possesses a mix of positive and negative


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policy-feedback mechanisms, the Swedish, corporatist arrangement exhibits more elements of negative feedback, while the autocratic, Russian system has more elements that facilitate a switch to positive feedback. Inherent in the American policymaking system is a mix of negative- and positive-feedback mechanisms that are both general and specific to a given issue area. Negative-feedback information processes counterbalance challenges to the established policy equilibrium. Institutionalized policy monopolies based on shared paradigmatic policy understandings provide one such element of policy stability, while an additional community with significant investments in the status quo also defuses pressures for policy change. In the prohibition debate, for example, there were numerous influential actors opposed to policy change. Beyond the often vilified tavern owners and liquor producers were labor unions and government bodies that were deriving significant revenues from the alcohol trade. Government revenue considerations and the looming challenge of passing a constitutional amendment further discouraged the adoption of bad policies, such as prohibition. Sudden policy changes or “punctuations” in the American system can be understood as the superseding of negative-feedback mechanisms by positive-feedback processes that amplify rather than dampen pressures for policy change. With a domestic structure that provides policymakers comparatively little insulation from the changing tides of public sentiment, the dynamics of public attention and public sentiments have a greater influence on policy in the American case. In particular, the potential for mimicking behavior, opinion cascades, and heightened public attention to an issue may provide tremendous pressures for policymakers to enact popular, yet misguided policies. New information or altered circumstances may also shift public attention from one underlying dimension of policy choice to another, leading to rapid changes in public sentiment and discourse, and even stronger calls for policy change. This phenomenon is nowhere more apparent than in the reframing of the liquor question from a moral issue to a patriotic, economic, and security issue in light of American involvement in World War I. The crisis of war allowed absolutist policy entrepreneurs to reframe the prohibition program as more compatible with prevailing cognitive paradigms and public sentiments. The combination of reframing, heightened issue attention, and shortened time horizons for decision making accelerated the adoption of prohibition. Such elements of positive feedback within the American system are particularly apparent in comparative context. The institutional profile of Swedish corporatism has more elements of negative policy feedback than does the American system, promoting policy stasis and incremental change at the expense of dramatic policy punc-

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tuations. First, the centrality of bureaucratic policy monopolies or “iron triangles”—which promote practicality and consensus in policy administration, the development of legislation, and in consultation within the committee system provides an even stronger mechanism of negative policy feedback than their American counterparts, which are peripheral to the initiation of legislation and policy deliberation. Second, the consultative system of corporatist policymaking permits the inclusion of divergent interests, thus preventing the exclusion of any affected constituency. Third, the corporatist propensity for cognitive ideational elements in the policymaking process over their normative counterparts (as described in chapter 6) provides an additional negative-feedback mechanism, since such objective studies are antithetical to the type of hysteric push for the implementation of what turned out to be a bad policy, as in the American case. Likewise, in the Swedish context, it is difficult to imagine the same sort of vilification and disenfranchisement of brewers, tavern keepers, workers, and others with a vested interest in opposing prohibition, as occurred in the American push for prohibition. This inability to marginalize opposition viewpoints is a fourth element of negative policy feedback in Sweden, whereas it potentially provides positive feedback in the American case. The incorporation of bureaucratic functionaries into the initiation of policy legislation, policy debate, and consultation also means that the vested interests of the corporatist state itself cannot be easily marginalized. Therefore, while the economic arguments of American prohibitionists concentrated on the need to wean the government from its dependence on “ill-gotten” alcohol revenues, the necessity of maintaining needed government revenues consistently prevented the riksdag from running away to join the prohibition circus. While the cascades of Swedish public sentiment in favor of a particular policy action—including mimicking behavior and heightened issue attention—may be similar to the process in the United States, the insulation of policymakers within the closed, corporatist committee system prevents such tides of public opinion from being translated into policy. Thus, while similar processes and actors in the transnational temperance network may have placed the liquor question squarely on the policy agenda in each country, the different institutional arrangements precluded such sentiments from being enacted as bad policy in Sweden during the policy-decision stage. If the example of corporatist Sweden proves useful in highlighting different aspects of negative feedback, autocratic Russia highlights the importance of positive policy feedback in the enactment of bad policy. To be sure, there are many elements with the potential for maintaining negative feedback and policy stability, such as the hierarchical structure of the imperial


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bureaucracy, the undermining of “subversive” grass-roots social mobilization, and the seemingly intractable reliance on vodka revenues to the treasury—all of which consistently stifled policy innovation and calls for change “from below.” This, along with a general emphasis on control, order, and predictability among Russian ruling circles meant that “revolutionary” policy change would have to be initiated “from above”—and it goes without saying that such changes would never take place if it were not in the explicit interest of the autocrat and his advisors. Yet even these elements of negative feedback that provided policy stability (and even decay) for years if not decades, could be easily overcome by the tendency to switch from negative- to positive-feedback processes. As in the American case, new information and new policy frames based on heightened issue attention and the highlighting of different salient dimensions of the issue make possible sudden policy change; however, in the autocratic agenda-setting process, ideational pressures for change originate with elite obshchestvo, imperial ministers, generals, and the tsar himself rather than from public sentiments. Given the insulation of autocratic decision makers, policies can be adopted without consideration of vested interests. In fact the will of the tsar trumps most reservations, regardless of their practical bases. Thus, once convinced of the virtues of a particular course of action, the role of traditional checks—including the influential Ministry of Finance—was not to challenge the wisdom of the decision but rather to laud it, reinforce it, and search for a way to make the decision workable in practice. Indeed, the constant reassurances of Imperial Finance Minister Peter Bark as to the economic godsend of prohibition despite the fatal erosion of state finances are particularly telling of the switch from negative- to positive-feedback mechanisms of autocratic policymaking. Therefore, even the financial bureaucracy, which in every case acts as a brake on dramatic policy change, can quickly become a source of positive policy feedback, reinforcing the adoption of a bad policy. This activation of positive-feedback processes within the Ministry of Finance is emblematic of the entire autocratic domestic structure, including a sycophantic bureaucracy, an ingratiating intelligentsia, and an obedient peasant class seeking to praise the “infallible” benevolence of the tsar—all amplified by the patriotic hysteria of wartime. At virtually every level where one might expect some checks against radical policy change—within the conservative bureaucracy, vested economic interests of elites, and even the indifference of the peasantry—we find in the autocratic system a tremendous propensity for positive feedback to overwhelm dissenting calls for moderation. This should come as little surprise, as the literature on authoritarian stability has long recognized the disjuncture between the preferences of the masses and the policies of the autocrat, and the lack of institutional

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channels for bringing the latter in line with the former.8 Thus differing institutional feedback profiles provided different pathways to prohibition— in the American case positive policy feedback mechanisms enabled the adoption of prohibition in response to overwhelming public support; in the Swedish case the moderating influence of negative-feedback processes prevented prohibition despite overwhelming public support; and in the Russian case the prevalence of positive-feedback mechanisms provided widespread support only after the fact, while prohibition was initially adopted over widespread opposition. Thus just as the investigation into the disaster at Chernobyl helped nuclear engineers to uncover different feedback propensities, or void coefficients, in various nuclear reactor designs, the comparison of the disastrous failures of the bad policy of prohibition points to different propensities for positive or negative feedback within various institutional arrangements. These feedback propensity profiles are summarized in Table 7.1.

Table 7.1 Positive and Negative Feedback Propensity Profiles for Domestic Structures System

Corporatist Sweden

SocietyDominated United States

Country Bureaucratic Policy Monopolies Based on Shared Paradigmatic Understandings Propensity to Disregard Diverse Vested Interests Consideration of State Revenue Needs Institutionalized Protection of Civil Liberties Insulation of Decision Makers

Autocratic Russia/USSR

−

−

−/+

−

−/+

−/+

−

−/+

−/+

−

−/+

+

−

+

+

− −/+

+ −/+

+ +

−/+

+

+

Feedback Impacts of External Crisis on Domestic Policymaking: Shortened Time Horizons Changed Locus of Decision Making Issue Reframing, Nationalistic Sentiment

Key to Feedback Mechanisms: Does the mechanism provide negative policy feedback (−), positive feedback (+), or a propensity for both (−/+)?


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The Influence of World War I No consideration of the global wave of alcohol restrictions would be complete without the catalyzing role of World War I. Historians and contemporary observers alike have recognized the crucial role of external crisis in accelerating the prohibition cause, both in the United States and abroad.9 “Nothing empowers central government power quite like wars,” James A. Monroe notes in his Hellfire Nation. “After the endless brawls over drinking, wartime mobilization—and war fervor—finally lifted national Prohibition into place.”10 At the same time, alcohol prohibition alone was never a necessary consequence of political crisis. So how do we understand the connection between the Great War and bad policy? The answer lies in the impacts of external crisis on the process of decision making in each country, which can be divided into three broad categories (likewise reflected in Table 7.1): the shortening of time horizons for policy action, the potential for changing the locus of decision making (and therefore the relevant policymakers), and the reframing of issues given heightened attention amidst a context of patriotic sacrifice and defense. First and foremost, national crises and looming external threats accelerate the pace of domestic policymaking and open windows for dramatic policy change, as both public and policymaker attention focuses on confronting pressing external challenges.11 Such shortened time horizons curtail policy deliberation, make apparently simple solutions to complex issues more appealing, and facilitate a shift from parallel to serial information processing in an attempt to confront grave threats to physical and economic security.12 Often cited as sources of external, “event-driven” policy change,13 these pressures are filtered differently in different institutional arrangements. In autocratic Russia, the crisis of war made the most difficult domestic problems “amenable to easy solutions,”14 allowing the tsar to implement dramatic changes through administrative fiat. In the United States, the “emergency surrounding war mobilization precluded long debate on the prohibition amendment.”15 And yet, in corporatist Sweden, while the looming crisis of war on the continent also accelerated the pace of policymaking (especially on military and economic issues), there was no similar curtailing of debate, since the prohibition issue was being investigated by the Temperance Committee. Second, crises can change the locus of decision making, often empowering the national executive and the defense establishment at the expense of local, civilian decision makers, such as in the case of mass conscription, war taxation, and requisition. In the United States, the needs of war shifted the alcohol issue from being the sole purview of the states to one requiring federal attention. Similarly, the fact that prohibition was originally adopted as

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an emergency war mobilization and resource conservation measure by the commander-in-chief of the armed forces is particularly telling. A similar situation occurred in Russia, where prohibition was initiated as a military mobilization measure and ultimately urged upon the tsar by military leaders. Moreover, the need for fast action further marginalized the imperial Duma in favor of the autocrat, who wielded supreme decision-making authority in issues of national security. In Sweden as well, the needs of national defense empowered the executive—the king and his cabinet—at the expense of the legislature, but as the alcohol issue was being investigated by the Temperance Committee, the prohibition issue was not easily amenable to a change in locus of policymaking. The final impact of crisis decision making concerned heightened attention and reframing of the issue in congruence with patriotic calls for sober sacrifice in defense of the homeland. From an issue of moral shortcoming and societal harm, the liquor question was quickly reframed as being parasitic to the cause of national defense and military victory. Drawing on the lessons of the Russo-Japanese War, in which Russian defeat at the hands of an “inferior” Asiatic opponent was attributed to the vice of alcohol, virtually every major armed force initiated alcohol restrictions and urged more widespread prohibitory measures be enacted at the outset of the Great War as part of the “cult of military sobriety.” As a result, the evils of war were often justified with reference to the social benefits of forced sobriety in a manner that is difficult to appreciate today. Consider, for instance, the following words of Colonel L. Mervin Maus, of the Medical Corps of the U.S. Army: Even if the war in Europe costs ten billion dollars, if it destroys five million human lives and devastates the fairest countries of the world, it will be a small price to pay compared with the value of total abstinence among those nations for succeeding generations, and I feel that it will come to that in the national results of the war. This is not only a war of men against men, but a war against the greatest evil the world has ever known . . . the effects of alcohol upon the human mind.16

Such notions not only embody the reframing of the alcohol issue amidst the crisis of war, but also highlight the shift in discursive focus away from shared paradigmatic policy consensus as to the practical inadvisability of prohibition that stabilized the prewar policy. Thus external crises can produce dramatic changes in seemingly unrelated areas of domestic policy—by shortening time horizons for policy action, changing the location of policymaking (empowering different decision makers), and prompting a shift in focus on salient issue dimensions—as the looming external crisis of World War I greatly accelerated the prohibition cause in many countries. While such institutional responses vary from one domestic structure to another,


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the existence of such a military crisis goes far in explaining the timing of the international “wave” of alcohol policy change in the 1910s, though it does not necessarily explain the content or direction of that policy change, as dozens of countries adopted greater restrictions on alcohol, with eleven countries adopting the policy of prohibition. To understand why so many countries enacted such similar measures, we must consider to the transnational temperance network in spreading common understandings of the desirability of alcohol restrictions.

THE IMPORTANCE OF THE TRANSNATIONAL TEMPERANCE ADVOCACY NETWORK The burgeoning literature has established that transnational advocacy networks (TANs) diffuse norms, ideas, and other principled beliefs that may be translated into policy. Less clear are the conditions under which TANs are more or less successful in influencing policy change, and the mechanisms that they utilize.17 As described in chapter 2, a mature temperance TAN, with many actors, extensive resources, and reliable and routine information flows, already existed in the middle to late nineteenth century, providing much of the ideational content that paved the way for the early twentiethcentury prohibition policy “wave.” Comparative analysis of the role of transnational influence within different domestic structures in the presence of similar external stimuli (World War I) not only allows causal inference on the role of institutional differences on policy, but also sheds light on network communicative processes. Here we may build upon the TAN literature, which underscores the importance of particular network characteristics, “target” state characteristics, and communication processes in promoting policy change.18 Margaret Keck and Kathryn Sikkink’s Activists Beyond Borders (1998) highlights the first factor, whereby transnational advocacy networks are most effective “when they are dense, with many actors, strong connections among groups in the network, and reliable information flows.”19 To be sure, well before the dawn of the twentieth century the mature transnational temperance network fits this description. Chapter 6 provided insight into how policy-relevant developments in one country were communicated to another through the network and ultimately influenced similar policies. However, the “receptivity” of each country depended on elements that are either more or less important to both the placing of the liquor question on the political agenda and the adoption of policy: TANs acted as ideational brokers, transmitting not only policy programs and normative frames based on

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foreign experiences, but also predisposed public sentiments and cognitive elite paradigms as to the desirability of alcohol restrictions. Yet once World War I forced the shift from agenda setting to policy choice, foreign policy ideas influenced domestic policymaking differently—influencing public sentiments in the society-dominated American structure, informing cognitive paradigms in corporatist Sweden, and effecting decision maker understandings through the mobilization of normative frames in autocratic Russia. While these experiences validate the proposition that transnational networks are most effective when they are most dense, there is also reason to question whether this is necessarily so, or if the influence/density connection is more a function of the types of ideational elements that are relevant to particular domestic structures.20 While one would assume that a dense, mature transnational network would be more effective in influencing public sentiments and background paradigmatic understandings (as in the American and Swedish cases) than a thinner network; the fact that desired policy outcome (prohibition) was enacted in autocratic Russia— traditionally on the margins of the transnational temperance network—primarily through the conveyance of different normative frames gives us pause. History is replete with similar examples whereby “weak” transnational activists with particular access to elite circles of autocratic decision making end up disproportionately influencing policy through the activation of particular frames.21 Thus, while network maturity may be one factor in explaining policy change, it is not the sole determinant. Our consideration of prohibition highlights the second factor in gauging transnational network effectiveness: particular vulnerabilities of “target” states to transnational influence. This speaks to Mauro Guillén’s assertions that institutional circumstances have to be conducive for ideas to be adopted into practice.22 Considered in terms of sensitivity to economic sanctions or reputational costs, this analysis suggests that inherent vulnerabilities exist in different domestic structures, and that the nature of these vulnerabilities changes during different stages in the policymaking process. While we have identified different feedback profiles (Table 7.1) and ideational salience (Figure 6.3) for society-dominated, corporatist, and autocratic polities, there might well be different profiles for other systems, which transnational activists and epistemic communities might capitalize upon to maximize their policy influence. The varying resonance of ideational elements at different stages in policymaking in each institutional structure speaks directly to the third element of network influence: communication strategies. It has been long recognized that a primary tool of transnational activism is the ability of TANs to marshal information to reframe issues or lobby constituents to a particular cause.23 By understanding the role of transnational activists as ideational


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brokers, active in linking different elements in the policy process (in the center of John Campbell’s typology used in Figure 6.1), we can better understand the diverse impacts that TANs can have in promoting the whole range of policy-relevant ideas. First, as we have seen, transnational networks—and international epistemic communities of interested experts—were essential in diffusing policy programs, such as prohibition or the Gothenburg system. A second element includes normative frames—networks transmit information as normative argumentation on behalf of a particular program at the expense of competing options, including the status quo. While such frames are important elements in the foreground of the policy debate, transnational advocacy networks, especially those with extensive organizational resources, can use such frames to influence the third ideational element— public sentiments. Indeed, mere involvement in transnational activism can be tremendously influential to public sentiment by demonstrating the universality of a particular cause—in this case, against alcohol. In the words of Sidney Tarrow, such “[g]lobal framing can dignify and generalize claims that might otherwise remain narrow or parochial.”24 Finally, TANs transmit cognitive paradigms that speak to the desirability of policy change. Indeed, in that such networks—especially the early transnational temperance, abolitionist, and suffragist networks—were comprised mainly of elite activists, paradigmatic understandings are commonly transmitted among theorists, intellectuals, and policy entrepreneurs. The frequent, well-researched debates over the effectiveness of different alcohol control programs at the biennial temperance congresses provide ample evidence of the role of transnational networks in the diffusion of cognitive paradigms in addition to frames, policy programs, and public sentiments. A detailed examination of the influence of temperance transnationalism on policy development tells us much more about the communication strategies of transnational activists beyond the default assumption that they simply lobby for the adoption of “best practice.” In fact, understanding transnational advocates as ideational brokers linking the diverse ideas and actors (Figure 6.3) provides, in effect, a playbook for actors in deploying the most effective ideational elements within a particular context at a given point in the policy process. For instance, while transnational activists may be active in predisposing public sentiment and elite paradigms to get their issue on the national political agenda, when the shift comes to policy debate and decision, they would be well advised to deploy information congruent with the ideational profiles of the target state. Activists should thus push particular frames to autocratic decision makers, utilize cognitive paradigms and particular programmic information when confronting a corporatist structure, and continue to influence public sentiment through normative frames in a society-dominated system.

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Finally, while much of the discussion to this point has centered on the role of TANs in paving the way for the prohibition “wave” of the early twentieth century, investigation of public sentiments in different lands after prohibition also highlights the importance of transnational networks as communicative structures in the souring of public sentiment against the bad policy of prohibition. Coding all entries in the American Reader’s Guide to Periodical Literature and Swedish Svensk bok-katalog as reflecting positively toward the policy of prohibition (+1), negatively toward it (–1), or neutral/ uncodable as to tone (0) allows us to create a positive-negative (PN) tone index, constituting a yearly average of the tone of all the articles published in a given year in each country, ranging from +1 (all articles reflecting positively on prohibition) to –1 (all articles negative). Combining Figures 3.4 and 4.2, Figure 7.1 allows us to compare public sentiments in Sweden and the United States toward prohibition over time. In both countries during the 1910s, positive public sentiments helped place prohibition on the political agenda. Yet, as the failings of the policy became increasingly apparent throughout the 1920s—especially in the American case—popular support for it dwindled precipitously, ultimately facilitating prohibition’s repeal in the early 1930s. Figure 7.1 shows an intriguing international convergence of public sentiments concerning the undesirability of prohibition in two extremely different countries with different policy experiences thousands of miles apart.25 While we can easily credit the temperance TAN for the high approval numbers for the program in the early twentieth century, how are we to account for such lock-step changes in public perceptions over time? In the American case, it makes sense that the increasingly visible shortcomings of prohibition gradually eroded popular support that was immediately impacted by the policy; yet Sweden arrived at similar conclusions without firsthand experience of a nationwide fiasco. This convergence highlights the importance of transnational networks in linking ideational developments across borders—not only facilitating international policy learning and evaluation by theorists, policymakers, and other elites, but also altering public perceptions. To be sure, while Sweden never adopted prohibition, Swedes were well attuned to prohibition’s failings in America, and in neighboring Norway and Finland. High-profile increases in crossborder smuggling in Scandinavia and the rise in gangland criminality and corruption in the United States were difficult to discount in Sweden, while the perception of failure elsewhere could be readily contrasted with the apparent success of the Swedish Bratt system.26 Confronted with the inherent pathologies of prohibition abroad, it is understandable that Swedish public sentiment would cool to the suggestion of implementing such a bad idea at home.

Figure 7.1 Positive-Negative Tone Indexes toward Prohibition in Sweden and the United States, 1906–1935.

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This international convergence of public sentiments suggests intriguing new avenues for studies on international policy diffusion and convergence. While the 1920s saw the development of a meager anti-prohibition TAN, headed by a virtually inconsequential “International League against Prohibition” involved mostly in hosting international conferences and commissioning academic studies of prohibition’s failures,27 can we rightly attribute this lock-step souring toward prohibition to the efforts of transnational activists? Or did the simultaneous epiphany of these different publics—that the time had come for prohibition to go—rely on something else?

THE PROHIBITION WAVE RECONSIDERED Coming full circle, we find that the global prohibition “wave” was in many ways a “perfect storm”—a combination of a number of factors, none of which could have alone resulted in the near-simultaneous adoption of a widely acknowledged bad policy idea. World War I was the event that transformed the longstanding domestic public sentiments and cognitive paradigms that predisposed policymakers toward restrictions on alcohol into a choice of policy programs. Whether a country chose a bad policy idea such as prohibition—or a more effective alcohol control alternative—was influenced by the institutional structure of decision making. In sum: war explains the timing, transnational temperance explains the direction, and domestic institutional constraints explain the form of alcohol-policy change. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the temperance TAN became broader, deeper, and denser, linking more like-minded temperance advocates in more countries more tightly together through robust networks of information that empowered and linked domestic activists, government representatives, and policymakers by conveying policy-relevant ideas in one country with those in another. Such transnational activism paved the way for eventual policy action: the consistent activity of internationally linked activists swayed both public sentiment and elite-held cognitive paradigms as to the desirability of increased alcohol controls, in the process placing the liquor question on the political agenda in many countries at roughly the same time. Transnational networks also transmitted a diverse range of policy programs—good and bad—for publics to consider and policymakers to scrutinize, from local option and excise taxation to Gothenburg dispensaries and prohibition. TANs likewise conveyed normative frames through which to interpret the alcohol problem and the effects of each policy remedy. In sum: the temperance TAN provided the ideational raw materials for policy change,


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though the form of subsequent action was determined by domestic policymakers, each with their own inherent predilections. The timing of the near simultaneous adoption of alcohol restrictions in many countries can be explained only by the onset of the Great War. The European hostilities dramatically influenced the various homelands of activists engaged in the temperance TAN. War shifted attention away from the underlying moral dimensions of the liquor issue toward economic security and national defense dimensions, often changing the locus of policymaking. This worldwide political crisis opened a window for dramatic policy change in many countries simultaneously, moving the liquor issue from the agenda-setting to the policydecision stage, cutting off debate, shifting the parallel information processing of policymakers to serial processing, which often led to the adoption of simple, prepackaged solutions such as prohibition. Differences in each country’s institutional channels of policy decision making help determine the form of the alcohol control policy ultimately adopted. In the American society-dominated system, the switch from negative- to positive-feedback processes resulted in a stampede for a bad policy that in record time enshrined prohibition firmly within the world’s most difficult-to-amend constitution. In Sweden, similar calls for radical prohibition encountered the institutional constraints of the corporatist system— including the insulation of policymakers within closed committees, continuous consultation of diverse vested interests, and the dominance of cognitive ideational elements over normative appeals—that combined to facilitate the adoption of a more effective alcohol control system. In Russia, the insulation of autocratic policymakers informed by normative appeals combined with the positive feedback from an obsequious bureaucracy to facilitate prohibition, first as a wartime measure, then as a more permanent policy.

LOOKING FORWARD This book has had a dual purpose—one theoretical and one historical: first, to compare national policy reactions to similar external conditions in order to lay bare the institutional differences in the ways that policies are made once the default assumptions about convergence upon best practice are done away with; and second, to explain the international phenomena of temperance and prohibition through in-depth investigation of the global alcohol-control policy wave of the early twentieth century. The debates and policy decisions made during this timeframe have had important and enduring legacies for subsequent alcohol-policy developments in each country.

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For most, this was the last time that issues of alcohol control flirted with the realm of “high politics.” Moreover, once more effective alcohol control policies displaced prohibition, they proved to be quite resilient. In the American example, the patchwork of different state-level alcohol arrangements— “control state” dispensaries or “licensure states,” plus the local option for communities to vote themselves dry—have changed very little since the 1930s. In Sweden, the ration books from Bratt’s system of individual control were done away with only in the 1950s, while the other elements of stringent monopoly control and liquor dispensary still endure throughout the Nordic states. Indeed, the conflict over the perceived need to maintain state control over the liquor traffic in Sweden provided one of the biggest obstacles to accession into the European Union. Adopting a deeper historical perspective uncovers the roots of such policy clashes in Europe. For historians interested in prohibition in the United States, this study shows that temperance politics did not stop at the water’s edge. By placing the American experience into a broader context, we better appreciate not only how temperance developments in the United States influence policy developments elsewhere, but also how the course of American prohibition was itself shaped by foreign developments. This study suggests that the adoption of prohibition in the United States was hardly a foregone conclusion, and were it not for the particular positive-feedback mechanisms and normative predispositions inherent in the American political structure activated by the crisis of war, the adoption of a competing alcohol control program may well have become an actuality. At the very least, this book dispels the conventional and overdetermined “if temperance, then prohibition” narrative that has colored our historical understanding of the Prohibition Era in America for generations. For students of American political development and the American policy process, this study highlights the benefits of thinking about foreign influences on domestic policy. Placing the American case in comparative perspective helps us appreciate the commonality of certain issues often thought to be unique to the United States (such as temperance and prohibition) while also highlighting elements of the society-dominated American system that facilitate punctuated-equilibrium patterns. The predisposition for normative over cognitive ideational elements informing the American policy process, and various institutional mechanisms that facilitate a switch from negative- to positive-feedback processes, are often either overlooked or taken for granted, but they stand out as important policymaking factors when placed side-byside with other arrangements. To that end, an emphasis on institutional propensities and processes offers a more comprehensive understanding of politics than does the conventional consideration of political actors—such as the constellation of “veto players” with the ability to block policy change. As this


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book suggests, rational institutionalist “veto players” may provide but one impediment to policy change, and given particular circumstances in different institutional contexts, actually facilitate rather than block policy change through a shift from negative- to positive-feedback processes. For comparativists, I suggest that studies which consider political developments in a single national context isolated from broader international influences do so at their own peril—often overlooking many of the more relevant aspects of decision making that can best be unearthed through rigorous and structured comparison. Likewise, specialists in regional and area studies can take from this overview the potential benefits to be derived from the examination of common political and social phenomena that transcend regional, cultural, and ontological “exceptionalisms.” For researchers interested in the role of lesson-drawing and diffusion in comparative public policy, this study substantiates the importance of institutional differences in the decision making process to understanding how policy-relevant ideas are translated into policy, with additional consideration to be given to situational factors, such as external crises, as accelerants to policy change.28 For students of international relations, this study highlights the necessity of moving beyond monolithic considerations of political developments within a single state in isolation from external influences. Transnational relations in general—and TANs in particular—are important considerations in international politics. Furthermore, the gaining of both a new explanation of both an otherwise perplexing international phenomenon—the global prohibition wave—and a new understanding of the role of networks and institutions in national policymaking by moving beyond seemingly predetermined policy outcomes based on expected utility and taken-for-granted actor interests to highlight instead the role of contingency, uncertainty, and unintended consequences, is suggestive of the benefits of bringing historical institutionalism into the study of international relations.29 For students of transnational activism, policy diffusion, policy emulation and learning, this book underscores not only that TANs are hardly a new political phenomenon, but also that significant gains can be made in examining the predecessors to modern transnational activism. First, this historical perspective allows us to understand that issue-driven networks of transnational activism are themselves ephemeral—going through life cycles of rise and decline as its objectives are either fulfilled or become outdated. Second, this study expands our understanding of the variety of roles that transnational activists can play in the promotion of policy in different domestic settings. Transnational advocacy networks not only serve as conduits to diffuse ideas and information such as policy programs and frames, but they can also set the political agenda through long-term agitation to predispose public sentiment and elite paradigms as to the desirability of

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political change. The main lesson of transnational temperance that is applicable to modern activists is to tailor their approach to policy change to the particular ideational and institutional profiles of the target state. For sociologists and political scientists interested in the interaction of ideas and institutions in influencing political change, this book suggests, first, the benefits of going beyond conventional divisions between “interests” and “ideas” to understand different types of ideas; second, that different policymaking structures are predisposed to particular ideational elements in the process of decision making; and third, that these predilections change in predictable ways as we shift from agenda-setting to policydecision stages. Such differences in ideational predisposition combine with different feedback profiles in translating policy-relevant ideas into concrete policies.30 Finally, the satisfactory explanation not only of the international prohibition wave, but also of some of the most intractable questions associated with the history of prohibition politics in the three countries speaks to the utility of comparative historical institutionalism. Through the lens of historical institutionalism, we can more easily explain the extraordinary swings in public sentiment that led to the rapid ratification of the Eighteenth Amendment in 1919, followed by the even swifter rejection of prohibition through the ratification of the Twenty-First Amendment in 1933, which have eluded explanation by culturalist or rational-choice approaches. Likewise, we better understand why Sweden never adopted prohibition despite overwhelming support for the policy, without reverting explanations based upon an inherently Swedish sense of congeniality. Finally, we better understand how the prohibition policy came to Russia, seemingly as an ill-advised whim of an all-powerful autocrat, but would somehow survive war, famine, two revolutions, and the unprecedented transfer of authority from Europe’s most conservative monarch to the world’s first communist regime. This book suggests even more research questions for future studies. For instance, if the influence of transnational advocacy networks on policy developments may depend more on the types of ideas and information they transmit, one might ask whether a “mature” transnational advocacy network, based on dense information exchanges, extensive resources, and numerous activists, is indeed necessary to influence policy developments in different institutional arrangements? Can we somehow gauge the influence of transnational activism when the domestic structure of the target state varies? Also, by considering only corporatist, society-dominated, and autocratic arrangements, we have examined the functioning of only a subset of the wide variety of domestic structures. Would we find similar or different patterns of public policymaking under other institutional arrangements?


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Finally, while we understand that the wave of policy change is a response to a shared external political crisis, we know that not all policy change comes as a reaction to external events. How are we to understand endogenous policy change? Can we find evidence of the same institutionalized feedback profiles, ideational predispositions, and policy processes if the change occurs outside of a crisis situation?31 These questions and others are left to guide further studies.

THE POLITICAL POWER OF BAD IDEAS “Prohibitions never last,” concludes James A. Monroe in his Hellfire Nation. “In every case, the efforts fail.”32 That alcohol prohibition was a bad policy idea is beyond a doubt. It didn’t work in the 1870s, it didn’t work in the 1920s, and it wouldn’t work today. Yet even such ill-advised policies have the potential to tell us much about how governments make policy decisions: focusing on bad ideas allows us to dispel conventional assumptions of decision makers mindlessly mimicking “best practices” in favor of uncovering the specific ideational mechanisms in different institutional contexts. Academic studies of the policy process have largely ignored the role of bad ideas in informing bad policies—not only because of difficulties in measurement and quantification, but also because of the fear of compromising socialscientific objectivity. More important, the rationalist foundations of policy studies traditionally emphasize the importance of vested interests over the quality of ideas: if we want to explain why a particular policy is adopted, shouldn’t we look for the individual or group that stands to gain the most from the change and has the power to do so? To be sure, a great deal of political behavior can best be explained with reference to individuals and groups organizing to maximize their best interests, whatever they understand those best interests to be. Yet as is increasingly evident, political scientists ignore the role of ideas at their own peril. Indeed, it was none other than political economist John Maynard Keynes—in concluding his groundbreaking General Theory —who claimed that “the power of vested interests is vastly exaggerated compared with the gradual encroachment of ideas. . . . Soon or late, it is ideas, not vested interests, which are dangerous for good or evil.”33 But isn’t the question of whether a policy idea is “good” or “bad” just a matter of opinion? Moreover, isn’t the quality of an idea or policy entirely relational—a policy that is “bad” for some might be quite “good” for others? While prohibition was bad for society, wasn’t it good for, say, gangsters like Al Capone, who derived tremendous riches and power from it? There is a certain utilitarian logic associated with public policy: that such policies should contribute the greatest good for the society; and while

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debates over the definition of that utility may be politically contentious, evaluating the practical effectiveness and consequences of policies based on objective study need not be so. If prohibitionists claim that their policy leads to increased economic productivity and better public health, but objective economic, demographic, and health statistics show no marked improvement, then we have a problem—especially if competing policies deliver perceptible improvements in these indicators. In evaluation of policies, facts matter. Ironically, it seems that only in academic circles is the notion that bad ideas produce bad policies a novel proposition. People speak of ideas—both good and bad—as motivations for behavior all the time. Even “objective” academics likewise concede (either implicitly or begrudgingly) that there is variation in the quality of policy ideas: if we assume that policymakers adopt “best practices,” needn’t there also be a “worst practice” (or at least “worse practice”) for the “best practice” to be superior to? Political events of recent years have stimulated interest in bad ideas, bad policies, and pathologies in government decision-making processes.34 Beyond editorializing on the advisability of U.S. foreign policy decisions such as the invasion of Iraq, or questionable implementation of emergencymanagement policies in the wake of hurricane Katrina, or the soundness of neoliberal economic theories faulted for facilitating the global financial crisis, there are a multitude of other bad policy ideas that have proven to be remarkably durable. Intriguingly, the policy dynamics associated with them bear remarkable similarities to that of prohibition. In their recent book (with a title remarkably similar to this one), The Politics of Bad Ideas, Bryan D. Jones and Walter Williams investigate the durability of bad economic ideas in politics based on a definition of bad policy remarkably similar to the one put forth here: a suboptimal means of achieving particular policy goals that create additional political problems—situations where a policy isn’t working, hasn’t ever worked, and runs the risk of causing great damage.35 In particular, they explode the bad ideas of supply-side economics (that tax cuts, especially for the wealthy, miraculously unleash national productive capacity, which grows the economy, resulting in more tax revenues) and the “starve the beast” thesis, that citizens respond to growing deficits with demands that policymakers slash budgetary expenditures. The arguments that Jones and Williams present to account for the durability of such bad economic ideas in informing policy find numerous similarities with the accounts of prohibition. Considering prohibition in concert with these other bad policy ideas yields the following commonalities, which might be used as markers to identify other potentially bad policy ideas. First, in order to remain salient, bad policies tend to rely on bad statistics and normative appeals over sound


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data and reasoned, objective analysis. Given what we now know about the institutional predisposition for normative ideational elements in the American policy process over their cognitive counterparts, this fact should hardly come as a surprise. Enhancing the resonance of objective policy studies in the policymaking process may help avoid or mitigate future bad policy decisions. Second, bad policy ideas are often promoted by ideational brokers or policy entrepreneurs entrusted with reframing or “spinning” evidence to support their own policy predilections. There is nothing necessarily unusual or dubious about this practice, but the institutions of American policymaking allow policy entrepreneurs not only to influence the public sentiments with potentially dubious ideas, but also to intervene within the structures of governance themselves, as partisan political appointees supplant the objective studies of policy experts and career civil servants with the frames and arguments that are fixed to support the policy. To be sure, bad ideas can influence policy both from outside and inside the formal institutions of policymaking, yet the dangers of adopting bad ideas as policy seem much higher when those ideas are promoted from within the government. Third, leaders and policymakers, in the role of ideational broker, can deliberately use misinformation to “sell” their particular policy to the public. While numerous examples from more recent American administrations could illustrate this point, I prefer to point to the claims made by president Herbert Hoover in 1931, that the conclusions of the Wickersham Commission to investigate prohibition were nothing less than a ringing endorsement of continuing prohibition, while the actual conclusions were much more critical, with only one commissioner actually advocating Hoover’s preferred policy.36 This is a milder variant of the practices used by Russian Finance Minister Peter Bark to highlight the miraculous benefits of prohibition, while the facts suggested just the opposite. Such misleading and deliberate reframing of objective studies seems much more likely to advance bad policies in those structures that have a predilection for incorporating normative rather than cognitive elements in the policymaking process. A fourth commonality across bad policies is that their proponents often adopt the ideas so strongly that they identify with the means, forgetting that the means are intended to achieve a larger goal. Whether fanatical devotion to prohibition or slashing taxes at all costs, proponents of bad policies forget that each was intended to be a means of increasing the well-being of the society as a whole. Yet, as Jones and Williams point out, “Because people identify emotionally as well as cognitively with ideas, it can be very hard to dissuade them with mere facts. When these ideas are passed along as truths,

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complete with stories which, on first telling, seem to support the idea, we have something very powerful.”37 Finally, haste may be the ally of bad policies. There is the suggestion that rational debate and policy deliberation based on sound data and evaluation will lead to sound policies, while bad policies tend to be initiated hurriedly with only a limited amount of deliberation.38 That prohibition passed the US Congress without so much as a Congressional hearing and less than half hour of floor debate, and Russia adopted prohibition as though on a whim, while Sweden deliberated for years before ultimately rejecting the bad policy, history suggests that this might superficially be true. At the very least, it suggests that we should view the hasty adoption of major policy changes with some greater scrutiny as potentially producing bad policies. In sum: policies that rely on dubious information, discounting objective investigations in favor of misinformation and normative appeals, a confusion of means and ends, and hasty policy adoption seem more likely to be bad policy ideas than those based on sober deliberation and objective analysis. These markers imply a wide variety of contemporary ideas that might exhibit similar “bad policy” dynamics: from specific policy programs like the Clear Skies Act and No Child Left Behind, to the “three strikes” policy and other supposed crime deterrents, and the questionable effectiveness of modern “prohibitions,” like the war on drugs or outlawing gay marriage and civil unions. Such a framework might likewise be applicable to studies of foreign policy decision making. While we like to think that politicians learn from the mistakes of the past, today it seems unavoidable that leaders make—and will continue to make— ill-informed and misguided policy choices. Bad decisions fuel public disillusionment with (and hostility toward) government. Being aware of the potential pitfalls in the policy process can only aid good governance as well as public perceptions of it. Indeed, in the end, it is the duty of all active citizens to promote policies that in turn promote the common good, and in recognizing both the promise and limitations of the policymaking system, to hold decision makers accountable for any aberration from that goal— whether resulting from negligence, delusion, or the machinations of the political system itself.

Archival Sources

United States John Hay Library, Brown University (Providence, R.I.) Temperance Collection Library of Congress, Manuscripts Division (Washington, D.C.) Alexander Hamilton Papers Association against the Prohibition Amendment Women’s Organization for National Prohibition Reform National Archives (Washington, D.C.) Commission on Law Observance and Enforcement, 1929 1929– –1932 (Wickersham Commission) New York Public Library (New York, N.Y.) George Kennan Papers Ohio Historical Society, Temperance and Prohibition Papers (Columbus) Anti-Saloon League of America Series Howard Hyde Russell Series Intercollegiate Prohibition Association Series Presbyterian Historical Society (Philadelphia) American Sunday School Union Papers, 1817 1817– –1915 University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (Urbana) Frederic Wines Collection on Social Problems University of Wisconsin–Madison Special Collections (Madison) Guy Hayler Temperance Tracts Women’s Christian Temperance Union Archive (Evanston, III.) Women’s Christian Temperance Union Papers

Sweden Riksarkivet (National Archives), Marieberg, Stockholm Nykterhetskommitténs (Nov. 17 17,, 1911 1911)) Kommitté N:o 85 arkiv

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Archival Sources

Kungliga Socialstyrelsens arkiv. Byrån för sociala ärenden i allmänhet Kungliga Kontrollstyrelsens arkiv Finansdepartementets arkiv Svensha bryggareföreningens arkiv Svenska nykterhetssällskaps representförsamlings arkiv Nykterhetsrörelsens landsförbunds arkiv De kristna samfundens nykterhetsrörelses arkiv Centralförbundet för alcohol- och narkotikaupplysnings arkiv Riksarkivet (National Archives), Arninge International Order of Good Templars arkiv Edvard Wavrinsky arkiv Arbetarrörelsens arkiv och bibliotek (Labor Movement Archives and Library), Stockholm Sv. Bryggeriindustriarbetareförbundets arkiv Hotell- och restauranganställdas förbunds arkiv General collections

Russia Gosudarstvennyi Arkhiv Rossiiskoi Federatsii—GARF (State Archives of the Russian Federation), Moscow f. 102—Departament politsii ministerstva vnutrennykh del f. 115—Soyuz 17 17-ogo -ogo Oktyabrya f. 374—Narodnyi komisseriat raboche-krest’yanskoi inspektsii SSSR (NK-RKI SSSR) f. 579—Pavel Nikolaevich Milyukov (1856 (1856– –1918 1918)) f. 582—Aleksandr Dmitrievich Protopopov f. 586—Vycheslav K. Plehve f. 601—Imperator Nikolai II (1868 (1868– –1918 1918)) f. 648—Velikii Knyaz Sergei Aleksandrovich Romanov (1866 (1866– –1912 1912)) f. 660—Velikii Knyaz Konstantin Konstantinovich Romanov f. 671—Velikii Knyaz Nikolai Nikolaevich Romanov, mladshee (1857 (1857– –1916 1916)) f. 677—Imperator Aleksandr III f. 1779—Kantselyariya vremennogo pravitel’stva—1917 pravitel’stva—1917 f. 1788—Ministerstvo vnutrennikh del vremennogo pravitel’stva—1917 pravitel’stva—1917 f. 5467—TsK profsoyuza derevoobdeloinikov f. 5515—Narkomat truda f. 6983—Komissiya po uluchsheniyu truda i byta zhenshchin pri prezidiume VTsIK RSFSR (1926 (1926– –1930 gg.)/ Komitet po uluchsheniyu truda i byta rabotnits i krest’yanok pri prezidiume VTsIK RSFSR (15 (15 iyulya 1930– 1930 –1931 g.) f. 6996—Ministerstvo finanasov vremennogo pravitel’stva—1917 pravitel’stva—1917

Archival Sources

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Rossiiskii Gosudarstvennyi Arkhiv Ekonomiki—RGAE (Russian State Economics Archive), Moscow f. 733—Tsentral’noe upravlenie i ob”edinenie spirtovoi promyshlennosti (Gosspirt) f. 1562—Tsentral’noe statisticheskoe upravlenie (TsSU) pri Sovete Ministrov SSSR

United Kingdom Leeds Russian Archive, University of Leeds Sir Peter Bark Papers


Notes

NOTES TO INTRODUCTION Epigraph Source: A. C. Archibald, “Explaining the World-Wide Prohibition Phenomena,” Union Signal, December 30 1915. 1. Quoted in: Clarence Darrow and Victor S. Yarros, The Prohibition Mania: A Reply to Professor Irving Fisher and Others (New York: Boni and Liveright, 1927), 206. 2. The temperance/prohibition movement was truly global: of the 68 independent countries in existence in 1930, 59 (or 87%) had representation within the transnational temperance network; of those, 55 (or 81%) utilized official government delegates. In terms of policy, in the time frame considered here, 35 countries (or 51%) implemented dramatic restrictions on alcohol between 1912 and 1922, with 11 countries (or 16%) opting for statutory prohibition. Prohibition was instituted in 1914 in Belgium as a wartime measure, before the government fled to Le Havre. There is some suggestion in the temperance press that Romania likewise instituted prohibition at the outset of World War I, but this assertion is not substantiated in subsequent historical accounts. Prohibition, or szesztilalom, was instituted for the duration of the Hungarian Soviet Republic under Béla Kun from March through August of 1919. States formerly controlled by the Russian empire are coded as being “prohibition countries” if their independent governments chose to continue the imperial-era prohibition upon coming to power. Accordingly, Russia/USSR, Finland, and Estonia are considered prohibition countries after 1917; Poland, Lithuania, and Latvia are not, although all of these territories were technically “dry” from the decree of Tsar Nicholas II in 1914. The existence of transnationally linked temperance work and official governmental delegates to international temperance conventions is based on materials in Mark Lawrence Schrad, “The Prohibition Option: Transnational Temperance and National Decisionmaking in Russia, Sweden and the United States” (University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2007), 459–84. Increased alcohol regulations, including prohibition, are based on Ernest Cherrington, ed., Standard Encyclopedia of the Alcohol Problem, Vols. I–VI (Westerville, Ohio: American Issue Press), 1926–1930. 3. On uncoordinated interdependence, see: Zachary Elkins and Beth A. Simmons, “On Waves, Clusters, and Diffusion: A Conceptual Framework,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, no. 598 (2005): 35.

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Notes to Pages 6–7

4. Richard Hofstadter, The Age of Reform: From Bryan to F.D.R. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1955), 289. Preeminent scholars of alcohol control politics Susanna Barrows and Robin Room explain that alcohol issues have traditionally “been a neglected area of history, in part because of a generational reaction against Prohibition and temperance concerns, resulting in a scholarly distaste for dealing with what were seen as misplaced and bigoted concerns—as a ‘crusading debauch . . . carried about America by the rural-evangelical virus.’” Susanna Barrows and Robin Room, “Introduction,” in Drinking: Behavior and Belief in Modern History, ed. Susanna Barrows and Robin Room (Berkeley, Cal.: University of California Press, 1991), 3. See also Robin Room, “Alcohol and Ethnography: A Case of Problem Deflation?” Current Anthropology 25 (1984). 5. Temperance as a transnational social movement is normally placed in the category of early international movements, including temperance, abolitionism, and female suffrage—though temperance rarely garners the same attention as a social movement as the other two. See, for instance Margaret Keck and Kathryn Sikkink, “Historical Precursors to Modern Transnational Social Movements and Networks,” in Globalization and Social Movements: Culture, Power, and the Transnational Public Sphere, ed. John Guidry, Michael Kennedy, and Mayer Zald (Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan Press, 2000). 6. Mark Lawrence Schrad, “The First Social Policy: Alcohol Control and Modernity in Policy Studies,” Journal of Policy History 19, no. 4 (2007). Alcoholcontrol policies generally refer to “the legal, economic, and physical factors which bear on the availability of alcohol to the individual.” Bruun, Kettil et al., Alcohol Control Policies in Public Health Perspective (Helsinki: Finnish Foundation for Alcohol Studies, 1975), 12. Subsequent scholarship on public health issues has made a distinction between this definition based on restricting availability of alcohol and alcohol policy, which may also include “subsidizing the alcohol industry and trade, government’s efforts to decrease or increase the demand for alcoholic beverages, as well as the licensing of alcohol production and trade, irrespective of whether the licensing is motivated by social and public health policy aims or by industrial and commercial interests of the state.” Esa Österberg and Thomas Karlsson, “Alcohol Policies in the ECAS Countries, 1950–2000,” in Thor Norström ed., Alcohol in Postwar Europe: Consumption, Drinking Patterns, Consequences and Policy Responses in 15 European Countries (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International, 2002), 14. For the purposes of this book, I conceive of alcohol control in the widest possible terms, influencing both the supply of and demand for alcoholic beverages. See also: Mark Lawrence Schrad, “Toward a Comparative Analysis of State Alcohol Control Systems,” Contemporary Drug Problems 32, no. 2 (2005); Rob Baggott, Alcohol, Politics and Social Policy (Avebury, England: Aldershot, 1990); Mark Moore and Dean Gerstein, eds., Alcohol and Public Policy: Beyond the Shadow of Prohibition—Panel on Alternative Policies Affecting the Prevention of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 1981). 7. Edward Behr, Prohibition: Thirteen Years That Changed America (New York: Arcade Publishing, Inc., 1996), 172. 8. Or as contemporary observers would comment: “Can a nation become insane?” Samuel A. Clark, Facts About Prohibition, or, Fighting the Battle of


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Truth with the Weapon of Error (Carrollton, Mo.: Democrat Printing Company, 1921), 34. 9. Ibid. 34–35. 10. Guy Hayler, Prohibition Advance in All Lands; A Study of the World-Wide Character of the Drink Question, 2nd ed. (London: International Prohibition Confederation, 1914) 53. 11. See, for instance, Irving Fisher, The “Noble Experiment” (New York: Alcohol Information Committee, 1930). 12. See Carter Glass, “New Light on Wilson and Prohibition,” New York Times, March 3, 1929. Association Against the Prohibition Amendment Archive, Manuscripts Division, Library of Congress, Box 4, Senator Carter Glass File. 13. See, for instance, Bruce Bueno de Mesquita et al., “Policy Failure and Political Survival: The Contribution of Political Institutions,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 43, no. 2 (1999): 152; Robert A. J. Dur, “Why Do Policy Makers Stick to Inefficient Decisions?” Public Choice 107 (2001): 222. 14. See, for instance, Frances Stokes Berry and William D. Berry, “Innovation and Diffusion Models in Policy Research,” in Theories of the Policy Process, ed. Paul A. Sabatier (Boulder, Col.: Westview Press, 1999), 171. The adoption of policies primarily on the basis of their “workability” seems particularly applicable to the diffusion of economic policy. Chang Kil Lee and David Strang, “The International Diffusion of Public Sector Downsizing: Network Emulation and Theory-Driven Learning,” in The Global Diffusion of Markets and Democracy, ed. Beth A. Simmons, Frank Dobbin, and Geoffrey Garrett (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 145; Beth A. Simmons and Zachary Elkins, “The Globalization of Liberalization: Policy Diffusion in the International Political Economy,” American Political Science Review 98, no. 1 (2004): 175. 15. David Dolowitz and David Marsh, “Learning from Abroad: The Role of Policy Transfer in Contemporary Policy-Making,” Governance: An International Journal of Policy and Administration 13, no. 1 (2000): 17. 16. This hybrid definition incorporates salient elements of a wide range of accepted accounts of historical institutionalism. Peter Hall, Governing the Economy: The Politics of State Intervention in Britain and France (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), 19; G. John Ikenberry, “Conclusion: An Institutional Approach to American Foreign Economic Policy,” in The State and American Foreign Economic Policy, ed. G. John Ikenberry, David Lake, and Michael Mastanduno (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1988), 226; Kathleen Thelen and Sven Steinmo, “Historical Institutionalism in Comparative Politics,” in Structuring Politics: Historical Institutionalism in Comparative Analysis, ed. Sven Steinmo, Kathleen Thelen, and Frank Longstreth (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 2. 17. Ellen M. Immergut, “The Theoretical Core of the New Institutionalism,” Politics and Society 26 (1998); B. Guy Peters, Jon Pierre, and Desmond S. King, “Politics of Path Dependency: Political Conflict in Historical Institutionalism,” Journal of Politics 67, no. 4 (2005): 1281; Thelen and Steinmo, “Historical Institutionalism in Comparative Politics,” 7–10. The touchstone work on the new institutionalism is undoubtedly James G. March and Johan P. Olsen, “The New Institutionalism: Organizational Factors in Political Life,” American Political Science Review 78, no. 3 (1984).

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18. James G. March and Johan P. Olsen, Rediscovering Institutions: The Organizational Basis of Politics (New York: Free Press, 1989). 19. See: Hugh Heclo, Modern Social Politics in Britain and Sweden: From Relief to Income Maintenance (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1974); John Witte, The Politics and Development of the Federal Income Tax (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1985). 20. The literature on “punctuated equilibrium” is vast; some of its most formative works are Frank R. Baumgartner and Bryan D. Jones, Agendas and Instability in American Politics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993); Bryan D. Jones, Tracy Sulkin, and Heather A. Larsen, “Policy Punctuations in American Political Institutions,” American Political Science Review 97, no. 1 (2003); John W. Kingdon, Agendas, Alternatives and Public Policies (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1984); Stephen Krasner, “Approaches to the State: Alternative Conceptions and Historical Dynamics,” Comparative Politics 16, no. 2 (1984). 21. John L. Campbell, Institutional Change and Globalization (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2004), 27. 22. Kathleen Thelen, “Historical Institutionalism in Comparative Politics,” Annual Review of Political Science 2 (1999). 23. Peter Hall, ed., The Political Power of Economic Ideas (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1989). 24. George Tsebelis, “Veto Players and Law Production in Parliamentary Democracies: An Empirical Analysis,” American Political Science Review 93, no. 3 (1999) George Tsebelis, Veto Players: How Political Institutions Work (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2002). 25. R. Kent Weaver and Bert A. Rockman, “Assessing the Effects of Institutions,” in Do Institutions Matter? Government Capabilities in the United States and Abroad, ed. R. Kent Weaver and Bert A. Rockman (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1993), 7. 26. Markus M. L. Crepaz, “Veto Players, Globalization and the Redistributive Capacity of the State: A Panel Study of 15 OECD Countries,” Journal of Public Policy 21, no. 1 (2001): 7. 27. George Tsebelis, “Veto Players and Institutional Analysis,” Governance: An International Journal of Policy and Administration 13, no. 4 (2000): 464. 28. Thomas Risse-Kappen, “Ideas Do Not Float Freely: Transnational Coalitions, Domestic Structures, and the End of the Cold War,” International Organization 48, no. 2 (1994): 209; Thomas Risse-Kappen, “Public Opinion, Domestic Structure, and Foreign Policy in Liberal Democracies,” World Politics 43, no. 4 (1991): 484. 29. Thomas Risse-Kappen, “Bringing Transnational Relations Back In: Introduction,” in Bringing Transnational Relations Back In: Non-State Actors, Domestic Structures and International Institutions, ed. Thomas Risse-Kappen (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 22. 30. Joel Migdal, State in Society: Studying How States and Societies Transform and Constitute One Another (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001). 31. Risse-Kappen, “Bringing Transnational Relations Back In,” 22. 32. Ibid., 26. Risse-Kappen and associates conclude that “the ultimate success of transnational actors to induce policy change depends on their ability to form ‘winning


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coalitions’ in the target country.” While the notion of “winning coalitions” is a rather expedient shorthand for explaining policy outcomes in different contexts, it tells us nothing about the process of policymaking—or how such “winning coalitions” are formed—in these different settings. 33. Hall, Governing the Economy 19. Theda Skocpol, Protecting Soldiers and Mothers: The Political Origins of Social Policy in the United States (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1992), 41; Sven Steinmo, Kathleen Thelen, and Frank Longstreth, eds., Structuring Politics: Historical Institutionalism in Comparative Analysis (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992). 34. Paul Pierson, “The New Politics of the Welfare State,” World Politics 48 (1996). Elisabeth Clemens and James Cook, “Politics and Institutionalism: Explaining Durability and Change,” Annual Review of Sociology 25 (1999): 442. 35. W. Brian Arthur, Increasing Returns and Path Dependence in the Economy (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1994); Paul Pierson, Politics in Time: History, Institutions and Social Analysis (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2004), 20. 36. Paul David, “Clio and the Economics of QWERTY,” American Economic Review 75 (1985). 37. Frank R. Baumgartner and Bryan D. Jones, “Positive and Negative Feedback in Politics,” in Policy Dynamics, ed. Frank R. Baumgartner and Bryan D. Jones (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002), 6. 38. Charles Tilly, Democracy (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 13. 39. Otto A. Davis, M. A. H. Dempster, and Aaron Wildavsky, “Towards a Predictive Theory of Government Expenditure,” British Journal of Political Science 4, no. 4 (1974); Charles Lindblom, “The Science of ‘Muddling Through,’” Public Administration Review 19, no. 1 (1959); Charles Lindblom, “Still Muddling, Not Yet Through,” Public Administration Review 39, no. 6 (1979). 40. Baumgartner and Jones, Agendas and Instability 15. 41. Baumgartner and Jones, “Positive and Negative Feedback in Politics,” 6–7, Mark Granovetter, “Threshold Models of Collective Behavior,” American Journal of Sociology 83 (1978); Thomas C. Schelling, Micromotives and Macrobehavior (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1978). 42. Michael C. MacLeod, “The Logic of Positive Feedback: Telecommunications Policy through the Creation, Maintenance, and Destruction of a Regulated Monopoly,” in Policy Dynamics, ed. Frank R. Baumgartner and Bryan D. Jones (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002), 58. 43. See, respectively: Larry M. Bartels, “Candidate Choice and the Dynamics of the Presidential Nominating Process,” American Journal of Political Science 31, no. 1 (1987). David Laitin, Identity in Formation: The Russian-Speaking Populations in the near Abroad (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1998). Timur Kuran, “Ethnic Norms and Their Transformation through Reputational Cascades,” Journal of Legal Studies 27 (1998). Mark R. Beissinger, Nationalist Mobilization and Collapse of the Soviet State (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002). 44. On the “serial shift” of attention from one policy attribute to another, see Bryan D. Jones, Reconceiving Decision-Making in Democratic Politics: Attention, Choice and Public Policy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994).

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45. Arthur Newsholme, “Some International Aspects of Alcoholism with Special Reference to Prohibition in America,” British Journal of Inebriety 19, no. 3 (1922): 98. 46. Daniel Béland and Jacob Hacker, “Ideas, Private Institutions and American Welfare State ‘Exceptionalism’: The Case of Health and Old-Age Insurance, 1915– 1965,” International Journal of Social Welfare 13, no. 1 (2004). 47. This definition is borrowed from Craig Parsons, “Showing Ideas as Causes: The Origins of the European Union,” International Organization 56, no. 1 (2002): 48. 48. Frank Dobbin, Forging Industrial Policy: The United States, Britain and France in the Railway Age (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994); Judith Goldstein and Robert Keohane, eds., Ideas and Foreign Policy: Beliefs, Institutions and Political Change (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1993); Hall, ed., The Political Power of Economic Ideas. See also: Mark M. Blyth, “Any More Bright Ideas? The Ideational Turn of Comparative Political Economy,” Comparative Politics 29, no. 2 (1997): 235–36;. John Kurt Jacobsen, “Much Ado About Ideas: The Cognitive Factor in Economic Policy,” World Politics 47 (1995); Robert C. Lieberman, “Ideas, Institutions and Political Order: Explaining Political Change,” American Political Science Review 96, no. 4 (2002): 709; Albert S. Yee, “The Causal Effects of Ideas on Politics,” International Organization 50, no. 1 (1996). 49. Geoffrey Garrett, Frank Dobbin, and Beth A. Simmons, “Conclusion,” in The Global Diffusion of Markets and Democracy, ed. Beth A. Simmons, Frank Dobbin, and Geoffrey Garrett (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 359–60. 50. John L. Campbell, “Institutional Analysis and the Role of Ideas in Political Economy,” Theory and Society 27 (1998): 385. 51. Fred Block, Postindustrial Possibilities: A Critique of Economic Discourse (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990); Donald A. Schön and Martin Rein, Frame Reflection: Toward the Resolution of Intractable Policy Controversies (New York: Basic Books, 1994). 52. Campbell, “Institutional Analysis and the Role of Ideas in Political Economy,” 389–91. 53. Peter Hall, “Policy Paradigms, Social Learning and the State,” Comparative Politics 25, no. 3 (1993); Richard R. Lau, Richard A. Smith, and Susan T. Fiske, “Political Beliefs, Policy Interpretations, and Political Persuasion,” Journal of Politics 53, no. 3 (1991). 54. Baumgartner and Jones, Agendas and Instability 26;. Baumgartner and Jones, “Positive and Negative Feedback in Politics,” 12. 55. Baumgartner and Jones, Agendas and Instability 248. Kingdon, Agendas, Alternatives and Public Policies 153. 56. This is suggestive of some of the ways in which public sentiment is more than simply public opinion polls and can find expression beyond state institutions. James C. Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1990); James C. Scott, Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1985). 57. Martin Rein and Christopher Winship, “Policy Entrepreneurs and the Academic Establishment: Truth and Values in Social Controversies,” in Intelligence,

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Political Inequality and Public Policy, ed. Elliot White (New York: Praeger, 1997);. Campbell, “Institutional Analysis and the Role of Ideas in Political Economy,” 394. See also James March’s work on uncertainty and risk estimation: James G. March, A Primer on Decision Making: How Decisions Happen (New York: Free Press, 1994), 36–38. 58. Quoted in: John Allen Krout, Origins of Prohibition (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1925), 101. 59. See, for instance, Michael Mintrom, “Policy Entrepreneurs and the Diffusion of Innovation,” American Journal of Political Science 41, no. 3 (1997);. Michael Mintrom and Sandra Vergari, “Policy Networks and Innovation Diffusion: The Case of State Education Reforms,” Journal of Politics 60, no. 1 (1998). On ideas and agency more generally, see Judith Goldstein and Robert Keohane, “Ideas and Foreign Policy: An Analytical Framework,” in Ideas and Foreign Policy: Beliefs, Institutions and Political Change, ed. Judith Goldstein and Robert Keohane (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1993), 21; Randall Hansen and Desmond S. King, “Eugenic Ideas, Political Interests, and Policy Variance: Immigration and Sterilization Policy in Britain and the U.S.,” World Politics 53 (2001): 259. 60. On framing and social movements, see March, A Primer on Decision Making: How Decisions Happen 14–15; Sidney Tarrow, Power in Movement: Social Movements and Contentious Politics, 2nd ed. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 106–22. Meanwhile the emphasis on framing and political entrepreneurship is central to Kingdon’s analysis of the convergence of “streams” resulting in policy change, as political entrepreneurs use framing mechanisms to bring their favored policy solutions into line with predominant perceptions of the particular political problem. Kingdon, Agendas, Alternatives and Public Policies, 122. 61. John L. Campbell, “Ideas, Politics and Public Policy,” Annual Review of Sociology 28 (2002): 26. This is similar to Bert Klandermans’ description of “a process in which social actors, media, and members of society jointly interpret, define, and redefine states of affairs.” Bert Klandermans, The Social Psychology of Protest (Oxford: Blackwell Press, 1997), 44. On the process of framing, see William Gamson, “The Social Psychology of Collective Action,” in Frontiers in Social Movement Theory, ed. Aldon Morris and Carol McClurg Mueller (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1992); Doug McAdam, The Political Process and the Development of Black Insurgency (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982); David E. Snow and Robert Benford, “Ideology, Frame Resonance, and Participant Mobilization,” in From Structure to Action: Comparing Social Movement Research across Cultures, ed. Bert Klandermans, Hanspeter Kriesi, and Sidney Tarrow, International Social Movement Research (Greenwich, Conn.: JAI Press, 1988); David E. Snow and Robert Benford, “Master Frames and Cycles of Protest,” in Frontiers in Social Movement Theory, ed. Aldon Morris and Carol McClurg Mueller (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1992); David E. Snow et al., “Frame Alignment Processes, Micromobilization, and Movement Participation,” American Sociological Review 51, no. 4 (1986). 62. Campbell, “Institutional Analysis and the Role of Ideas in Political Economy,” 394. Again because of the prevailing empirical focus on more or less esoteric economic and public policy issues, much of the literature on framing focuses on the

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influence of politicians and political elites rather than on the wider range of personalities, such as religious leaders, that may influence public sentiments. 63. Mauro F. Guillén, “The Age of Eclecticism: Current Organizational Trends and the Evolution of Managerial Models,” Sloan Management Review 36, no. 1 (1994); Ann Swidler, “Culture in Action: Symbols and Strategies,” American Sociological Review 51, no. 2 (1986). 64. Campbell, Institutional Change and Globalization 107. 65. Peter Haas, “Introduction: Epistemic Communities and International Policy Coordination,” International Organization 46, no. 1 (1992). 66. See especially Margaret Keck and Kathryn Sikkink, Activists Beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in International Politics (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1998) 16; Miles Kahler, “Networked Politics: Agency, Power, and Governance,” in Networked Politics: Agency, Power, and Governance, ed. Miles Kahler (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2009), 8. 67. Ronald H. Heck, Studying Educational and Social Policy: Theoretical Concepts and Research Methods (Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers, 2004), 67. 68. Kingdon, Agendas, Alternatives and Public Policies 3. 69. On national crisis as a catalyst for political change in comparative perspective, see: Marie-Laure Djelic, Exporting the American Model: The Postwar Transformation of European Business (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 66, 72; Peter Gourevitch, Politics in Hard Times: Comparative Responses to International Economic Crises (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1986). In the American historical context more generally, see: David R. Mayhew, “Wars and American Politics,” Perspectives on Politics 3, no. 3 (2005). 70. John W. Kingdon, “Agendas, Ideas, and Policy Change,” in New Perspectives on American Politics, ed. Lawrence C. Dodd and Calvin Jillson (Washington, D.C.: CQ Press, 1994), 216. 71. Similarly, see Frank R. Baumgartner, Christian Breunig, Christoffer GreenPedersen, Bryan D. Jones, Peter B. Mortensen, Michiel Nuytemans, and Stefaan Walgrave, “Punctuated Equilibrium in Comparative Perspective,” American Journal of Political Science Review 53, no. 3 (2009). 72. Marc Allen Eisner, From Warfare State to Welfare State: World War I, Compensatory State Building, and the Limits of the Modern Order (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2000), 2–3.

NOTES TO CHAPTER 2 Epigraph Source: Guy Hayler, Prohibition Advance in All Lands; A Study of the World-Wide Character of the Drink Question, 2nd ed. (London: International Prohibition Confederation, 1914), 11. 1. Information on the Brofästet Temperance Hall is available at http://www. skansen.se/pages/?ID=675# (Accessed November 24, 2007). 2. See, for instance, Donatella della Porta and Sidney Tarrow, eds., Transnational Protest and Global Activism (New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2005); Sanjeev Khagram, James V. Riker, and Kathryn Sikkink, eds., Restructuring World Politics:

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Transnational Social Movements, Networks, and Norms (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2002); Thomas Risse, Stephen C. Ropp, and Kathryn Sikkink, eds., The Power of Human Rights: International Norms and Domestic Change (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999); David M. Trubek, Jim Mosher, and Jeffrey S. Rothstein, “Transnationalism in the Regulation of Labor Relations: International Regimes and Transnational Advocacy Networks,” Law and Social Inquiry 25, no. 4 (2000); Paul Wapner, Environmental Activism and World Civic Politics (Albany, N.Y.: SUNY Press, 1996). Richard Price presents a succinct tour d’horizon in “Transnational Civil Society and Advocacy in World Politics,” World Politics 55 (2003). 3. This life cycle heuristic draws upon the typology developed by Jackie Smith, who uses similar distinctions to compare different social movement organizations rather than to chart the evolution of a single TAN over time. Jackie Smith, “Globalization and Transnational Social Movement Organizations,” in Social Movements and Organization Theory, ed. Gerald F. Davis et al. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 291. Miles Kahler also charts four stages in the life cycle of Al Qaeda as a transnational network, based more on external political considerations than the density of the network. Miles Kahler, “Collective Action and Clandestine Networks: The Case of Al Qaeda,” in Networked Politics: Agency, Power, and Governance, ed. Miles Kahler (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2009), 106–7. 4. David R. Mayhew, “U.S. Policy Waves in Comparative Context,” in New Perspectives on American Politics, ed. Lawrence C. Dodd and Calvin Jillson (Washington, D.C.: CQ Press, 1994), 333–34. See also: Hugh Heclo, Modern Social Politics in Britain and Sweden: From Relief to Income Maintenance (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1974); Sven Steinmo, Taxation and Democracy: Swedish, British and American Approaches to Financing the Modern State (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1993). 5. Frances Stokes Berry and William D. Berry, “Innovation and Diffusion Models in Policy Research,” in Theories of the Policy Process, ed. Paul A. Sabatier (Boulder, Col.: Westview Press, 1999), 170–72; David Collier and Richard E. Messick, “Prerequisites Versus Diffusion: Testing Explanations of Social Security Adoption,” American Political Science Review 69, no. 4 (1975): 1300; Zachary Elkins and Beth A. Simmons, “On Waves, Clusters, and Diffusion: A Conceptual Framework,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, no. 598 (2005). See also Marie-Laure Djelic, Exporting the American Model: The Postwar Transformation of European Business (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998). 6. Howard Leichter, “The Patterns and Origins of Policy Diffusion: The Case of the Commonwealth,” Comparative Politics 15, no. 2 (1983): 223. 7. Margaret Keck and Kathryn Sikkink, Activists Beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in International Politics (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1998), 213. 8. Kathryn Sikkink, “Restructuring World Politics: The Limits and Asymmetries of Soft Power,” in Restructuring World Politics: Transnational Social Movements, Networks and Norms, ed. Sanjeev Khagram, James V. Riker, and Kathryn Sikkink (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2002), 302. 9. Miles Kahler, “Networked Politics: Agency, Power, and Governance,” in Networked Politics: Agency, Power and Governance, ed. Miles Kahler (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2009), 5.

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10. Sidney Tarrow, The New Transnational Activism (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 43. 11. Keck and Sikkink, Activists Beyond Borders, 9. 12. Peter Haas, “Introduction: Epistemic Communities and International Policy Coordination,” International Organization 46, no. 1 (1992). 13. Examination of the tactics described here draws primarily from Keck and Sikkink, Activists Beyond Borders, 16–25. 14. Kathryn Sikkink, “The Power of Networks in International Politics,” in Networked Politics: Agency, Power, and Governance, ed. Miles Kahler (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2009), 231–2. 15. Mark Lawrence Schrad, “The First Social Policy: Alcohol Control and Modernity in Policy Studies,” Journal of Policy History 19, no. 4 (2007). 16. Richard Eddy, Alcohol in History: An Account of Intemperance in All Ages Together with a History of the Various Methods Employed for Its Removal (New York: National Temperance Society and Publication House, 1887). 17. Jack Blocker, Jr., American Temperance Movements: Cycles of Reform (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1989), 11–14. The ATS was originally founded under the name of the American Society for the Promotion of Temperance. 18. Ernest H. Cherrington, ed., Standard Encyclopedia of the Alcohol Problem, 6 vols., vol. 6 (Westerville, Ohio: American Issue Press, 1930), 2562, 2568. 19. Peter T. Winskill, The Temperance Movement and Its Workers: A Record of Social, Moral, Religious, and Political Progress, 3 vols., vol. 1 (London: Blackie & Son, Limited, 1892), 22–23. 20. W. J. Rorabaugh, The Alcoholic Republic: An American Tradition (New York: Oxford University Press, 1979), 30. 21. Brian Harrison, Drink and the Victorians: The Temperance Question in England, 1815–1872 (London: Faber and Faber, 1971), 101. 22. Sixth Report of the American Temperance Society, 1833, 38. American Temperance Society, Permanent Temperance Documents of the American Temperance Society, vol. 1 (Boston: Seth Bliss, 1835), 264. 23. Alison Gilbert Olson, Making the Empire Work: London and American Interest Groups, 1690–1790 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1992). Alexis de Toqueville makes frequent mention of this conduit from the United States to England, “whence the Americans have taken some of their laws and many of their customs.” Alexis de Toqueville, Democracy in America, ed. Richard D. Heffner, abridged ed. (New York: Mentor Books, 1956), 199. See also Robert Baird, The Progress and Prospects of Christianity in the United States of America with Remarks on the Subject of Slavery in America, and on the Intercourse between British and American Churches (London: Partridge and Oakey, 1851). 24. Winskill, The Temperance Movement and Its Workers, 18. 25. Quoting “a European writer” in the Fourth Report of the American Temperance Society, 1831. American Temperance Society, Permanent Temperance Documents of the American Temperance Society, 5. 26. John Dunlop, On the Extent and Remedy of National Intemperance (Glasgow: William Collins, 1829), 28–29. 27. Samuel Couling, History of the Temperance Movement in Great Britain and Ireland; From the Earliest Date to the Present Time (London: William Tweedie,


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1862), 34–25;. Fourth Report of the American Temperance Society, 1831; American Temperance Society, Permanent Temperance Documents of the American Temperance Society, 51. 28. Reported in the Fifth Report of the American Temperance Society, 1832. American Temperance Society, Permanent Temperance Documents of the American Temperance Society, 116. To this we may add the statements of Member of Parliament John Wilks: “We felt no jealousy in reference to America; our language was the same; our origin the same; we sprung from the same parent; our love of liberty was the same; and our divine religion was the same. While, then, our Temperance Societies and Bible Societies, and Missionary Societies existed, there was a bond of brotherhood between America and us, which no national prejudice, or political intrigue, could break.” Sixth Report of the American Temperance Society, 1833, 34–36. 29. Ian Tyrrell, Woman’s World, Woman’s Empire: The Woman’s Christian Temperance Union in International Perspective, 1880–1930 (Chapel Hill.: University of North Carolina Press, 1991), 12. On the evangelical foundations of the ATS, see Blocker, American Temperance Movements, 12. 30. From the Fourth Report of the American Temperance Society, 1831. American Temperance Society, Permanent Temperance Documents of the American Temperance Society, 52–53. 31. Douglas Charles Strange, British Unitarians against American Slavery 1833– 65 (Rutherford, N.J.: Farleigh Dickinson University Press, 1984), 61. British correspondence with the ATS makes this point more directly: “We never made any headway in the abolition of the slave trade and of slavery till it was taken up by religious men, prosecuted as a concern of the soul, with reference to eternity, and by motives drawn from the cross of Christ.” Cited in the Seventh Report of the American Temperance Society, 1834, 36. American Temperance Society, Permanent Temperance Documents of the American Temperance Society, 374. 32. Eighth Report of the American Temperance Society, 1835, 38. American Temperance Society, Permanent Temperance Documents of the American Temperance Society, 492. 33. Quoted in the Sixth Report of the American Temperance Society, 1833, 36. Ibid., 262. 34. Quoted in the Eighth Report of the American Temperance Society, 1835, 35. Ibid., 489. 35. Toqueville’s observations of American civil society and early temperance organization, undertaken in 1831–1832, are worthy of note, especially given his transnational lesson-drawing: “The first time I heard in the United States that a hundred thousand men had bound themselves publicly to abstain from spirituous liquors, it appeared to me to be more like a joke than a serious engagement; and I did not at once perceive why these temperate citizens could not content themselves with drinking water by their own firesides. I at last understood that these hundred thousand Americans, alarmed by the progress of drunkenness around them, had made up their minds to patronize temperance. They acted just in the same way as a man of high rank who should dress very plainly, in order to inspire the humbler orders with a contempt of luxury. It is probable that, if these hundred thousand men had lived in France, each of them would singly have memorialized the government

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to watch the public houses all over the kingdom. Nothing, in my opinion, is more deserving of our attention than the intellectual and moral associations of America.” de Toqueville, Democracy in America, 201. 36. Quoted in: Tyrrell, Woman’s World, Woman’s Empire, 16. See also Fifth Report of the American Temperance Society, 1832, 7–8; American Temperance Society, Permanent Temperance Documents of the American Temperance Society, 118. 37. John F. Maguire, Father Mathew: A Biography (London: Longmans, Green, 1865). Relative to other temperance pioneers, the secondary literature on the role of Father Mathew is surprisingly rich: Colm Kerrigan, Father Mathew and the Irish Temperance Movement, 1838–1849 (Cork: Cork University Press, 1992); John F. Quinn, Father Mathew’s Crusade: Temperance in Nineteenth-Century Ireland and Irish America (Amherst, Mass.: University of Massachusetts Press, 2002); Patrick Rogers, Father Theobald Mathew: Apostle of Temperance (Dublin: Browne and Nolan Limited, 1943). 38. Astolphe Custine, Marquis de, Empire of the Czar: A Journey through Eternal Russia: 1839 (New York: Doubleday, 1989). 39. Ian Tyrrell, Sobering Up: From Temperance to Prohibition in Antebellum America, 1800–1860 (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1979), 164–67. 40. The American Sunday School Union was a Presbyterian missionary organization that focused primarily on the United States, inspired by the example of English Sunday charity schools of the late 1700s. Barbara A. Sokolsky, American Sunday School Union Papers, 1817–1915: A Guide to the Microfilm Edition (Sanford, N.C.: Microfilming Corporation of America, 1980), 1. On the French Association, see Henry M. Baird, The Life of the Rev. Robert Baird, D.D. (New York: a.d.F. Randolph, 1866), 87–89. On Baird and the Evangelical United Front, see Daniel Walker Howe, What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815– 1848 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), 193–94. 41. Baird, The Life of the Rev. Robert Baird, D.D., 106–7. 42. Ibid. 111, 13, 22–24, 35, 56;. David Carnegie, The Licensing Laws of Sweden: And Some Account of the Great Reduction of Drunkenness in Gothenburg (Glasgow: Glasgow Philosophical Society, 1872), 2. 43. Robert Baird, Historisk teckning af nykterhets-föreningarna i Nord-Amerikas Förenta Stater: jemte några upplysningar angående dessa föreningar i andra länder: öfversättning (Stockholm: S. Rumstedt, 1843);. Baird, The Life of the Rev. Robert Baird, D.D., 111, 13, 22–24. Baird’s initial visit to Sweden was facilitated by a young English clergyman, George Scott, who had been in Stockholm since the late 1820s and may have made transnational requests for temperance information from the American Temperance Society as early as 1826. David Hinshaw, Sweden: Champion of Peace (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1949), 64–65. 44. Robert Baird, Visit to Northern Europe, 2 vols., vol. 2 (New York: John S. Taylor & Co., 1841), 196, 347;. Halfdan Bengtsson, “The Temperance Movement and Temperance Legislation in Sweden,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 197 (1938): 134. 45. John Allen Krout, Origins of Prohibition (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1925), 178. 46. Dawson Burns, Temperance History: A Consecutive Narrative of the Rise, Development and Extension of the Temperance Reform, 2 vols. (London: National


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Temperance Publication Depot, 1889), 120. American temperance advocate William “Pussyfoot” Johnson noted the presence of translated American temperance publications in the Russian empire as early as 1834. William Johnson, The Liquor Problem in Russia (Westerville, Ohio: American Issue Publishing House, 1915), 151. 47. Baird correspondence to ASSU from St. Petersburg, October 20, 1840: Presbyterian Historical Society, American Sunday School Union Papers, 1817–1915; Reel 45 Series I, C:1840B, no. 200–202. Burns, Temperance History, 136, 90. 48. Baird, The Life of the Rev. Robert Baird, D.D., 195. 49. Krout, Origins of Prohibition, 178. 50. This approach was the hallmark of ATS temperance efforts. Steven Wayne Perrin, “Nothing but Water: The Rise of Temperance and the Emergence of the American Temperance Society” (Ph.D. dissertation, Southern Illinois University, 1990). 51. Krout, Origins of Prohibition, 125. 52. Joel Bernard, “From Fasting to Abstinence: The Origins of the American Temperance Movement,” in Drinking: Behavior and Belief in Modern History, ed. Susanna Barrows and Robin Room (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991). 53. Theda Skocpol, Marshall Ganz, and Ziad Munson, “A Nation of Organizers: The Institutional Origins of Civic Voluntarism in the United States,” American Political Science Review 94, no. 3 (2000): 533. See also Walter W. Powell and Paul J. DiMaggio, eds., The New Institutionalism in Organizational Analysis (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991). 54. George Kennan to Frances Willard, August 29, 1888. Women’s Christian Temperance Union Series, Temperance and Prohibition Papers, Evanston, Ill., Folder 47—Correspondence, 1888: July–September (Reel 15). 55. Randall C. Jimerson, “The Temperance and Prohibition Movement in America, 1830–1933,” in Guide to the Microfilm Edition of Temperance and Prohibition Papers, ed. Randall C. Jimerson, Francis X. Blouin, and Charles A. Isetts (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Publications, 1977), 5. On the impact of wars (in particular the American Civil War) on the development of civil associations, see Jocelyn Elise Crowley and Theda Skocpol, “The Rush to Organize: Explaining Associational Formation in the United States, 1860s–1920s,” American Journal of Political Science 45, no. 4 (2001): 825; Skocpol, Ganz, and Munson, “A Nation of Organizers,” 534. 56. Simeon B. Chase, “The Independent Order of Good Templars,” in Centennial Temperance Volume: A Memorial of the International Temperance Conference, Held in Philadelphia, June 1876 (New York: National Temperance Society and Publication House, 1877), 602. 57. Already by 1876 the IOGT had established lodges in the United States, Canada, England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, France, Belgium, Portugal, Malta, New Zealand, South Africa, Bermuda, East India, Ceylon, British Honduras, British Guiana, Jamaica, Malacca, China, Japan, Natal, Sierra Leone, St. Helena, the Argentine Republic, Trinidad, Grenada and the Bahamas. Ernest H. Cherrington, ed., Standard Encyclopedia of the Alcohol Problem, 6 vols., vol. 3 (Westerville, Ohio: American Issue Press, 1926), 1336–37; I.O.G.T., The Leading Temperance Organisation in the World (Birmingham: I.O.G.T. Grand Lodge of England, 1890?); Guy Hayler—Temperance Tracts, vol. 11, no. 78.

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58. Ingrid Nilsson, I.O.G.T.—Från orden till förening (Sollentuna, Sweden: Intellecta Docusys AB, 2004), 8; Oskar Petersson, Goodtemplarordens i Sverige historia (Stockholm: Svenska Nykterhetsförlaget, 1903), 5–9. 59. The Negro Question in the I.O.G.T. (Birmingham: I.O.G.T. Grand Lodge of England, 1876); Guy Hayler Temperance Tracts, University of Wisconsin Special Collections, vol. 10, no. 20. 60. David M. Fahey, Temperance and Racism: John Bull, Johnny Reb, and the Good Templars (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1996), 14; William W. Turnbull, The Good Templars: A History of the Rise and Progress of the Independent Order of Good Templars (1901). 61. Dorothy Staunton, Our Goodly Heritage: A Historical Review of the World’s Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, 1883–1956 (London: Walthamstow Press, 1956);. Tyrrell, Woman’s World, Woman’s Empire, 18;. Susan Mary Brook, “The World League against Alcoholism: The Attempt to Export an American Experience” (Master of Arts, University of Western Ontario, 1972), 3. 62. On the socialization and focusing elements of conferences, see Christine Min Wotipka and Francisco O. Ramirez, “World Society and Human Rights: An Event History Analysis of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women,” in The Global Diffusion of Markets and Democracy, ed. Beth A. Simmons, Frank Dobbin, and Geoffrey Garrett (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 313, 332. 63. Tyrrell, Woman’s World, Woman’s Empire, 16. 64. Little is known of the Stockholm convention other than what is written in Baird’s biography. The conference lasted three days in June, with 244 delegates—all of whom were from Sweden, save for eight from Norway, two from Germany, and four from the United States. Baird, The Life of the Rev. Robert Baird, D.D., 215. 65. Howe, What Hath God Wrought, 166–68. 66. The Proceedings of the World’s Temperance Convention, Held in London, August 4th and Four Following Days (London: Charles Gilpin, 1846), 41–43. 67. Whole World’s Temperance Convention Held at Metropolitan Hall in the City of New York on Thursday and Friday, Sept. 1st and 2d, 1853 (New York: Fowlers and Wells, 1853), 13. 68. Ibid., 20. 69. Cherrington, ed., Standard Encyclopedia of the Alcohol Problem, vol. 6, 2917. Ian Tyrrell attests to the token nature of international representation by noting that the sole Japanese delegate to the conference was merely an American missionary on furlough. Tyrrell, Woman’s World, Woman’s Empire, 20. 70. Centennial Temperance Volume: A Memorial of the International Temperance Conference, Held in Philadelphia, June, 1876 (New York: National Temperance Society and Publication House, 1877), 345. 71. One Hundred Years of Temperance: A Memorial Volume of the Centennial Temperance Conference Held in Philadelphia, Pa, September, 1885 (New York: National Temperance Society and Publication House, 1886). 72. True to its name, the British and Colonial Temperance Convention considered developments throughout the empire—including Canada—but with no direct account of American developments. The British and Colonial Temperance Congress, London, July 1886 (London: National Temperance Publication Depot, 1886).


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73. See, for instance, Burns, Temperance History; Daniel Dorchester, The Liquor Problem in All Ages (New York: Phillips & Hunt, 1884); Eddy, Alcohol in History; Robert Pitman, Alcohol and the State: A Discussion of the Problem of Law as Applied to the Liquor Traffic (New York: National Temperance Society and Publishing House, 1878). 74. On international statistical comparisons, see Switzerland Bureau fédéral de statistique, Question de l’alcoolisme. Exposé comparatif des lois et des expériences de quelques états étrangers, par le bureau fédéral de statistique (Berne, Switzerland: Imprimerie K.-J. Wyss, 1884). For coverage of Russian temperance developments in the literary press, see, for instance: J. M. Buckley, The Midnight Sun, the Tsar and the Nihilist (Boston: D. Lothrop and Company, 1886), 300–302; William Hepworth Dixon, Free Russia (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1870), 159–60; Eustace Clare Grenville Murray, The Russians of To-Day (London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1878), 28–35; D. MacKenzie Wallace, Russia (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1877), 97, 542. Most of these authors were known for their temperance positions. 75. The correspondences for the first time addressed developments in imperial Russia, with a letter from one M. Aksakof of St. Petersburg, who reported that “we have not a single temperance society, and that the intemperance cause in Russia is flourishing.” Centennial Temperance Volume: A Memorial of the International Temperance Conference, Held in Philadelphia, June, 1876, 354. 76. Mark Lawrence Schrad, “Religion, Drunkenness, Popular Mobilization and the State: The Rise and Record of Temperance Societies in Nineteenth Century Russia and Sweden” (2004). 77. Gosudarstvennyi Arkhiv Rossiiskoi Federatsii (GARF), f. 677 (Imperator Aleksandr III), op. 1, d. 542, ll. 6–9, 13–19; GARF, f. 677, op. 1, d. 543, ll. 17–18. 78. See, for instance, the bilateral solicitations for information between Massachusetts policymakers and Swedish officials: Oskar Carlheim-Gyllenskjöld, A Memorandum Concerning the Use of Intoxicating Liquors in Sweden, the Amount of Crime Produced by Them, and Their Effects on the Health and Prosperity of the People: In Reply to Inquiries Made on Behalf of the State Board of Health of Massachusetts, Delivered to the Minister Resident of the United States of America (Stockholm: P.A. Norstedt & Söner, 1872). 79. Tarrow, The New Transnational Activism, 76. 80. On the power of influential organizations to set the normative agenda for networks, see David A. Lake and Wendy H. Wong, “The Politics of Networks: Interests, Power, and Human Rights Norms,” in Networked Politics: Agency, Power and Governance ed. Miles Kahler (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2009), 136. 81. Jimerson, “The Temperance and Prohibition Movement in America, 1830– 1933,” 7. 82. Robert Hercod, ed., Proceedings of the International Conference against Alcoholism at Geneva, 1st—3rd September 1925 (Lausanne, Switzerland: International Bureau against Alcoholism, 1925). 83. Gallus Thomann, The Second International Temperance Congress, Held at Zürich, Switzerland, in the Year 1887 (New York: United States Brewers’ Association, 1889), 5.

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84. Gallus Thomann, Some Thoughts on the International Temperance Meeting, Held at Antwerp in September, 1885 (New York: United States Brewers’ Association, 1886). Cherrington, ed., Standard Encyclopedia of the Alcohol Problem, 1343. 85. Thomann, Second International Temperance Congress, 7. 86. Ernest Gordon, The Anti-Alcohol Movement in Europe (New York: Fleming H. Revel Company, 1913), 84. By the end of the mature stage of network development in 1925, the Permanent Committee boasted fifty-six leaders of the most prominent temperance organizations in twenty-three countries, including Johan Bergman and Senator Alexis Björkman from Sweden; Bishop James Cannon, Ernest Cherrington, Rev. Edwin Dinwidde, Anna Gordon, Cora Stoddard, and Wayne Wheeler from the United States; Arthur Sherwell, George Wilson, and John Turner Rae from the United Kingdom; and Dr. Robert Hercod from Switzerland, whose Bureau International Contre l’Alcoolism in Lausanne, Switzerland, would be charged with much of the administrative duties associated with the congresses. 87. Intercollegiate Prohibition Association Series, Ohio Historical Society, Box 1, fl. 62—World Student Federation against Alcoholism (roll 4). Cherrington, ed., Standard Encyclopedia of the Alcohol Problem, 1331, 43–47; Cherrington, ed., Standard Encyclopedia of the Alcohol Problem, 2918. 88. See, for instance, the official American delegation to the 1923 Congress appointed by President Warren Harding, which submitted its report on the Copenhagen Conference to Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes before being transmitted by President Calvin Coolidge to the Senate Committee of Foreign Relations. U.S. Delegation to the International Congress against Alcoholism, Seventeenth International Congress against Alcoholism (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1925). On the subsidizing of the congresses by the governments of Europe, see Gordon, The Anti-Alcohol Movement in Europe, 84. 89. Russia sent official state delegates to the Congresses as early as 1893, including A. de Berends, the Russian chargé d’affaires in the Hague; St. Petersburg lawyer and journalist Vyacheslav Vasselovskii; temperance advocates Drs. Nikolai Grigoriev, Dmitri Dril, and minister Mintslov; Bericht über den V. Internationalen Kongress zur Bekämpfung des Missbrauchs geistiger Getränke zu Basel, 20–22 August 1895 (Basel, Switzerland: Schriftstelle des Alkoholgegnerbundes, 1896), 10, 16; Compterendu du 4me Congrès international contre l’abus des boissons alcooliques à la Haye du 15–18 Août 1893 (The Hague, Netherlands: H. L. Smits, 1893), 2, 26, 182– 83. By 1912, duly appointed by the Russian Ministry of International Affairs to the 14th International Congress in Milan, Russian Count Lyudvik Skarzhinskii was entrusted with delivering a yearly stipend of 6,000 rubles to the organization, a sum that would be doubled to 12,000 rubles by Finance Minister Peter Bark in 1914. GARF, f. 6996 (Ministerstvo Finansov vremennogo pravitel’stva), op. 1, d. 307, ll. 1–5, 9–11; Bericht über den VIII. Internationalen Congress gegen den Alkoholismus, abgehalten in Wien, 9–14 April 1901 (Leipzig, Germany: F. Deuticke, 1902), 556. 90. Such societies included the (Swedish) International Temperance Bureau, the (French) Ligue Internationale Catholique contre l’Alcoolisme, the (Italian) Internationales Komitee Abstinenter Priester, the (Swedish) Internationaler Verband Abstinenter Ärzte, the (German) Internationale Vereinigung Gegen den Alkoholismus, the (American) International Reform Federation, the (Danish) International Teacher’s Federation against Alcoholism, the (Swiss) World Student


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Federation against Alcoholism, the International Federation of Abstaining Socialists, and the International Federation of the Blue Cross Temperance Societies. 91. Woman’s Christian Temperance Union Series, WCTU National Headquarters, Evanston, Ill., Roll 2 (Annual Meeting Minutes): October 30, 1885, Philadelphia, 12, 62–67. See also WCTU Roll 34, Scrapbook 20 (World’s W.C.T.U. including missionary work of Mary Clement Leavitt and Polyglot Petition, 1883–1894). 92. See, for instance, Report of the Convention of the World’s Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, Boston Massachusetts, U.S.A. October 17–23, 1906 (1906), 2. 93. Ian Tyrrell, “Women and Temperance in International Perspective: The World’s W.C.T.U., 1880s–1920s,” in Drinking: Behavior and Belief in Modern History, ed. Susanna Barrows and Robin Room (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), 219. 94. Such World’s WCTU conferences were held in 1891 in Boston, 1893 in Chicago, 1895 in London, 1897 in Toronto, 1900 in Edinburgh, 1903 in Geneva, 1906 in Boston, 1910 in Glasgow, 1913 in Brooklyn, 1920 in London, 1922 in Edinburgh, 1928 in Lausanne, 1931 in Toronto, and 1934 in Stockholm. Ian Tyrrell, “World League against Alcoholism (W.L.A.A.),” in Alcohol and Temperance in Modern History: An International Encyclopedia, ed. Jack Jr. Blocker, David Fahey, and Ian Tyrrell (Santa Barbara, Cal.: ABC-CLIO, 2003), 694–95. 95. Tyrrell, Woman’s World, Woman’s Empire, 18. 96. Bericht über den V. Internationalen Kongress, Basel, 484–506. 97. See David Fahey, “Temperance Internationalism: Guy Hayler and the World Prohibition Federation,” The Social History of Alcohol and Drugs, 20 (2006). 98. Correspondence: Guy Hayler to Francis Smith, Feb. 11, 1896. Guy Hayler Temperance Tracts, vol. 14, no. 23. 99. Matthew K. McKean, “World Prohibition Federation,” in Alcohol and Temperance in Modern History: An International Encyclopedia, ed. Jack Jr. Blocker, David Fahey, and Ian Tyrrell (Santa Barbara, Cal.: ABC-CLIO, 2003), 693. 100. International conferences of the IPC/WPF were held at Copenhagen and Washington, D.C. in 1920, Lausanne and Paris in 1921, Amsterdam in 1922, London and Copenhagen in 1923, Dorpat, Estonia, in 1926, Geneva and Philadelphia in 1927, Antwerp in 1928, and Warsaw in 1931. Cherrington, ed., Standard Encyclopedia of the Alcohol Problem, 2916. 101. The most comprehensive study of the ASL is K. Austin Kerr, Organized for Prohibition: A New History of the Anti-Saloon League (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1985). The most thorough consideration of the WLAA remains Brook, “World League against Alcoholism.” 102. See Ernest H. Cherrington Papers, Ohio Historical Society, Box 27 (ASLA Executive Committee File, 1914–1934), f. 9; Howard Hyde Russell Papers, Ohio Historical Society, Roll 6, f. 42.; Cherrington-Johnson correspondence: Cherrington Papers, Box 14 (Office file, 1928–1933), ff. 7–10; Tarini Prasad Sinha, “Pussyfoot” Johnson and His Campaign in Hindustan (Madras, India: Ganesh & Co., 1922). 103. Brook, “World League against Alcoholism,” 136. 104. Riksarkivet-Arninge (RA-A), IOGT arkiv, AI:14, ss. 87–88; Scandinavian Grand Lodge of Connecticut IOGT to Grand Lodge, June 20, 1922: RA-A, IOGT

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arkiv, AI:14; Skand. Storlogen af Minnesota to Edvard Wavrinsky, n/d 1891, RA-A, Edvard Wavrinsky arkiv, Korresp. 1883–1889; Equity to Wavrinsky, Feb. 1, 1919; RA-A, Edvard Wavrinsky arkiv, Korresp. Bih. V, vol. V; Lewis to Wavrinsky, Feb. 16 1892, RA-A, Edvard Wavrinsky arkiv, Korresp. Bih. V., vol. V; RA-A, Edvard Wavrinksky arkiv, 1909–1918 IOGT file, s. 55 (1913). 105. See, for instance, GARF, f. 115 (Soyuz 17-ogo Oktyabrya), op. 1, d. 19, l. 1; GARF, f. 115, op. 2, d. 16, ll. 1–3, 32; GARF, f. 115, op. 2, d. 18, l. 2; GARF f. 586 (Vycheslav K. Plehve), op. 1, d. 276, l. 6; GARF f. 586, op. 1, d. 375, ll. 1–3; GARF, f. 6996, op. 1, d. 483, ll. 1–6; GARF f. 6996, op. 1, d. 484, ll. 1–11; GARF, f. 579 (Pavel N. Milyukov, 1856–1918), op. 1, d. 2545, l. 1. 106. Woman’s Christian Temperance Union Series, Roll 17, folder 57 (Correspondence, 1891: petitions). p. 1; John Newton, Alcohol and Native Races: The Case of Our West African Colonies (Westminster, England: The Native Races and the Liquor Traffic United Committee, 1915); Guy Hayler Temperance Tracts, vol. 28, no. 11; J. Grant Mills, The Brussels African Conference, 1890–1891. A Paper Read at the World’s Temperance Congress, Chicago, June 1893, and at the International Congress against the Abuse of Alcoholic Drinks Held at the Hague, August 1893 (London: Native Races and Liquor Traffic United Committee, 1893; Guy Hayler Temperance Tracts, vol 2, no. 27; Report of the Special Temperance Conference: Held in the Chamber of Commerce, Manchester, on Nov. 23, 1895 (Manchester: Salford and District Temperance Union, 1895);. Guy Hayler Temperance Tracts, vol. 2, no. 6. 107. Eugene S. Politovsky, From Libau to Tsushima: A Narrative of the Voyage of Admiral Rojdestvensky’s Fleet to Eastern Seas, Including a Detailed Account of the Dogger Bank Incident, trans. F. R. Godfrey (New York: E. P. Dutton and Company, 1908). 108. Brook, “World League against Alcoholism,” 135. 109. Ernest H. Cherrington Papers, Ohio Historical Society: Cherrington to Nicholson, December 20, 1927 (Roll 12, box 4); Cherrington to Johnson, October 3, 1930; Cherrington to Cannon, July 28 and October 1, 1931 (Roll 21, box 7); Johnson to Cherrington, November 11, 1932 (Roll 41, box 14). 110. Tyrrell, Woman’s World, Woman’s Empire, 284. 111. McKean, “World Prohibition Federation,” 693–94. 112. Derek Rutherford, “I.O.G.T. International,” in Alcohol and Temperance in Modern History: An International Encyclopedia, ed. Jack Jr. Blocker, David Fahey, and Ian Tyrrell (Santa Barbara, Cal.: ABC-CLIO, 2003), 321. http://www.iogt.org/ index.asp (accessed September 11, 2006). 113. http://www.icaa.ch/history_2007.html (accessed January 5, 2008). 114. Sidney Tarrow, Power in Movement: Social Movements and Contentious Politics, 2nd ed. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 43–53;. Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, 2nd ed. (London: Verso, 1991), 34–35. 115. Joseph Gusfield, “Benevolent Repression: Popular Culture, Social Structure and the Control of Drinking,” in Drinking: Behavior and Belief in Modern History, ed. Susanna Barrows and Robin Room (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), 406–9. See also Crowley and Skocpol, “The Rush to Organize,” 820. Laura L. Phillips rightly points out that “the history of alcohol shows no simple correlation between high levels of consumption and heightened public debate over the ‘problem’ of alcohol,” but rather that “anti-alcohol movements attract public support


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when alcohol becomes a symbol of some deeper crisis.” Laura L. Phillips, Bolsheviks and the Bottle: Drink and Worker Culture in St. Petersburg, 1900–1929 (De Kalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2000), 11. 116. “Temperance Address” to the Washington Temperance Society, Springfield, Ill. (February 22, 1842). Quoted in Howe, What Hath God Wrought, 598. 117. Ibid. 118. Ethan A. Nadelmann, “Global Prohibition Regimes: The Evolution of Norms in International Society,” International Organization 44, no. 4 (1990): 495–96. 119. Sikkink, “The Power of Networks in International Politics,” 237. 120. Keck and Sikkink, Activists Beyond Borders 16.

NOTES TO CHAPTER 3 Epigraph Source: Winston Churchill, “What I Saw in America of Prohibition,” London Daily Telegraph, December 2, 1929. Anti-Saloon League of America Series, Temperance and Prohibition Papers, Ohio Historical Society, Box 5, Folder 3—Winston Churchill (Reel 8). 1. For a brief review of historical approaches to American prohibition and repeal, see Schrad, “Constitutional Blemishes,” 438–40. 2. Sanford Levinson, Our Undemocratic Constitution (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), 21. 3. Frank R. Baumgartner and Bryan D. Jones, “Positive and Negative Feedback in Politics,” in Policy Dynamics, ed. Frank R. Baumgartner and Bryan D. Jones (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002), 12. 4. See, for instance, Mark R. Beissinger, Nationalist Mobilization and Collapse of the Soviet State (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002); David Laitin, Identity in Formation: The Russian-Speaking Populations in the Near Abroad (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1998); Sidney Tarrow, Power in Movement: Social Movements and Contentious Politics, 2nd ed. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998). 5. Bryan D. Jones, Reconceiving Decision-Making in Democratic Politics: Attention, Choice and Public Policy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994). 6. Frank R. Baumgartner and Bryan D. Jones, Agendas and Instability in American Politics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993). 7. Mark Moore and Dean Gerstein, eds., Alcohol and Public Policy: Beyond the Shadow of Prohibition—Panel on Alternative Policies Affecting the Prevention of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 1981). 8. W. J. Rorabaugh, The Alcoholic Republic: An American Tradition (New York: Oxford University Press, 1979), 39; Gallus Thomann, Colonial Liquor Laws (New York: United States Brewers’ Association, 1887), 194. 9. John Allen Krout, Origins of Prohibition (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1925). 10. David Carnegie, The Licensing Laws of Sweden: And Some Account of the Great Reduction of Drunkenness in Gothenburg (Glasgow, Scotland: Glasgow Philosophical Society, 1872); A. Th. Kiaer, “The Norwegian System of Regulating the Drink Traffic,” The Economic Journal 9, no. 33 (1899); John Larsson, Review of the Working of the Gothenburg Public-House Licensing Co. (Göteborgs Utskänknings

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Notes to Page 67

Aktiebolag) with Statistics of the Malt, Liquor and Wine Traffic, Not under the Control of the Company, Represented by Compendium, Tables and Explanations Compiled for the Alcohol Congress at Kristiania, 1890, trans. John Duff (Göteborg, Sweden: Göteborgs Handelstidnings Aktiebolags Tryckeri, 1890); Robert Pitman, Alcohol and the State: A Discussion of the Problem of Law as Applied to the Liquor Traffic (New York: National Temperance Society and Publishing House, 1878); Edwin A. Pratt, Licensing and Temperance in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark (London: John Murray, 1907); Joseph Rowntree and Arthur Sherwell, British ‘Gothenburg’ Experiments and Public-House Trusts (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1901). 11. Richard Hamm, Shaping the Eighteenth Amendment: Temperance Reform, Legal Culture, and the Polity, 1880–1920 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995), 128. 12. Daniel C. Roper, “The Dispensary System—Results of Its Operation in the State of South Carolina,” Anti-Saloon League of America Series, Temperance and Prohibition Papers, Ohio Historical Society, Box 6, Folder 25—Daniel C. Roper File (Reel 12). 13. John Evans Eubanks, Ben Tillman’s Baby: The Dispensary System of South Carolina, 1892–1915 (Augusta, Georgia: n.p., 1950); A. M. Lee, The South Carolina Dispensary Law and “Original Package” Decisions (Charleston, S.C.: Lucas & Richardson Co., 1897). 14. Ernest H. Cherrington, ed., Standard Encyclopedia of the Alcohol Problem, 6 vols., vol. 5 (Westerville, Ohio: American Issue Press, 1929), 1956. 15. Of particular interest is the response of a chief royal statistician and Secretary of the Swedish Temperance Society to requests made by the Massachusetts State Board of Health in 1872. Oskar Carlheim-Gyllenskiöld, A Memorandum Concerning the Use of Intoxicating Liquors in Sweden, the Amount of Crime Produced by Them, and Their Effects on the Health and Prosperity of the People: In Reply to Inquiries Made on Behalf of the State Board of Health of Massachusetts, Delivered to the Minister Resident of the United States of America (Stockholm: P. A. Norstedt & Söner, 1872). Library of Congress. 16. E. R. L. Gould, The Gothenburg System of Liquor Traffic (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1893). 17. The Commission to Investigate the Gothenburg and Norwegian Systems of Licensing the Sale of Intoxicating Liquors, “Report to the General Court, No. 192” (Massachusetts General Court, 1894). [NEH Preservation Project, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.] 18. Minutes of the Committee of Fifty for the Investigation of the Drink Problem; Cambridge, Mass., March 27, 1897—Francis Peabody, Secretary. Since it was a geographically dispersed organization, committee minutes and reports were frequently mailed to members with explicit instructions concerning the private use of these materials, including the destruction of prior correspondence and reports. Perhaps the only complete collection of committee minutes and correspondences—apparently that of University of Wisconsin professor Richard T. Ely—is to be found at the John Crerar Library at the University of Chicago. Additional private materials of Committee researcher Dr. Frederick Howard Wines have been graciously made available as part of the Wines Microfilm Collection on Social Problems through the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.


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19. Ibid. 20. John S. Billings, ed., Physiological Aspects of the Liquor Problem: An Investigation Made for the Committee of Fifty, 2 vols. (New York: Houghton Mifflin and Company, 1903); John S. Billings et al., The Liquor Problem: A Summary of Investigations Conducted by the Committee of Fifty, 1893–1903 (New York: Houghton Mifflin and Company, 1905); Raymond Calkins, Substitutes for the Saloon, 2nd ed. (New York: Houghton Mifflin and Company, 1919); John Koren, Economic Aspects of the Liquor Problem, an Investigation Made under the Direction of a Sub-Committee of the Committee of Fifty (New York: Houghton Mifflin and Company, 1899); Frederic H. Wines and John Koren, The Liquor Problem in Its Legislative Aspects: An Investigation Made under the Direction of the Committee of Fifty (New York: Houghton Mifflin and Company, 1897). 21. Harry G. Levine, “The Committee of Fifty and the Origins of Alcohol Control,” The Journal of Drug Issues. Special issue on the political economy of alcohol (1983). 22. Wines and Koren, The Liquor Problem in Its Legislative Aspects. 23. John J. Rumbarger, “Social Origins and Function of the Political Temperance Movement in the Reconstruction of American Society, 1825–1917” (Dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 1968), 188. Report of the Special Subcommittee on Substitutes for the Saloon, E. R. L. Gould, Chairman pro-tempore. Minutes of the Committee of Fifty for the Investigation of the Drink Problem; New Haven, Conn., Nov. 5, 1898—Henry Farnam, Acting Secretary. 24. Ernest Gordon, Breakdown of the Gothenburg System (New York: National Temperance Society and Publication House, 1911); Hamm, Shaping the Eighteenth Amendment, 128; K. Austin Kerr, Organized for Prohibition: A New History of the Anti-Saloon League (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1985), 74; A. Symonds Ohlin, “Crown Prince of Sweden Favors Prohibition Measures,” Union Signal, May 18, 1916; A. Symonds Ohlin, “Sweden’s Progress on the Road to Prohibition,” Union Signal, March 15, 1916. 25. See, for instance, Harry Pratt Judson, The Growth of the American Nation (New York: Chautauqua-Century Press, 1895), 352–53. 26. E. L. Eaton, Winning the Fight against Drink (Cincinnati, Ohio: Jennings and Graham, 1912), 17, 220–44; Charles E. Ebersol, “Types of Public Control of the Liquor Traffic: In Sweden; in Norway; in South Carolina; and in Athens, Georgia” (Chicago: Chicago Theological Seminary, 1904); Gordon, Breakdown of the Gothenburg System; Arthur Shadwell, Drink, Temperance and Legislation, 3rd ed. (New York: Longmans, Green and Co., 1915). 27. Ernest Gordon, Two Footnotes to the History of the Anti-Alcohol Movement (Boston, Mass.: 1916); William Johnson, Government Liquor Monopolies: South Carolina, Turkey, Russia and Elsewhere (Westerville, Ohio: American Issue Publishing Co., 1919). 28. Eaton, Winning the Fight against Drink, 220–44; J. A. Homan, Prohibition: The Enemy of Temperance (Cincinnati, Ohio: Christian Liberty Bureau, 1910). 29. William E. Johnson to Howard Hyde Russell, June 21, 1932, “Notes on S.C. Dispensary,” 3. Howard Hyde Russell Series, Temperance and Prohibition Papers. Ohio Historical Society, Folder 42, “Correspondence and other papers, 1932, concerning W. E. ‘Pussyfoot’ Johnson (Roll 6).

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30. Gordon, Two Footnotes to the History of the Anti-Alcohol Movement; Kerr, Organized for Prohibition; Peter H. Odegard, Pressure Politics: The Story of the Anti-Saloon League (New York: Columbia University Press, 1928). 31. George Elliot Flint, The Whole Truth About Alcohol (New York: MacMillan Company, 1919); Homan, Prohibition: The Enemy of Temperance; John Koren, Alcohol and Society (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1916). 32. Robert Bates, Markets and States in Tropical Africa (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981); Mancur Olson, The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1965). 33. Kerr, Organized for Prohibition; Odegard, Pressure Politics. 34. Ernest H. Cherrington, The Evolution of Prohibition in the United States of America: A Chronological History of the Liquor Problem and the Temperance Reform in the United States from the Earliest Settlements to the Consummation of National Prohibition (Westerville, Ohio: American Issue Press, 1920); Charles Merz, The Dry Decade (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1931). 35. International Reform Bureau, Conservation of Food and Other Resources by War Prohibition: Facts and Figures (Washington, D.C.: 1917). Congressional Record, June 18, 1917, 4072. 36. James A. Monroe, Hellfire Nation: The Politics of Sin in American History (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2003), 312–13. 37. Christopher Capozzola, Uncle Sam Wants You: World War I and the Making of the Modern American Citizen (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), 180–81. 38. Indeed, this interpretation was held so widely that the Kaiser’s proclamation even served as the epigraph to books on the subject. Marr Murray, Drink and the War from the Patriotic Point of View (London: Chapman and Hall, Ltd., 1915). See also Irving Fisher, “Changing Attitude of the World toward Alcohol,” Union Signal, June 14, 1917; L. Mervin Maus, “Total Abstinence a Natural Result of the War, Says Colonel Maus,” Union Signal, May 20, 1915; “Prohibition Progress in Trans-Atlantic Lands,” Union Signal, October 21–28, 1915; A. W. Harris, “A Compensation of the War,” Union Signal, June 8, 1916, 5. 39. Hamm, Shaping the Eighteenth Amendment, 240–41. 40. In the end, forty-six of the forty-eight states ratified the Eighteenth Amendment, with only Rhode Island and Connecticut defeating the measure. 41. Paul Aaron and David Musto, “Temperance and Prohibition in America: A Historical Overview,” in Alcohol and Public Policy: Beyond the Shadow of Prohibition—Panel on Alternative Policies Affecting the Prevention of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, ed. Mark Moore and Dean Gerstein (Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 1981), 156–57; Jack Blocker, Jr., American Temperance Movements: Cycles of Reform (Boston, Mass.: Twayne Publishers, 1989), 119; Jack Blocker, Jr., Retreat from Reform: The Prohibition Movement in the United States, 1890–1913 (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1976), 239–40; Kerr, Organized for Prohibition, 207; Merz, The Dry Decade, 25–42; Odegard, Pressure Politics, 174–80; Andrew Sinclair, Prohibition: The Era of Excess (Boston, Mass.: Little, Brown & Co., 1962), 119–21; Ann-Marie Szymanski, Pathways to Prohibition: Radicals, Moderates, and Social Movement Outcomes (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2003), 12; James Timberlake, Prohibition and the Progressive Movement, 1900–1920 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1963), 178.


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42. Hamm, Shaping the Eighteenth Amendment, 8. 43. Ira Katznelson, “Periodization and Preferences: Reflections on Purportive Action in Comparative Historical Social Science,” in Comparative Historical Analysis in the Social Sciences, ed. James Mahoney and Dietrich Rueschemeyer (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003); Stephen Krasner, “Sovereignty: An Institutional Perspective,” Comparative Political Studies 21 (1988). 44. Richard T. Ely, An Introduction to Political Economy (New York: Chautauqua Press, 1889), 306. 45. Tun Yuan Hu, The Liquor Tax in the United States (New York: Columbia University Graduate School of Business, 1950). 46. Frank R. Baumgartner and Bryan D. Jones, “Agenda Dynamics and Policy Subsystems,” Journal of Politics 53, no. 4 (1991). 47. Bryan D. Jones and Frank R. Baumgartner, The Politics of Attention: How Government Prioritizes Problems (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005); Moore and Gerstein, eds., Alcohol and Public Policy, 4, 8. 48. Clinton Rossiter, Constitutional Dictatorship: Crisis Government in the Modern Democracies (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1948). 49. John W. Kingdon, Agendas, Alternatives and Public Policies (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1984). 50. Baumgartner and Jones, “Positive and Negative Feedback in Politics,” 22. 51. Jones and Baumgartner, Politics of Attention, 50–54. 52. Such organizations motivated by economic interest include the Association Against Impure Liquors. Anti-Saloon League of America Series, Temperance and Prohibition Papers, Ohio Historical Society, Box 7, Folder 30—Wet Organizations (Reel 14). The Anti-Saloon League holdings list fifty-four different “wet” organizations. 53. David E. Kyvig, Repealing National Prohibition, 2nd ed. (Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 2000), 39. 54. Association Against the Prohibition Amendment, “Certificate of the Formation of the Association Against the Prohibition Amendment” (Washington, D.C.: AAPA, 1921). 55. Kenneth Murchison, Federal Criminal Law Doctrines: The Forgotten Influence of National Prohibition (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1994), 16. 56. Will Rogers, “Mr. Rogers Sees Liquor Issue as Our Best Political Cleaver,” New York Times, March 7, 1931. Anti-Saloon League of America Series, Ohio Historical Society Archives; Box 6, Folder 21 (Reel 12). 57. Al Smith promoted modification of the Volstead Act to allow for weaker alcoholic beverages and to study the experiences of other countries for insights into ways to better administer the alcohol traffic, as in Canada and Scandinavia. Greg Marquis, “‘Brewers and Distillers Paradise’: American Views of Canadian Alcohol Policies, 1919 to 1935,” Canadian Review of American Studies 34, no. 2 (2004): 147, 153. 58. Allan Lichtman, “Critical Election Theory and the Reality of American Presidential Politics, 1916–1940,” American Historical Review 81 (1976); Ruth Silva, Rum, Religion and Votes: 1928 Re-Examined (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1962).

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59. William Ogburn and Nell Talbot, “A Measurement of the Factors in the Presidential Election of 1928,” Social Forces 8 (1929); Roy Peel and Thomas Donnally, The 1928 Campaign: An Analysis (New York: Richard R. Smith, 1931), 58–59; Sinclair, Prohibition: The Era of Excess, 353. 60. The archives of the AAPA, housed in the Manuscripts Division of the Library of Congress, contain a great literature of anti-prohibition research materials of the prohibition era, as well as copies of the various AAPA pamphlets described here. 61. Records, National Commission on Law Observance and Enforcement, NC 103, Record Group 10, National Archives, Washington, D.C. 62. Kyvig, Repealing National Prohibition, 107. 63. Association Against the Prohibition Amendment, Finland’s Prohibition: An Echo of Volsteadism (Washington, D.C.: AAPA, 1930); Association Against the Prohibition Amendment, Last Outposts of Prohibition in Canada: Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island (Washington, D.C.: AAPA, 1929); Association Against the Prohibition Amendment, Norway’s Noble Experiment (Washington, D.C.: AAPA, 1931). 64. Association Against the Prohibition Amendment, England’s Solution to the Liquor Problem (Washington, D.C.: AAPA, 1930); Association Against the Prohibition Amendment, Temperance by Taxation: How Denmark Does It (Washington, D.C.: AAPA, 1932). 65. Association Against the Prohibition Amendment, Bratt System of Liquor Control in Sweden (Washington, D.C.: AAPA, 1930); Association Against the Prohibition Amendment, Government Liquor Control in Canada (Washington, D.C.: AAPA, 1930); Association Against the Prohibition Amendment, The Quebec System: A Study of Liquor Control (Washington, D.C.: AAPA, 1928). 66. Du Pont favored the Swedish state-regulated, private dispensary system over what he saw as a potentially corruptible state-run system as in Quebec. Pierre S. du Pont, A Business Man’s View of Prohibition: Radio Talk by Pierre S. du Pont, Guest Speaker of Collier’s Hour, Broadcast by National Broadcasting Company, December 15, 1929 (Washington, D.C.: Association Against the Prohibition Amendment, 1929); Pierre S. du Pont, Statement Made before the Committee on the Judiciary of the House of Representatives: April 30, 1930 (Washington, D.C.: Association Against the Prohibition Amendment, 1930). 67. Anti-Saloon League of America Series, Ohio Historical Society, Box 5, Folder 1 (Reel 8). 68. Canadian experiences were considered especially relevant, given the cultural similarities and geographic proximity to the United States. In fact, throughout the prohibition era, numerous magazines and research organizations sent reporters, investigators, and “spies” to investigate the alcohol traffic north of the border. Marquis, “‘Brewers and Distillers Paradise,’” 144. 69. National Commission on Law Observance and Enforcement, Enforcement of the Prohibition Laws of the United States (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1931), 72. 70. Ibid., 82–89. 71. “How the Nation Sizes up the Digest Poll,” Literary Digest, June 7, 1930; Upton Sinclair, “Digest Poll Again,” New Republic, November 5, 1930; Walter


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F. Willcox, “An Attempt to Measure Public Opinion About Repealing the Eighteenth Amendment,” Journal of the American Statistical Association 26, no. 175 (1931). 72. The archives of the Association Against the Prohibition Amendment (AAPA— Manuscripts Division, Library of Congress) are replete with such references circulated in the popular press. See, for example, Henry Anderson, “Liquor Control—a Substitute for Prohibition,” Forum, April 1931. AAPA, Box 2, Anderson File; Allan Nevins, “Repeal: The Amazing Turnabout,” New York Times Magazine, September 10, 1933, 1. AAPA Papers, Box 7, Nevins File; John D. Rockefeller, Jr., “The Failure of Prohibition,” Review of Reviews, July 1932. AAPA Papers, Box 8, Rockefeller File; Ivan Bratt, “How Sweden Does It,” Forum 85, no. 4 (1931). AAPA Papers, Box 2, Bratt File; Grace C. Root, “Liquor Control: A Survey of Forty-Six Varying Systems,” New York Times, December 25, 1932. AAPA Papers, Box 8, Root File; Winston Churchill, “The Shattered Cause of Temperance,” Collier’s, August 13, 1932. AAPA Papers, Box 3, Churchill File. See also Willis John Abbot, “Liquor Control in Sweden and Denmark,” Literary Digest, November 18, 1933; W. W. Ball, “South Carolina’s Dispensary System,” Forum 90 (1933); Harold Callender, “Control of Liquor in Sweden: Its Aim to Restrict Drinking,” New York Times, August 21, 1932; George Catlin, “Alternatives to Prohibition,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 163 (1932); George Catlin, Liquor Control (New York: Henry Holt and Company, Inc., 1931); Raymond B. Fosdick and Albert L. Scott, Toward Liquor Control (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1933); F. G. R. Gordon, How Sweden and Quebec Control the Liquor Traffic (Haverhill, Mass.: Record Publishing Co., 1926); Max Henius, Modern Liquor Legislation and Systems in Finland, Norway, Denmark and Sweden (Copenhagen: L. Levison Junr. Akts., 1931); Max Henius, Stepping Stones from Prohibition (Chicago: Wahl-Henius Institute, 1932); Alicia Overbeck, “Drinking in Sweden,” Harper’s Magazine, December 1933; “Swedish Liquor Control System Urged for the United States: Ambassador Morehead Explains How the Bratt Monopoly Works and Argues for Adoption of a Similar Plan by American States,” New York Times, May 22, 1932; T. R. Ybarra, “How Sweden Manages State Liquor Control: Originator of the Bratt System of Personal Licenses and Limited Sales Declares That the Results Are Even Better Than Was Expected—What Modified Prohibition Has Done for the Swedish People,” New York Times, September 9, 1928. 73. Willcox, “Attempt to Measure Public Opinion.” 74. National Commission on Law Observance and Enforcement, Enforcement of the Prohibition Laws, 46. 75. In addition to the federal elections, eleven states held concurrent referenda on prohibition issues—all of which tallied overwhelming opposition to prohibition. William E. Leuchtenburg, Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal, 1932–1940 (New York: Harper & Row, 1963), 9. 76. Monroe, Hellfire Nation, 314. 77. Norman H. Clark, Deliver Us from Evil: An Interpretation of American Prohibition (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1976), 207; Leonard Harrison and Elizabeth Laine, After Repeal: A Study of Liquor Control Administration (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1936), 3; David E. Kyvig, “Women against Prohibition,” American Quarterly 28, no. 4 (1976); Leuchtenburg, Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal, 1932–1940, 46.

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78. Monroe, Hellfire Nation, 343. 79. Kyvig, Repealing National Prohibition, 179. 80. Sinclair, Prohibition: The Era of Excess, 391. 81. Harrison and Laine, After Repeal; Dayton E. Heckman, “Contemporary State Statutes for Liquor Control,” American Political Science Review 28, no. 4 (1934). 82. Richard McGowan, Government Regulation of the Alcohol Industry: The Search for Revenue and the Common Good (Westport, Conn.: Quorum Books, 1997), 113–36; Mark Lawrence Schrad, “Liquor Control and Prohibition,” in Governing America, ed. Paul Quirk and William Cunion (New York: Facts on File, 2010). 83. Bryan D. Jones and Frank R. Baumgartner, “Punctuations, Ideas, and Public Policy,” in Policy Dynamics, ed. Frank R. Baumgartner and Bryan D. Jones (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002), 306; Jones and Baumgartner, Politics of Attention, 15. 84. Clarence Darrow and Victor S. Yarros, The Prohibition Mania: A Reply to Professor Irving Fisher and Others (New York: Boni and Liveright, 1927), 169, 214. 85. Anti-Saloon League of America Series, Ohio Historical Society, Box 5, Folder 1 (Reel 8). 86. National Commission on Law Observance and Enforcement, Enforcement of the Prohibition Laws. 87. Willcox, “Attempt to Measure Public Opinion,” 254. 88. Monroe, Hellfire Nation, 342. 89. John Wuorinen, The Prohibition Experiment in Finland (New York: Columbia University Press, 1931). 90. Du Pont, Statement Made before the Committee on the Judiciary of the House of Representatives: April 30, 1930, 49–52. 91. Churchill, “The Shattered Cause of Temperance,” 49. AAPA Clippings File; See also Anti-Saloon League of America Series, Ohio Historical Society, Box 5, Folder 3 (Reel 8). 92. Rossiter, Constitutional Dictatorship. 93. Clement Fatovic, “Constitutionalism and Presidential Prerogative: Jeffersonian and Hamiltonian Perspectives,” American Journal of Political Science 48, no. 3 (2004); Rossiter, Constitutional Dictatorship; Doug McAdam and W. Richard Scott, “Organizations and Movements,” in Social Movements and Organization Theory, ed. Gerald F. Davis et al. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 18; John L. Campbell, “Where Do We Stand? Common Mechanisms in Organizations and Social Movements Research,” in Social Movements and Organization Theory, ed. Gerald F. Davis et al. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 60; Kathleen Thelen, “Historical Institutionalism in Comparative Politics,” Annual Review of Political Science 2 (1999). 94. Jones and Baumgartner, Politics of Attention, 266. 95. Joshua Cohen, “Deliberation and Democratic Legitimacy,” in Deliberative Democracy: Essays on Reason and Politics, ed. James Bohman and William Rehg (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1997). 96. See, for instance, John D. Wilkerson et al., “Using Bills and Hearings to Trace Attention in Congress: Policy Windows in Health Care Legislating,” in Policy


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Dynamics, ed. Frank R. Baumgartner and Bryan D. Jones (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002); Jones and Baumgartner, Politics of Attention 253–58. 97. Simple bivariate correlation with PN media index R2 = 0.43 for hearings, 2 R = 0.38 for hearing-days. For statistical analysis based on the positive negative tone indices, see: Schrad, “Constitutional Blemishes.” 98. Simple bivariate correlation with PN media index R2 = 0.72 for hearings, 2 R = 0.64 for hearing-days.

NOTES TO CHAPTER 4 Epigraph Source: Walter Thompson, The Control of Liquor in Sweden (New York: Columbia University Press, 1935), 228. 1. Walter Thompson, The Control of Liquor in Sweden (New York: Columbia University Press, 1935), 23. See also Guy Hayler, Prohibition Advance in All Lands; A Study of the World-Wide Character of the Drink Question, 2nd ed. (London: International Prohibition Confederation, 1914), 63, 72; A. Symonds Ohlin, “On the Road to Prohibition: The Temperance Situation in Sweden and Norway,” Union Signal, February 19, 1914. 2. See, for instance, Tim Knudsen and Bo Rothstein, “State Building in Scandinavia,” Comparative Politics 26, no. 2 (1994): 216; Sven Steinmo, “Political Institutions and Tax Policy in the United States, Sweden, and Britain,” World Politics 41, no. 4 (1989): 503. 3. Marquis W. Childs, This Is Democracy: Collective Bargaining in Scandinavia (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1938); John Dietrich, Modern Sweden— Land of Sanity: A Platform Review of Marquis W. Childs’ Recent Book, Sweden—the Middle Way, vol. 6 (Minneapolis: Midland Cooperative Wholesale, 1936), 173; Paulette Kurzer, “Can Scandinavian Member States Play a Leadership Role in the EU? The Case of Alcohol Control Policy,” Scandinavian Studies 74, no. 3 (2002): 309, 313; Niels Finn Christensen and Klaus Petersen, “The Nordic Welfare States: A Historical Reappraisal,” Scandinavian Journal of History 26, no. 3 (2001): 155; Magnus Mörner, “‘The Swedish Model’: Historical Perspectives,” Scandinavian Journal of History 14, no. 3 (1989): 266. 4. Rune Premfors, “Sveriges demokratisering: Ett historiskt-institutionalistiskt perspektiv,” SCORE Rapportserie 3 (1999): 30–33. 5. Irene Scobbie, Sweden (London: Ernest Benn Limited, 1972), 76–77;. Hugh Heclo, Modern Social Politics in Britain and Sweden: From Relief to Income Maintenance (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1974), 35. 6. Freedom of social and political association was granted in Sweden by a statute of 1864. Dankwart A. Rustow, Politics of Compromise: A Study of Parties and Cabinet Government in Sweden (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1955), 46. 7. On the broader European tides of social democracy, see Sheri Berman, The Primacy of Politics: Social Democracy and the Making of Europe’s Twentieth Century (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006). 8. Ingrid Millbourn, “Swedish Social Democracy, Crises and Tariffs before 1900,” Scandinavian Journal of History 17, no. 4 (1992): 285–88.

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9. Sheri Berman, The Social Democratic Movement: Ideas and Politics in the Making of Interwar Europe (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1998), 48–58. See also Gøsta Esping-Anderson, “The Making of a Social Democratic Welfare State,” in Creating Social Democracy: A Century of the Social Democratic Labor Party in Sweden, ed. Klaus Misgeld, Karl Molin, and Klas Åmark (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1988), 39–42. 10. Rustow, Politics of Compromise 83–84. Alterations to Swedish political institutions would not end with this reform, though most subsequent changes would prove to be less consequential—save, perhaps, for the decision to replace the bicameral parliament with the unicameral form in 1970, which remains the form of the riksdag to this day. 11. Bengt Schüllerqvist, Från kosackval till konhandel: SAPs väg till makten (1928–1933) (Tryckning: Kristianstads Boktryckeri AB, 1992). 12. Definition from Peter Katzenstein, Small States in World Markets: Industrial Policy in Europe (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1985), 32. See also Philippe C. Schmitter and Gerhard Lehmbruch, eds., Trends toward Corporatist Intermediation (Beverly Hills, Cal.: Sage, 1980); Adam Przeworski and John Sprague, Paper Stones: A History of Electoral Socialism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986), 77; Bo Rothstein, The Social Democratic State: The Swedish Model and the Bureaucratic Problem of Social Reforms (Pittsburgh, Penn.: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1996), 8. 13. Hugh Heclo and Henrik Madsen, Policy and Politics in Sweden: Principled Pragmatism (Philadelphia, Penn.: Temple University Press, 1987), 10; Bo Rothstein, “Corporatism and Reformism: The Social Democratic Institutionalization of Class Conflict,” in Study of Power and Democracy in Sweden, Report 5 (Uppsala, Sweden: 1988), 20. 14. Bo Rothstein, “State and Capital in Sweden: The Importance of Corporatist Arrangements,” in Study of Power and Democracy in Sweden, Report 18 (Uppsala, Sweden: 1988), 2–3, 21. 15. Hans Klette, “The Swedish Legislative Decision Making Process in Relation to Alcohol and Traffic from 1920 to 1980,” International Conference on Alcohol, Drugs, and Traffic Safety (8th: 1980: Stockholm), 3 (1981): 1398–1400. 16. Hans Meijer, Kommittépolitik och kommittéarbete. Det statliga kommittéväsendets utvecklingslinjer 1905–1954 samt nuvarande function och arbetsformer (Lund, Sweden: C. W. K. Gleerup, 1956), 349. 17. See, for instance, Victor Nilsson, Sweden (New York: Co-Operative Publication Society, 1899). 387; O. G. von Heidenstam, Swedish Life in Town and Country (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1904), 192–97. 18. Nykterhetskommittén, Betänkande IV: Bihang till riksdagens protokoll vid senare lagtima riksdagen i Stockholm, år 1914 (Stockholm: 1914), 45–59;. Arne Hillbo, Lagar och politik kring alkohol: historik och kommentar till 1977/78 års alkohollagar (Stockholm: LiberFörlag, 1979), 13–15; Oscar Mannström, Bilder och blad ur svenska nykterhetsrörelsens historia: på uppdrag af svenska sällskapet för nykterhet och folkuppfostran, det 1837 stiftade svenska nykterhetssällskapet; utgifna vid dess sjuttiofemårshögtid (Stockholm: P. A. Norstedt & Söners förlag, 1912), 7–15; Johan Pontén, Historia kring alkoholen: Från Syndafloden till dagens Sverige (Stockholm: Natur och kultur, 1967), 72–88.


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19. Such consumption rates garnered Sweden the sad distinction of “the most drunken country in Europe.” Von Heidenstam, Swedish Life in Town and Country, 193; Thompson, The Control of Liquor in Sweden, 9. On the importance of the AngloAmerican influence on early Swedish temperance development through missionaries such as Robert Baird and George Scott, see Hanna Hodacs, “Det civiliserade, protestantiska och nyktra Europa: Om nykterhetstankens spridning i det tidiga 1800-talets Sverige,” Spiritus, no. 4 (2002): 14–16; Gunnar Westin, George Scott och hans verksamhet i Sverige, 2 vols., vol. 1 (Stockholm: Svenska kyrkans diakonistyrelses bokförlag, 1929), xxxi. On early nineteenth century alcohol consumption in Sweden, see Lars Magnusson, “Drinking and the Verlag System 1820–1850: The Significance of Taverns and Drink in Eskilstuna before Industrialization,” The Scandinavian Economic History Review 34, no. 1 (1986): 2–3. 20. Franklin D. Scott, Sweden: The Nation’s History (Dexter: University of Minnesota Press, 1977), 353–54. 21. Johan Bergman, P. Wieselgren: Den Svenska nykterhetsrörelsens fader (Stockholm: Svenska Nykterhetsförlaget, 1900), 52–56; Halfdan Bengtsson, “The Temperance Movement and Temperance Legislation in Sweden,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 197 (1938): 134–35; Åke Elmér, Nykterhetsupplysning i Sverige 1888–1961, studier i anslutning till Centralförbundets för nykterhetsundervisning 60-Åriga Tillvaro (Stockholm: Centralförbundet för nykterhetsundervisning, 1961), 10; Svante Nycander, Svenskarna och spriten (Oskarshamn, Sweden: Prisma, 1967), 40. 22. Nykterhetskommittén, Betänkande VI, 1: Redogörelse för lagstiftningen i Sverige om rusdryckers försäljning, 1800–1911 (Stockholm: 1914), 14–22. ARAB 9341; Karl Höjer, Svensk nykterhetspolitik och nykterhetsvård (Stockholm: P. A. Norstedt & Söners Förlag, 1955), 23–24; Tage Larsson, Reformen i brännvinslagstiftningen, 1853–1854 (Stockholm: Oskar Eklunds Bokförlag, 1945). 23. Ernest H. Cherrington, ed., Standard Encyclopedia of the Alcohol Problem, 6 vols., vol. 6 (Westerville, Ohio: American Issue Press, 1930), 2569. 24. Michele Micheletti, Det civila samhället och staten: Medborgarsammanslutningarnas roll i svensk politik (Stockholm: C. E. Fritzes AB, 1994), 231. See also Oskar Petersson, Goodtemplarordens i Sverige historia (Stockholm: Svenska Nykterhetsförlaget, 1903). 25. Johan Bergman, Den Svenska nykterhetsrörelsens historia, från forna tider till våra dagar (Stockholm: Svenska Nykterhetsförlaget, 1898), 170–204; Samuel Edquist, Nyktra svenskar: Godtemplarrörelsen och den nationella identiteten:1879–1918 (Uppsala, Sweden: Studia Historica Upsaliensia, 2001). 26. Nykterhetskommittén, Betänkande IX: Underdånigt betänkande med förslag till lag om alkoholvaror m. m. (Stockholm: 1920), 176–78; Göran Therborn, “A Unique Chapter in the History of Democracy: The Social Democrats in Sweden,” in Creating Social Democracy: A Century of the Social Democratic Labor Party in Sweden, ed. Klaus Misgeld, Karl Molin, and Klas Åmark (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1988), 12–13. 27. Torkel Jansson, “The Age of Associations: Principles and Forms of Organization between Corporations and Mass Organizations. A Comparative Nordic Survey from a Swedish Viewpoint,” Scandinavian Journal of History 13, no. 4 (1988): 326–31; Hilding Johansson, Folkrörelserna och det demokratiska i Sverige

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(Karlstad, Sweden: Gleerups, 1952); Sven Lundkvist, “The Popular Movements in Swedish Society, 1850–1920,” Scandinavian Journal of History 5, no. 1 (1980): 226– 27; Olof Petersson, Svensk politik, 7th ed. (Göteborg, Sweden: Norstedts juridik AB, 2004) 62–63. 28. On Swedish temperance and free church movements, see: Johan Bergman, Modärn kultur och modärn nykterhetsrörelse (Stockholm: Svenska Nykterhetsförlaget, 1900), 11; Sven Lundkvist, Politik, nykterhet och reformer: En studie i folkrörelsernas politiska verksamhet, 1900–1920 (Uppsala, Sweden: Uppsala University Press, 1974), 228; Sven Lundkvist, “Popular Movements and Reforms, 1900–1920,” in Sweden’s Development from Poverty to Affluence, 1750–1970, ed. Steven Koblik (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1975), 180–82; Michele Micheletti, Civil Society and State Relations in Sweden (Brookfield, Ver.: Ashgate Publishing, 1995), 32–34. On temperance and free church activities at the local level, see Bo Öhngren, Folk i rörelse: Samhällsutveckling, flyttningsmönster och folkrörelser i Eskilstuna, 1870–1900 (Uppsala, Sweden: Uppsala University Press, 1974), 381–85. 29. Pehr Johnsson, Sveriges Blåbandsförenings historia, utgiven med anledning av föreningens tjugufem-åriga tillvaro (Örebro, Sweden: Örebro Nya TryckeriAktiebolag, 1911), 6–13. 30. Hjalmar Branting to Edvard Wavrinsky, July 8, 1911. Edvard Wavrinsky arkiv, 1883–1889, 1911: Förenings- och organizations arkiv (73), Riksarkivet, Arninge. See also Kjell E. Johanson, Arbetarrörelsen och alkoholpolitiken (Stockholm: Sober Förlags AB, 1977), 16–18; Walter Korpi, Working Class in Welfare Capitalism: Work, Unions and Politics in Sweden (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1978), 61–63, Urban Lundberg and Klas Åmark, “Social Rights and Social Security: The Swedish Welfare State, 1900–2000,” Scandinavian Journal of History 26, no. 3 (2001); Kjell Östberg, Byråkrati och reformism: En studie av svensk socialdemokratis politiska och sociala integrering fram till första världskriget (Lund, Sweden: Tryck Studentlitteratur, 1990), 101–17. 31. David Jenkins, Sweden and the Price of Progress (New York: CowardMcCann, Inc., 1968), 243–44. 32. Rapport, July 15, 1902, 3–4. International Order of Good Templars arkiv (EIIaa: Övervalintendentens rapporter till Sveriges storloge) Förenings- och organizations arkiv (73), Riksarkivet, Arninge. 33. The White Ribbon Society is normally not included among the more influential Swedish temperance organizations in most historical accounts, since their numbers reached a maximum of only 8,155 members in 1918. Wilhelm Bickerich, Das Brattsystem: Eine Untersuchung der schwedischen Alkoholkonsumptionspolitik (Greifswald, Germany: Verlag Ratsbuchhandlung L. Bamberg, 1923), 20. See also Bengt Michanek, Nykterhetsrörelsen: Den heliga kon (Stockholm: Jacob Boëthius AB, 1972), 12. 34. Gunnar Huss, “Social Movements and Institutions,” in Sweden of To-Day, ed. Magnus Blomstedt and Fredrik Böök (Stockholm: A. B. Hasse W. Tullbergs Förlag, 1930), 232; Lundkvist, Politik, nykterhet och reformer, 135. Even after World War II, more than one-third of the representatives in the riksdag professed to be members of temperance organizations, compared with 3 percent membership nationwide. Jenkins, Sweden and the Price of Progress, 246; Bo Löfgren and Inger


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Nelson-Löfgren, Is Sweden an Alcoholized Country? (Stockholm: Swedish Institute, 1980), 2. 35. John Bergvall, Restriktionssystemet: hur det kommit till, hur det arbetar, vad det uträttat (Norrtelje, Sweden: Nortelje Tidnings Boktryckeri AB, 1929), 9; Arbetarrörelsens Arkiv och Bibliotek (ARAB), Stockholm. 36. Nykterhetskommittén, Betänkande VI, 1, 41–42. ARAB 9341; Carl Hallendorff and Adolf Schück, History of Sweden (Stockholm: C. E. Fritze, Ltd., 1929), 413; Olov Kinberg, “Temperance Legislation in Sweden,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 163 (1932). 37. Per Frånberg, “Den svenska supen,” in Den svenska supen: En historia om brännvin, Bratt och byråkrati, ed. Kettil Bruun and Per Frånberg (Stockholm: Prisma, 1985), 34. 38. Nykterhetskommittén, Betänkande VI, 1, 46. ARAB 9341. 39. This the result of the work of an ad hoc committee created in 1909 to address the problems of localities becoming overly dependent on the alcohol revenues. This earlier committee included two members of the 1911 Temperance Committee, Carl Ekman and S. H. Kvarnzelius. Kommitté för verkställande af utredning rörande statens, kommunernas, landstingens, och hushållningssällskapens frigörande från ekonomiskt beroende af rusdrycksmedlen, Underdånigt betänkande afgifvet den 29 december 1911 (Stockholm: Isaac Marcus’ Boktr.-Aktiebolag, 1912), 161. ARAB. 40. Nykterhetskommittén, Betänkande V: Underdånigt betänkande med förslag till förordning angående försäljning av rusdrycker m. m. (Stockholm: 1914), 127–29. ARAB 9340. The most systematic examination of the lokalt veto, through the application of John Kingdon’s multiple streams approach, is Bror Lyckow, En fråga för väljarna? Kampen om det lokala vetot 1893–1917 (Stockholm: Stockholms Universitetet, 2001). 41. Ragnar Svanström and Carl Fredrik Palmstierna emphasize the role of extended family communications between native Swedes and émigrés to the United States, as well as the affinity for American culture, in favoring prohibition. Ragnar Svanström and Carl Fredrik Palmstierna, A Short History of Sweden, trans. Joan Bulman (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1934), 403; Lars Båtefalk, Staten, samhället och superiet. Samhällsorganisatoriska principer och organisatorisk praktik kring dryckenskapsproblemet och nykterhetssträvandena i stat, borgerlig offentlighet och associationsväsenda ca 1770–1900, (Uppsala, Sweden: Studia Historica Upsalensia, 2000), 401. 42. Moritz Marcus, Aktiebolaget Stockholmssystemet 1913–1938 (Stockholm: I. Marcus Boktryckeriaktiebolag, 1938), 13; Hayler, Prohibition Advance in All Lands, 68. 43. Nykterhetskommittén, Betänkande IX, 184–85; Sven Lundkvist, “Nykterhetsrörelsen,” in Den svenska historien 9: industri och folkrörelser, 1866–1920 (Stockholm: Albert Bonniers Förlag, 1968), 166. 44. Thompson, The Control of Liquor in Sweden, 23. 45. The most comprehensive biography of Dr. Bratt is Håkan Westling, Ivan Bratt: legendarisk läkare systemets grundare (Stockholm: Atlantis, 1997). 46. Ivan Bratt, Kan nykterhetsfrågan lösas utan totalförbud? Ett reformprogram (Stockholm: Albert Bonniers Förlag, 1909); Ivan Bratt, Nykterhetspolitiska utvecklingslinjer (Stockholm: Bonnier, 1909; repr. 1911).

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47. Kettil Bruun, “Bratts genombrott,” in Den svenska supen: En historia om brännvin, Bratt och byråkrati, ed. Kettil Bruun and Per Frånberg (Stockholm: Prisma, 1985), 53–55. Bratt’s reservations remained consistent, even through the final reports of the Temperance Committee in 1920: Nykterhetskommittén, Betänkande IX, 345–83. 48. Lennart Johansson, Systemet lagom: rusdrycker, interesseorganisationer och politisk kultur under förbudsdebattens tidevarv 1900–1922 (Lund, Sweden: Lund University Press, 1995), 49. 49. This being a quote of the king’s appointment. Nykterhetskommittén, Betänkande V, xi-xiii. ARAB 9340. Prime Minister Staaff’s request for an official temperance commission is particularly indicative of the traditional composition of ad hoc governmental commissions and their distinctive role in Swedish policymaking: “With the view to carrying out such an inquiry, I propose that a Commission should be appointed, which ought surely to be composed of representatives from the different bodies which take an interest in increasing sobriety, and which should at the same time be a representative one so that its work would give evidence of a deep and candid feeling in favor of the great cause. It is only in this manner that the work can be assured of attaining its aim, which is to try to overcome even the greatest difficulties. . . . After the completion of the work there will always be an opportunity, if desired, of having any case subjected to a supplementary and then a final inquiry.” Reprinted in Hayler, Prohibition Advance in All Lands, 70–71. 50. Of course, “the fact that the majority of the committee members were also members of the temperance movement did not mean there was a straight course to prohibition.” Jan Blomqvist, “The ‘Swedish Model’ of Dealing with Alcohol Problems: Historical Trends and Future Challenges,” Contemporary Drug Problems 25, no. 2 (1998): 263–64. 51. Expanded biographical sketches are to be found in Johansson, Systemet lagom, 74–76. 52. These include Kvarnselius, Eklund, Ekman, Byström, Rathou, Pettersson, and Thunberg. Most attended the Stockholm convention of 1907 in addition to the 1909 London or 1911 Hague conferences, while Thunberg attended the 1920 Washington conference, and Bratt would take part only in the conference in Tartu, Estonia, in 1928. 53. “Regeringens och dr Bratts nykterhetspolitik: En intervju med director Wavrinsky,” December 29, 1913; Edvard Wavrinsky arkiv, 1909–1918 IOGT: Förenings- och organizations arkiv (73), Riksarkivet, Arninge. 54. Nykterhetskommittén, Betänkande V, 53–60. ARAB 9340. Early debates over local option within the committee centered on whether a 2/3 or 3/5 majority would be a preferable standard to vote a community dry. Nykterhetskommitténs (Nov. 17, 1911) protokoll, Nov. 1,11912, Nr. 76. Riksarkivet (YK85: AI: 1). 55. See the Swedish Medical Association committee report: Svenska läkaresällskapet, Alkoholen och samhället; betänkande angående de samhällsskadliga inflytanden bruket af rusdrycker medför, jämte förslag till systematiska åtgärder för deras bekämpande i Sverige (Stockholm: Marcus, 1912); Svante Nycander, “Ivan Bratt: The Man Who Saved Sweden from Prohibition,” Addiction 93, no. 1 (1998): 18, 21; Charles Smith, “Liquor Control,” in Democratic Sweden: A Volume of


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Studies Prepared by Members of the New Fabian Research Bureau, ed. Margaret Cole and Charles Smith (New York: Greystone Press, 1938), 323. 56. On the brewers’ and brewery workers’ opposition, see Protokoll over Sv. Bryggeriarbetareförbundets 4:de congress. Stockholm den 7, 8 och 9 juli 1911 (Stockholm: A.-B. Arbetarnes Tryckeri, 1911), 24–25.: Svenska Bryggeriarbetareförbundets Arkiv, 1B 22/17, ARAB. Svenska Bryggeriindustriarbetareförbundet historia, 1899–1948 (Stockholm: n/d) 112–15. ARAB. As these positions were related to the committee, see Nykterhetskommittén, Betänkande VI, 2: Protokoll vid kommitténs sammanträden med särskilt tillkallade sakkunnige (Stockholm: 1914), 1–70. ARAB 9342. 57. Bo Rothstein, “Social Classes and Political Institutions: The Roots of Swedish Corporatism,” in The Study of Power and Democracy in Sweden, Report 24 (Uppsala, Sweden: 1988), 12. 58. Nykterhetskommittén, Betänkande III: Kungl. Maj:ts nådiga proposition Nr. 81, Bihang till riksdagens protokoll, 1915 (Stockholm: 1914), 23–25; Bilaga till nr. 22 Handlingar som legat till grund för Nykterhetskommitténs betänkande V, den 5 jan. 1914, vol. II; Finansdepartementets arkiv, Nr. 24, juli 1914; Riksarkivet (E Ia: 2307–2309); Lennart Johansson, “Sources of the Nordic Solutions,” in Broken Spirits: Power and Ideas in Nordic Alcohol Control, ed. Pekka Sulkunen et al. (Helsinki: Nordic Council for Alcohol and Drug Research, 2000), 22. Such economic concerns had likewise been voiced by leading Swedish economists, such as Eli Heckscher, who testified as to the economic consequences before the Temperance Committee in 1914. Nykterhetskommitténs (Nov. 17, 1911) protokoll, Oct. 31,1914, Nr. 259. Riksarkivet (YK85: AI: 1). 59. Edvard Wavrinsky, “Nykterhetsrörelsen och världskriget,” and “Ned med kriget!” 1914. Edvard Wavrinsky arkiv, Sociala ämnen, 1900–1914: Förenings- och organizations arkiv (73), Riksarkivet, Arninge. 60. See, for instance, Ragnar Casparsson, Svenska Bryggeriindustriarbetareförbundet, 1899–1929: En kort historik, utarbetad på uppdrag av förbundsstyrelsen (Stockholm: Aktiebolaget Arbetarnes Tryckeri, 1929) 131–46. ARAB. 61. Bickerich, Das Brattsystem, 25–27. 62. Landsorganisationen (LO), Appell i nykterhetsfrågan (Stockholm: AB Arbetarnes Tryckeri, 1950). ARAB; Johanson, Arbetarrörelsen och alkoholpolitiken, 15–18; Ture Nerman, Arbetarrörelsens nykterhetspolitik (Stockholm: Wilhelmssons Böktryckeri, 1966). 49–53. ARAB. 63. Marcus, Aktiebolaget Stockholmssystemet 1913–1938, 58; Bruun, “Bratts genombrott,” 62–65. 64. John Bergvall, The Liquor Legislation in Sweden (Stockholm: Systembolagsföreningarnas Förtroendenämnd, 1931), 7–8. Bratt’s plan was explicitly detailed in the reports of the Temperance Committee, with arguments provided in his supplementary opinion. Nykterhetskommittén, Betänkande V, 193–231, 346–63. ARAB 9340. 65. Nykterhetskommitténs (Nov. 17,1911) protokoll, July 27, 1916, Nr. 8, s. 1–3. Riksarkivet (YK85: AI: 1). 66. Nykterhetskommittén, Betänkande IX, 42. Childs cites a 42 percent decline in the consumption of wine and liquors in Stockholm during the first five years of the Bratt system, and an additional 10 percent decline in the subsequent two years.

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Marquis W. Childs, Sweden: The Middle Way (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1936), 107. Reliable comparative alcohol-related crime statistics can be found in Bergvall, The Liquor Legislation in Sweden, 41. 67. The Bratt system permitted the continuation of state revenues from the alcohol trade: between 1923 and 1927, for example, the Swedish government reaped roughly $27 million annually from the trade, or roughly one-sixth of all government revenues. Association Against the Prohibition Amendment, Bratt System of Liquor Control in Sweden (Washington, D.C.: AAPA, 1930), 15. AAPA Papers, Box 1, Library of Congress Manuscripts Division, Washington, D.C. 68. Johansson, Systemet lagom, 258. 69. Nykterhetskommittén, Betänkande IX. “Förslag till lag om allmänt rusdrycksförbud,” Nykterhetskommitténs (Nov. 17,1911) protokoll, Dec. 9, 1916: Bih. A (s. 1–5). Riksarkivet (YK85: AI: 1). 70. Ibid., 302–8. For Bratt’s objections, see Nykterhetskommittén, Betänkande IX, 353. 71. Protokoll fört vid Sv. Bryggeriarbetareförbundets sjätte kongress i Stockholm den 18–20 juli 1921 (Stockholm: A.-B. Arbetarnes Tryckeri, 1921), 67, 77; Svenska Bryggeriarbetareförbundets Arkiv, 1B 22/17, ARAB; Svenska Bryggeriindustriarbetareförbundet historia, 135–37. ARAB. 72. Johansson, Systemet lagom, 234; Marcus, Aktiebolaget Stockholmssystemet 1913–1938, 299–304. 73. Protokoll vid Sverges Storloges 40:de årsmöte, 10 juli 1922, 87–88. International Order of Good Templars arkiv (AI—Storlogens årsmötesprotokoll med bilagor: 14), Förenings- och organizations arkiv (73), Riksarkivet, Arninge. Westling, Ivan Bratt, 148; Premfors, “Sveriges demokratisering,” 42. 74. Harold Holder, “History of Swedish National Policies About Alcohol: 1855– 1995,” in Sweden and the European Union: Changes in National Alcohol Policy and Their Consequences, ed. Harold Holder (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International, 2000), 21. 75. While the prohibition issue may have been defused at the national level, legislative and bureaucratic activity would continue to refine the new control system, with the active participation of Dr. Bratt. See Ivan Bratt, En Riksdagsdebatt om spritcentralen (Stockholm: P. A. Norstedt & Söner, 1926). Kungliga biblioteket, Stockholm. 76. Local control over the municipal bolag and Temperance Boards meant that the Bratt system was responsive to local concerns: Rural areas with stronger temperance sentiments, such as in the northern county of Västerbotten län, could enact stricter standards concerning access to liquor, as with the resulting Umeå variation of the Bratt system. Per Frånberg, Umeåsystemet: En studie i alternativ nykterhetspolitik, 1915–1945 (Umeå: Umeå universitet, 1983), 232–35. On the compulsory rehabilitation of inebriates: Johan Edman, Torken: tvångsvården av alkoholmissbrukare i Sverige, 1940–1981 (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International, 2004). 77. Katariina Warpenius and Caroline Sutton, “The Idea of the Alcohol-Free Society,” in Broken Spirits: Power and Ideas in Nordic Alcohol Control, ed. Pekka Sulkunen et al. (Helsinki: Nordic Council for Alcohol and Drug Research, 2000), 57–58.


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78. Bengtsson, “The Temperance Movement and Temperance Legislation in Sweden,” 139. 79. For instance, the membership in the IOGT did not peak in Sweden until the 1940s, whereas other temperance organizations, such as Verdandi, experienced a renaissance in the 1980s. Micheletti, Civil Society and State Relations in Sweden, 182; Ingrid Nilsson, I.O.G.T.—Från orden till förening (Sollentuna: Intellecta Docusys AB, 2004), 25–26. 80. Wilfried Fleisher, Sweden: The Welfare State (New York: John Day Company, 1956), 229. 81. Harold Holder et al., European Integration and Nordic Alcohol Policies (Aldershot, England: Ashgate, 1998), 32; Paulette Kurzer, “Alcohol Policy in Sweden and Finland: Challenges for the Future,” Scandinavian Review 86, no. 2 (1998): 76–78. For instance, in 1990 the legal limit for alcohol in the bloodstream was reduced to 0.02 percent—the lowest level in the industrialized world. Correspondingly, motor vehicle fatalities are down to 5.6 per 100,000—also a record low for developed countries. Richard Tomasson, “Alcohol and Alcohol Control in Sweden,” Scandinavian Studies 70, no. 4 (1998): 497–98; Christine Ingebritsen, The Nordic States and European Unity (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1998), 69–70. 82. See, for instance, Lennart Johansson, “Systemen lagom: Varför har vi så många restriktioner kring alkoholen i Norden?” Spiritus, no. 3 (2001). 83. Nycander, “Ivan Bratt.” 84. Childs, Sweden: The Middle Way, 104. 85. Such works include: Nykterhetskommittén, Betänkande IX, 174–80. Hilding Johansson, Den svenska godtemplarrörelsen och samhället (Stockholm: Oskar Eklunds Bokförlag, 1947); Johansson, Folkrörelserna och det demokratiska i Sverige. 86. Johansson, Systemet lagom, 260–61. The work of Per Frånberg emanates from a similar social-cultural perspective. Frånberg, Umeåsystemet. 87. Divisions within the committee are evident well before the 1914, with nonprohibitionists Bratt and Karlsson adding separate attachments to committee minutes as to the virtues of the Bratt system as early as March 1912. Nykterhetskommitténs (Nov. 17, 1911) protokoll, March 20,1912, Nr. 25. Riksarkivet (YK85: AI: 1). 88. Raymond Postgate, “Publishing, Press and Radio,” in Democratic Sweden, ed. Margaret Cole and Charles Smith (New York: Greystone Press, 1938). 89. On the role of committees in the American policy process, see especially Walter J. Oleszek, Congressional Procedures and the Policy Process, 3rd ed. (Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly, 1996); Kenneth A. Shepsle and Barry R. Weingast, “The Institutional Foundations of Committee Power,” American Political Science Review 81, no. 1 (1987). 90. For an examination of such institutionalist feedback processes in explaining democratization in the Swedish context, see Premfors, “Sveriges demokratisering.” 91. For instance, Kommitté för verkställande af utredning rörande statens, Underdånigt betänkande afgifvet den 29 december 1911. ARAB. 92. Nykterhetskommittén, Betänkande IV, 137–38; Per Frånberg, “Drink and Drinking Culture in 19th Century Sweden: Some New Perspective,” in Maktpolitik och husfrid: studier i internationell och Svensk historia tillägnade Göran Rystad, ed. Bengt Ankarloo et al. (Lund, Sweden: Lund University Press, 1991), 147; Lundkvist,

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Politik, nykterhet och reformer, 382. A comprehensive study of alcohol sales and revenues generated was presented as an addendum to Temperance Committee Report VI by Einar Thulin: Nykterhetskommittén, Betänkande VI, 4: Uppgifter angående rusdrycksförsäljningsrättigheterna år 1911 och villkoren för deras utövande (Stockholm: 1914). ARAB 9344. 93. Sven Lundkvist, Folkrörelserna i det svenska samhället, 1850–1920 (Stockholm: Sober Forlägs AB, 1977), 231. 94. Nykterhetskommittén, Betänkande X, 1: Den nationalekonomiska betydelsen av allmänt rusdrycksförbud (Stockholm: 1916). ARAB 9348. See also Nykterhetskommittén, Betänkande X, 4: Förbrukningen av utminuteringsvis sålt brännvin efter yrkesgrupper och inkomstklasser (Stockholm: 1919). ARAB 9350. 95. Heclo and Madsen, Policy and Politics in Sweden, 15; Östberg, Byråkrati och reformism, 352. 96. The Svensk bok-katalog index is generally comparable to the Reader’s Guide for coverage of the relevant literature in the timeframe under consideration here. Also, with a smaller population and geographic spread in Sweden than in the United States, and with the limited number of Swedish periodicals in existence at the time, books and pamphlets can be broadcast equally well throughout the country. 97. On problems of direct comparison of disparate indices, see Frank R. Baumgartner, Bryan D. Jones, and John D. Wilkerson, “Studying Policy Dynamics,” in Policy Dynamics, ed. Frank R. Baumgartner and Bryan D. Jones (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002), 42. 98. This did not prevent extensive study of foreign—and especially American— experiences with prohibition, both in the media and within the Temperance Committee. Nykterhetskommittén, Betänkande VI, 3: Redogörelse för några främmande staters lagstiftning angående handeln med rusdrycker (Stockholm: 1914). ARAB 9343. For a more in-depth discussion, see chapter 6. 99. Nykterhetskommitténs (Nov. 17,1911) protokoll, Dec. 1, 1911, Nr. 1: Bih. A och B (s. 1–5). Riksarkivet (YK85: AI: 1). 100. See, for instance, Bryan D. Jones and Frank R. Baumgartner, The Politics of Attention: How Government Prioritizes Problems (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005), 253–58. 101. Indeed, many of the correspondences to the committee from both Swedish and foreign temperance (as well as anti-prohibition) organizations were replies to requests for information initially solicited by committee members. See correspondence from I.O.G.T. head Edvard Wavrinsky (Jan. 23, 1912); Robert Hercod of the International Temperance Bureau (April 4, 1912) and Svenska bryggareföreningen (Jan. 3, 1917); Nykterhetskommitténs (Nov. 17, 1911) inkomna skrivelser, allmänt; Riksarkivet (YK85: EI: 1). 102. See, for instance, the following temperance committee correspondence: Svenska bryggareföreningen, Jan. 3, 1917; Karlstads Spritförsaljnings-Bolag, Nov. 7, 1913; Nykterhetskommitténs (Nov. 17, 1911) inkomna skrivelser, allmänt; Riksarkivet (YK85: EI: 1); Temperance Committee to Sveriges Centrala Hotel och Restaurantförening, Dec. 14, 1912; Nykterhetskommitténs (Nov. 17, 1911) concept till utgående skrivelser 1911–1920; Riksarkivet (YK85: BI: 1); Temperance Committee minutes for September 4, 1913, no. 177; Nykterhetskommitténs (Nov. 17, 1911) protokoll, 1911–1919. Riksarkivet (YK85: AI: 1). Also Nykterhetskommittén, Betänkande X, 1, 62–73.


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103. Heclo and Madsen, Policy and Politics in Sweden, 21. 104. These expectations are made explicit in the written reports of the Temperance Committee, as are the minutes of meetings with the various interested parties. See Nykterhetskommittén, Betänkande IV, ii. For example, committee meetings with alcohol wholesalers, brewers, and bolag administrators were reprinted in: Nykterhetskommittén, Betänkande VI, 2, 1–70. ARAB 9342. 105. To be sure, “anyone involved in such a system must have or cultivate a kind of hypertrophic patience.” Heclo and Madsen, Policy and Politics in Sweden, 13. 106. John L. Campbell, Institutional Change and Globalization (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2004), 69. 107. Ibid., 74. 108. See, for instance, Howard E. Aldrich, Organizations Evolving (Thousand Oaks, Cal.: Sage Publications, 1999), 76–81. 109. Bratt, Kan nykterhetsfrågan lösas utan totalförbud? Nycander, “Ivan Bratt,” 18. 110. Childs, Sweden: The Middle Way, 103. 111. Bratt also spoke the language of the anti-prohibition camp. See, for instance, Ivan Bratt, A propos de la reglementation actuellement en vigueur en Suede de la vente des boissons alcooliques (“System Bratt”) (Copenhagen: International League Against Prohibition, 1929). 112. Bratt, Kan nykterhetsfrågan lösas utan totalförbud? Nycander, “Ivan Bratt,” 19. 113. Aldrich, Organizations Evolving, 76. 114. Norwegian statistical bureau (Statistisk sentralbyrå): http://www.ssb.no/ histstat/aarbok/ht-000130–004.html (Accessed July 11, 2008). See also Tor Bjørklund, Hundre år med folkeavstemninger Norge og Norden 1905–2005 (Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 2005). On the history of prohibition in Norway, see Per Ole Johansen, Bennevinskrigen: En krønike om forbudstidens Norge (Oslo: Gyldendal Norsk Forlag, 1985). 115. On Finnish temperance, see Irma Sulkunen, History of the Finnish Temperance Movement: Temperance as Civic Religion (Lewiston, N.Y.: Edwin Mellen Press, 1990). 116. John Wuorinen, The Prohibition Experiment in Finland (New York: Columbia University Press, 1931), 73–74, 91–94. 117. John Wuorinen, “Finland’s Prohibition Experiment,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 163 (1932): 222. 118. Association Against the Prohibition Amendment, Norway’s Noble Experiment (Washington, D.C.: AAPA, 1931); Johansen, Bennevinskrigen; Ernest H. Cherrington, ed., Standard Encyclopedia of the Alcohol Problem, vol. 5 (Westerville, Ohio: American Issue Press, 1929), 2031.

NOTES TO CHAPTER 5 Epigraph Sources: Ernest Barron Gordon, Russian Prohibition (Westerville, Ohio: American Issue Pub. Co., 1916), 56. Gosuarstvennyi Arkiv Rossisskoi Federatsii (GARF), f. 579 (Milyukov, Pavel Nikolaevich), op. 1, d. 2547 (Tezisy k dokladu A. I. Shingareva “Voina, trezvost’ i finansy”), l. 1. Eng. trans.: Michael T. Florinsky, The End of the Russian Empire (New York: Collier Books, 1961), 44.

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1. William Johnson, America: The Hope of the World (Westerville, Ohio: American Issue Publishing Company, n/d). 2. “Tarskaya Rossiya prishla k zapretitel’nym meram sovershenno inache, bez kakoi-libo ser’eznoi predvaritel’noi podgotovki ili aktivnoi stoletnei organizatsionnoi bor’by kak, eto bylo v S.Sh.A.” Irina R. Takala, Veselie Rusi: Istoriya alkogol’noi problemy v Rossii (St. Petersburg: Zhurnal Neva, 2002), 165. 3. This being the conventional image of Nicholas II in traditional historical accounts. Mark D. Steinberg and Vladimir M. Khrustalëv, The Fall of the Romanovs: Political Dreams and Personal Struggles in a Time of Revolution (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1995), 5. 4. This being the interpretation of Nicholas’s “totally unexpected declaration of prohibition” by the tsar’s personal physician. Gleb Botkin, The Real Romanovs, as Revealed by the Late Czar’s Physician and His Son (New York: Fleming H. Revell Co., 1931), 91. 5. As contemporary approaches to the policy process, even in comparative perspective, have discounted policy formation in nondemocratic contexts, autocratic policymaking is significantly under-theorized, save perhaps for the literature on Soviet foreign policy. 6. Allen C. Lynch, How Russia Is Not Ruled: Reflections on Russian Political Development (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 12, 20. 7. Theodore H. Von Laue, Sergei Witte and the Industrialization of Russia (New York: Atheneum, 1969), 102–4. 8. Neil M. Heyman, Russian History (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1993), 225. 9. Anatolii F. Smirnov, Gosudarstvennaya Duma Rossiiskoi imperii, 1906– 1917gg. (Moscow: Kniga i biznes, 1998). 10. Edward Hallett Carr, The Bol’shevik Revolution, 1917–1923, 2 vols., vol. 1 (New York: MacMillan Co., 1952), 45. 11. Bernard Pares, The Fall of the Russian Monarchy (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1939), 459–71. 12. Richard Pipes, Russia under the Bol’shevik Regime (New York: Vintage Books, 1994), 369. 13. For a review of works in this perspective, see Daniel Tarschys, The Soviet Political Agenda: Problems and Priorities, 1950–1970 (New York: MacMillan Press, 1979), 14–21. 14. Matthew Evangelista, Unarmed Forces: The Transnational Movement to End the Cold War (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1999), 14. 15. Paul Cocks, “The Policy Process and Bureaucratic Politics,” in The Dynamics of Soviet Politics, ed. Paul Cocks, Robert V. Daniels, and Nancy Whittier Heer (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1976), 158. 16. W. Bruce Lincoln, The Great Reforms: Autocracy, Bureaucracy, and the Politics of Change in Imperial Russia (Dekalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1990), 20–21. 17. Ibid., 121. 18. Ibid., 123, 132; Herbert M. Thompson, Russian Politics (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1896), 139–45. 19. See James H. Krukones, “Satan’s Blood, Tsar’s Ink: Rural Alcoholism in an Official ‘Publication for the People,’ 1881–1917,” Russian History/ Histoire Russe 18, no. 4 (1991): 438–44, 54.


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20. Louise McReynolds, The News under Russia’s Old Regime: The Development of a Mass-Circulation Press (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1991), 7, 28, 227. In the Soviet context, John Löwenhardt, Decision Making in Soviet Politics (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1981), 16–19. 21. Stephen P. Frank, “Confronting the Domestic Other: Rural Popular Culture and Its Enemies in Fin-De-Siècle Russia,” in Cultures in Flux: Lower-Class Values, Practices, and Resistance in Late Imperial Russia, ed. Stephen P. Frank and Mark D. Steinberg (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1994), 92. 22. Peter Kenez, Birth of the Propaganda State: Soviet Methods of Mass Mobilization, 1917–1929 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 21–22; S. I. Stykalin, “Russkoe samoderzhavie i legal’naya pechat’ 1905 goda,” in Iz istorii russkoi zhurnalistiki kontsa XIX-nachala XX v.: Stat’i, materialy, bibliografiya, ed. B. A. Esin (Moscow: Izdatel’stvo Moskovskogo Universiteta, 1973). 23. Rasputin’s influence would even outweigh that of some of the tsar’s most powerful ministers (Stolypin) and close members of the royal family (Grand Duke Nicholas II). Edvard Radzinsky, The Last Tsar: The Life and Death of Nicholas II, trans. Marian Schwartz (New York: Doubleday, 1992), 109. 24. Figes and Kolonitskii note this propensity in the cult of Kerensky, Kornilov, and eventually Lenin. Orlando Figes and Boris Kolonitskii, Interpreting the Russian Revolution: The Language and Symbols of 1917 (New Haven, Conn,: Yale University Press, 1999), 72. 25. Jeffrey Brooks, “The Breakdown in Production and Distribution of Printed Material, 1917–1927,” in Bol’shevik Culture, ed. Abbott Gleason, Peter Kenez, and Richard Stites (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1985). 26. Rolf H. W. Theen, “Party and Bureaucracy,” in Public Policy and Administration in the Soviet Union, ed. Gordon B. Smith (New York: Praeger, 1980). 27. Antony Buzek, How the Communist Press Works (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1964), 11–12. 28. Evangelista, Unarmed Forces, 345–47. 29. Jerry F. Hough and Merle Fainsod, How the Soviet Union Is Governed (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1979), 298. 30. Mark Hopkins, Mass Media in the Soviet Union (New York: Pegasus, 1970), 20; Ya. N. Zasurskii, Zhurnalistika i politika (Moscow: Izdatel’stvo Moskovskogo Universiteta, 1987), 15. 31. On bureaucratic and institutional continuities before and after 1917, see Eugene Huskey, ed., Executive Power and Soviet Politics: The Rise and Decline of the Soviet State (Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe, 1992); Walter M. Pinter and Don Karl Rowney, eds., Russian Officialdom: The Bureaucratization of Russian Society from the Seventeenth to the Twentieth Century (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1980). 32. George Kennan to Frances Willard, August 29, 1888, 2. Women’s Christian Temperance Union Series, Temperance and Prohibition Papers, Evanston, IL, Folder 47—Correspondence, 1888: July–September (Reel 15). 33. Dawson Burns, Temperance History: A Consecutive Narrative of the Rise, Development and Extension of the Temperance Reform, 2 vols. (London: National Temperance Publication Depot, 1889), 255. 34. Even in those instances of church-based collaboration with the temperance movement, there has frequently been the “suspicion that sobriety [itself] was

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somehow ‘un-Orthodox.’” W. Arthur McKee, “Sobering Up the Soul of the People: The Politics of Popular Temperance in Late Imperial Russia,” The Russian Review 58, no. 2 (1999): 225. See also Ioann S. Belliustin, Description of the Clergy in Rural Russia: The Memoir of a Nineteenth-Century Parish Priest (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1985), 139–40. 35. Eustace Clare Grenville Murray, The Russians of To-Day (London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1878), 34. 36. Burns, Temperance History, 152; Takala, Veselie Rusi, 155; Henry Norman, All the Russias: Travels and Studies in Contemporary European Russia, Finland, Siberia, the Caucasus, and Central Asia (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1903) 80; John Stearns, Temperance in All Nations: History of the Cause in All Countries of the Globe (New York: National Temperance Society and Publication House, 1893), 329–33. 37. David Christian, Living Water: Vodka and Russian Society on the Eve of Emancipation (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990), 295. 38. Kate Transchel, Under the Influence: Working-Class Drinking, Temperance, and Cultural Revolution in Russia, 1895–1932 (Pittsburgh, Penn.: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2006), 51–52. 39. John F. Hutchinson, “Medicine, Morality, and Social Policy in Imperial Russia: The Early Years of the Alcohol Commission,” Histoire sociale/ Social History 7 (1974): 204. 40. On the new independent temperance organizations, see I. Mordvinov, Obshchestvo trezvosti, zhizn‘ i rabota v nem (St. Petersburg: Tipografiya AleksandroNevskago Obshchestva Trezvosti, 1911). 41. GARF, f. 102 (Departament Politsii [4-oe deloproizvodstvo]), op. 1909, d. 194 (Vserossiiskii s”ezd’ po bor’be s p’yanstvom), 1. 3–64; N. A. Lyubimov, Dnevnik uchastnika pervago vserossiiskago s’ezda po bor’be s narodnym p’yanstvom. Sankt Peterburg, 28 Dekabrya 1909 g.—6 Yanvarya 1910 g. (Moscow: Pechatnya A. I. Snegirevoi, 1911). 42. On the Witte monopoly, see Sergei Witte, The Memoirs of Count Witte (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1921), 54–57. On the Guardianship, see D. G. Bulgakovskii, Ocherk deyatel’nosti popechitel’stv o narodnoi trezvosti za vse vremya ikh sushchestvovaniya, 1895–1909 gg., 2 vols. (St. Petersburg: Otechestvennaya tipografiya, 1910); V. A. Hagen, Bor’ba s narodnym p’yanstvom: Popechitel’stva o narodnoi trezvosti, ikh sovremennoe polozhenie i nedostatki (St. Petersburg: Gosudarstvennaya Tipgrafiya, 1907); David Lewin, “Das Branntweinmonopol in Russland,” Zeitschrift für die gesamte Staatswissenschaft XXV (1908). 43. George Snow, “Temperance Movement in Russia,” in Modern Encyclopedia of Russian and Soviet History, ed. Joseph Wieczynski (Gulf Breeze, Fla.: Academic International Press, 1984), 228. 44. Patricia Herlihy, “Strategies of Sobriety: Temperance Movements in Russia, 1880–1914,” Kennan Institute for Advanced Russia Studies Occasional Paper, no. 238 (1990): 2. 45. For a more detailed and poignant critique, see George Kennan, “Results of the Russian Liquor Reform” (New York: n/d), 14–16, George Kennan Papers, New York Public Library. 46. For insights into the revenue-conscious reforms of Sergei Witte, see Mikhail Fridman, Vinnaya monopoliya, tom II: Vinnaya monopoliya v Rossii, 2 vols., vol. 2


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(Petrograd: Pravda, 1916), 120–31; Nikolai Osipov, Vinnaya monopoliya: ee osnovniya nachala, organizatsiya, i nekotoriya posledstviya (St. Petersburg: P. P. Soikin, 1899), 9, 14; Geroid Tanquary Robinson, Rural Russia under the Old Regime (New York: MacMillan, 1932), 252, 259; Linda Himelstein, The King of Vodka: The Story of Pyotr Smirnov and the Upheaval of an Empire (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2009), 168–70. 47. Gordon, Russian Prohibition, 8. 48. Frederick McCormick, Tragedy of Russia in Pacific Asia, 2 vols., vol. 2 (New York: Outing Publishing Company, 1907), 278–82; Aleksandr Nikishin, Vodka i Stalin (Moscow: Dom Russkoi Vodki, 2006), 223–25; Eugene S. Politovsky, From Libau to Tsushima: A Narrative of the Voyage of Admiral Rojdestvensky’s Fleet to Eastern Seas, Including a Detailed Account of the Dogger Bank Incident, trans. F. R. Godfrey (New York: E. P. Dutton and Company, 1908), 11, 168. 49. Gordon, Russian Prohibition, 9. 50. German correspondent of the Neue freie Presse, quoted in: Patricia Herlihy, The Alcoholic Empire: Vodka and Politics in Late Imperial Russia (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 52; Ernest Poole, “Two Russian Soldiers,” The Outlook, September 2 1905, 21–22. 51. Joshua A. Sanborn, Drafting the Russian Nation: Military Conscription, Total War, and Mass Politics, 1905–1925 (DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2003), 13. 52. McKee, “Sobering Up the Soul of the People,” 214. 53. V. Blagoveshchenskii, “Vred p’yanstva dlya obshchestva i gosudarstva,” in Pit’ do dna—ne vidat’ dobra. Sbornik statei protiv p’yanstva (St. Petersburg: Tipografiya Aleksandro-Nevskago Obshchestva Trezvosti, 1911); N. N. Shipov, Alkogolizm i revolyutsiya (St. Petersburg: Grad., 1908), 35–42; Takala, Veselie Rusi, 167. 54. A. Bil’dering, Russkii invalid, Jan. 5, 1910. Quoted in: Herlihy, The Alcoholic Empire, 62–63. For an extended discussion, see chapter 6. 55. “Pora dlya reshitel’nago, dazhe radikal’nago povorota v piteinom dele.” GARF, f. 115 (Soyuz 17-ogo Oktyabrya), op. 1, d. 111, l. 3; see also: GARF, f. 115, op. 1, d. 19, l. 1–317; GARF, f. 115, op. 2, d. 16, l. 1, 16; GARF, f. 115, op. 2, d. 18, l. 1–63. 56. Vladimir I. Gurko, Features and Figures of the Past: Government and Opinion in the Reign of Nicholas II, trans. Laura Matveev (Stanford, Cal.: Stanford University Press, 1939), 530; Marc Lee Schulkin, “The Politics of Temperance: Nicholas II’s Campaign against Alcohol Abuse” (Ph.D. Dissertation, Harvard University, 1985), 151–95. 57. GARF, f. 1779 (Kantselyariya vremennogo pravitel’stva, 1917), op. 1, d. 709, l. 1; V. V. Zhukovskii, “Ministerstvo Finansov: Glavnago Upravleniya neokladnykh sborov i kazennoi prodazhi pitei,” in Obzor deyatel’nosti Gosudarstvennoi Dumy, tret’yago sozyva. 1907–1912 gg. (St. Petersburg: Gosudarstvennaya Tipografiya, 1912), 168. See also W. Arthur McKee, “Taming the Green Serpent: Alcoholism, Autocracy, and Russian Society, 1881–1914” (Ph.D. Dissertation, University of California, Berkeley, 1997), 508. 58. D. N. Borodin, “Vinnaya monopoliya,” Trudy Kommissii po Voprosu ob Alkogolizm: zhurnaly zasedanii i doklady III (1899): 173; Mikhail N. Nizhegorodtsev,

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“Alkogolizm I bor’ba s nim,” Zhurnal russkago obshchestva okhraneniya narodnago zdraviya 8 (1909); Bernard Pares, Russia and Reform (London: Archibald Constable & Co., Ltd., 1907), 146–48, 420–23. See also Himelstein, The King of Vodka, 248–49. Vladimir Lenin’s pre-Revolutionary opposition to the vodka monopoly can be found in: Ivan V. Strel’chuk, Alkogolizm i bor’ba s nim (Moscow: Molodaya gvardiya, 1954), 10–13. 59. Russkoe Obshchestvo okhraneniya narodnago zdraviya, Trudy kommissii po voprosu ob alkogolizm: zhurnaly zasedanii i doklady, vol. 1 (St. Petersburg: Tipografiya P. P. Soikina, 1898), zhurnaly 78–87; John F. Hutchinson, “Science, Politics and the Alcohol Problem in Post-1905 Russia,” Slavonic and East European Review 58, no. 2 (1980): 239–42; Schulkin, “Politics of Temperance,” 115–22. 60. Alexis Raffalovich, “The State Monopoly of Spirits in Russia, and Its Influence on the Prosperity of the Population,” Journal of the Royal Statistics Society 64, no. 1 (1901): 7. 61. Vladimir N. Kokovtsov, Out of My Past: The Memoirs of Count Kokovtsov, trans. Laura Matveev (Stanford, Cal.: Stanford University Press, 1935), 444. It is perhaps another fitting paradox of Russian history that a man so widely known for his infamous drunken debauchery could ultimately be considered alongside temperance advocates as an influence in the ultimate adoption of Russian prohibition. On Grand Duke Sergei and Prince Alexander, see William Johnson, The Liquor Problem in Russia (Westerville, Ohio: American Issue Publishing House, 1915), 160, 162. 62. GARF, f. 601 (Imperator Nikolai II), op. 1, d. 1268, l. 179–180, 184. See also GARF, f. 579 (Pavel N. Milyukov), op. 1, d. 2571, l. 1–4; Herlihy, The Alcoholic Empire,120; Johnson, The Liquor Problem in Russia, 166. 63. McKee, “Taming the Green Serpent,” 522. 64. Alexander M. Michelson, “Revenue and Expenditure,” in Russian Public Finance During the War, ed. Alexander M. Michelson, Paul Apostol, and Michael Bernatzky (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1928), 82. 65. Johnson, The Liquor Problem in Russia, 191; Takala, Veselie Rusi, 167. 66. Laura Phillips, Bol’sheviks and the Bottle: Drink and Worker Culture in St. Petersburg, 1900–1929 (DeKalb, Ill.: Northern Illinois University Press, 2000), 17. See also Herlihy, The Alcoholic Empire, 61–62, 66–68. 67. The archives of the Ministry of Internal Affairs includes dozens, if not hundreds of reports of mobilization riots concentrating on liquor stores and warehouses, which frequently needed to be guarded against marauding hordes of recruits. GARF, f. 102, (Departament politsii, 4-oe deloproizvodstvo), op. 1914, d. 138 “Obezporyadkakh zapisnykh nishnikh chinov prizvannykh na voinu,” l. 24–120. Indeed, a telegram of July, 28, 1914 from the MVD at Sterlitamak states: “Vo vremya yapanskoi voiny kormovyya razdavali ha ruki zapasnye raskvartirovalis’ domam obyvatelei nikakikh bezporyadkov ne bylo.” GARF, f. 102, op. 1914, d. 138, l. 116. Similar accounts are made by foreign observers: Alfred Knox, With the Russian Army, 1914–1917, 2 vols., vol. 1 (London: Hutchinson & Co., 1921), 307; William Steveni, The Russian Army from Within (New York: Hodder and Stoughton, 1914), 45. See also Sanborn, Drafting the Russian Nation, 29–31. 68. Peter Bark, Memoirs, chapter IX, 21: Sir Peter Bark Papers, Leeds Russian Archive, University of Leeds.


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69. Stephen P. Frank, Crime, Cultural Conflict, and Justice in Rural Russia, 1856–1914 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999). 296; A. S. Rappoport, Home Life in Russia (New York: MacMillan Co., 1913), 94. 70. Johnson, The Liquor Problem in Russia, 200. 71. GARF, f. 601 (Imperator Nikolai II), op. 1, d. 991, l. 1–2. On the subsequent flood of media support for the prohibition declaration, see Gordon, Russian Prohibition, 41; Robert Hercod, La prohibition de l’alcool en Russie (Westerville, Ohio: American Issue Publishing Co., 1919), 5. 72. Dmitry Shlapentokh, “Drunkenness in the Context of Political Culture: The Case of Russian Revolutions,” International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy 14, no. 8 (1994): 38; J. Y. Simpson, The Self-Discovery of Russia (London: Constable and Company Ltd., 1916), 65; Doreen Stanford, Siberian Odyssey (New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., 1964), 31. 73. GARF, f. 1779, op. 2, d. 206, l. 1–5. Joseph Barnes, “Liquor Regulation in Russia,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 163 (1932): 228. 74. GARF, f. 1779, op. 1, d. 716, l. 1b, 41. Andrei M. Anfimov, Rossiiskaia derevnia v gody pervoi mirovoi voiny: 1914—fevral´ 1917 g. (Moscow: Izdatel’stvo sotsial’no-ekonomicheskoi literatury, 1962), 243. See also V. Bekhterev, “Russia without Vodka,” in The Soul of Russia, ed. Winifred Stephens (London: Macmillan and Co.,Ltd., 1916), 273; Mikhail Friedman, “The Drink Question in Russia,” in Russia: Its Trade and Commerce, ed. Arthur Raffalovich (London: P. S. King & Son, Ltd., 1918), 439, 447. 75. M. Bogolepoff, “Public Finance,” in Russia: Its Trade and Commerce, ed. Arthur Raffalovich (London: P. S. King & Son, Ltd., 1918), 346; Olga Crisp, Studies in the Russian Economy before 1914 (New York: Barnes and Noble, 1976), 27; Alexis Raffalovich, “Some Effects of the War on the Economic Life of Russia,” The Economic Journal 27, no. 105 (1917): 105. 76. For an optimistic interpretation of Russia’s “acute financial crisis” by the Russian ambassador, see Boris Bakhmeteff, “War and Finance in Russia,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 75 (1918): 192–98. 77. Bark’s retrospective account of the budgetary turmoil is fascinating in many respects, especially in that even with the aid of hindsight, the former finance minister does not seem to understand the concept of inflation: in the budget estimates for 1917 submitted to Nicholas II, he forecasts an increase in revenue that—against the backdrop of the world war—“enables us also to increase our expenditure on the Church, Education, Public Health, Agriculture, Trade and Industry, Postal and Telegraphic Service, and the construction of railway lines, thus providing for the spiritual and practical needs of the nation [sic].” Memoirs, chapter X, 29–30. 78. On Bark’s (and Witte’s) public pronouncements belittling the financial impact of prohibition, see Marr Murray, Drink and the War from the Patriotic Point of View (London: Chapman and Hall, Ltd., 1915), 16–17; John Newton, Alcohol and the War: The Example of Russia (London: Richard J. James, 1915), 10–11a; Arthur Sherwell, The Russian Vodka Monopoly (London: S. King and Son, 1915), 7. On the financial reforms, see also Michelson, “Revenue and Expenditure,” 146–52. 79. Quoted in: Kokovtsov, Out of My Past, 473.

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80. Aleksandr P. Pogrebinskii, Ocherki istorii finanasov dorevolyutsionnoi Rossii (XIX-XX vv.) (Moscow: Gosfinizdat, 1954), 126–28. 81. Michelson, “Revenue and Expenditure,” 35. 82. GARF, f. 1779, op. 1, d. 705, l. 5; GARF, f. 1779, op. 2, d. 299, l. 1–7; GARF, f. 6996 (Ministerstvo Finansov Vremennogo Pravitelistva, 1917), op. 1, d. 293, l. 5, 6, 17, 28, 33–38; GARF, f. 6996, op. 1, d. 296, l. 17; GARF, f. 6996, op. 1, d. 299, l. 5; GARF 6996, op. 1, d. 300, l. 1–244. 83. Kimitaka Matsuzato, “Interregional Conflicts and the Collapse of Tsarism: The Real Reason for the Food Crisis in Russia after the Autumn of 1916,” in Emerging Democracy in Late Imperial Russia, ed. Mary Schaeffer Conroy (Niwot: University Press of Colorado, 1998), 244. See also Herlihy, The Alcoholic Empire, 142–45. 84. GARF, f. 1779, op. 1, d. 706, l. 1–16; GARF, f. 6996, op. 1, d. 343, l. 14, 27, 46; GARF, f. 6996, op. 1, d. 344, l. 1–8. 85. Arkadii L. Sidorov, Ekonomicheskoe polozhenie Rossii nakanune velikoi oktyabr’skoi sotsialisticheskoi revolutsii: dokumenty i materialy, 3 vols., vol. 3 (Moscow: Izdatel’stvo akademii nauk SSSR, 1967), 131. On continued private distillation, see: Alexis Antsiferov et al., Russian Agriculture During the War (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1930), 164. On the traditional trade between peasants and distillers, see Francis Palmer, Russian Life in Town and Country (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1901), 86–88. Ironically, the food shortage in the cities was seen by some foreign commentators as a positive indicator of the increased health and enjoyment of the peasantry. Steven Graham, Russia in 1916 (New York: MacMillan Press, 1917), 119–20. 86. David Christian, “Prohibition in Russia 1914–1925,” Australian Slavonic and East European Studies 9, no. 2 (1995): 113. See also Orlando Figes, A People’s Tragedy: The Russian Revolution, 1891–1924 (New York: Viking Press, 1996), 307. 87. Rappoport, Home Life in Russia, 94. 88. Adam B. Ulam, The Bol’sheviks (New York: MacMillan Co., 1965), 314. 89. Figes and Kolonitskii, Interpreting the Russian Revolution, 34; Simpson, The Self-Discovery of Russia, 65. 90. James L. Houghteling, Jr., A Diary of the Russian Revolution (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1918), 146; R. H. Bruce Lockhart, The Two Revolutions: An EyeWitness Study of Russia, 1917 (Chester Springs, Penn.: Dufour Editions, 1967), 51; Emile Vandervelde, Three Aspects of the Russian Revolution (London: George Allen & Unwin, Ltd., 1918), 29–30. 91. Edward T. Heald, Witness to Revolution: Letters from Russia, 1916–1919, ed. James B. Glidney (Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1972), 59. 92. Dmitry Shlapentokh, “Drunkenness and Anarchy in Russia: A Case of Political Culture,” Russian History/Histoire Russe 18, no. 4 (1991): 477–79. 93. John Hodgson, With Denikin’s Armies (London: Temple Bar Publishing Co., 1932), 79. Cited in Herlihy, The Alcoholic Empire, 152. 94. The belief that drinking is a manifestation of capitalist oppression is initially expressed in Friedrich Engels, The Condition of the Working Class in England (London: 1891). 95. Mark D. Steinberg, Voices of Revolution, 1917 (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2001), 24–25.


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96. In order to prevent subsequent looting and alcohol “pogroms,” the cellars of the Winter Palace were at first flooded, before the alcohol was later removed to Kronstadt to be destroyed. Dmitrii A. Chugaev, ed., Petrogradskii voenno-revoliutsionnyi komitet; dokumenty i materialy, 3 vols., vol. 3 (Moscow: Nauka, 1967), 376– 378; John Reed, Ten Days That Shook the World (New York: Random House, 1935), 321; Boris Segal, Russian Drinking: Use and Abuse of Alcohol in Pre-Revolutionary Russia (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers Center of Alcohol Studies, 1987), 120–21. 97. Order reprinted in Reed, Ten Days That Shook the World, 308–9; Helena Stone, “The Soviet Government and Moonshine, 1917–1929,” Cahiers du Monde Russe et Soviétique 27, no. 3–4 (1986): 359. See also Anatolii I. Razgon, VTsIK Sovetov v pervye mesyatsy diktatury proletariata (Moscow: Nauka, 1977), 215–38. 98. A. G. Parkhomenko, “Gosudarstvenno-pravovye meropriyatiya v bor’be s p’yanstvom v pervye gody sovetskoi vlasti,” Sovetskoe gosudarstvo i pravo 4 (1984): 114; Grigory G. Zaigraev, Obshchestvo i alkogol’ (Moscow: Ministry of Internal Affairs, 1992), 32–33; Vladimir P. Nuzhnyi, Vino v zhinzni i zhizn‘ v vine (Moscow: Sinteg, 2001), 235. See also resolutions from 1917 uezd “peasant congress”: Steinberg, Voices of Revolution, 1917, 294. 99. Rossiiskii Gosudarstvenni Arkhiv Ekonomiki [RGAE], f. 733 (Tsentral’noe upravlenie i ob”edinenie spirtovoi promyshlennosti, Gosspirt), op. 1, d. 4433. 100. Vladimir I. Lenin, Pol’noe sobranie sochinenii, vol. 43 (Moscow: Political Literature Publishers, 1967), 326; Lenin, Pol’noe sobranie sochinenii, vol. 45, 120. 101. Bertrand M. Patenaude, The Big Show in Bololand: The American Relief Expedition to Soviet Russia in the Famine of 1921 (Stanford, Cal.: Stanford University Press, 2002), 429; Boris Segal, The Drunken Society: Alcohol Use and Abuse in the Soviet Union (New York: Hippocrene Books, 1990), 46–51. 102. Anton M. Bol’shakov, Derevnya, 1917–1927 (Moscow: Rabotnik prosveshcheniya, 1927), 339–41; Konstantin Litvak, “Samogonovarenie i potreblenie alkogolya v Rossiiskoi derevne 1920-kh godov,” Otechestvennaya istoriya, no. 4 (1992): 76. 103. A. M. Aronovich, “Samogonshchiki,” in Prestupnyi mir Moskvy, ed. M. N. Gernet (Moscow: MKhO “Liukon,” 1924), 174; Christopher Williams, “Old Habits Die Hard: Alcoholism under N.E.P. and Some Lessons for the Gorbachev Administration,” Irish Slavonic Studies, no. 12 (1991): 76–80. 104. GARF, f. 5515 (Narodnyi komissariat truda), op. 20, d. 7, l. 29, 32, 43, 46, 48, 50, 52–53, 117. See also: GARF, f. 5467 (TsK Profsoyuza derevoobdeloinikov), op. 11, d. 179, l. 1–14; GARF, f. 5467, op. 14, d. 108, l. 17–20. On alcoholism statistics, see RGAE, f. 1562 (TsSU pri Sovete Ministrov SSSR), op. 1, d. 490, l. 9–10. 105. T. H. Rigby, Communist Party Membership in the USSR, 1917–1967 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1968), 121–25. 106. GARF, f. 374 (Narodnyi komissariat raboche-krest’yanskoi inspektsii SSSR), op. 15, d. 1291, l. 18–22. See also Gregory Sokolnikov et al., Soviet Policy in Public Finance: 1917–1928 (London: Oxford University Press, 1931), 194. 107. From: Pravda, July 12, 1923, 1. Quoted in: Transchel, Under the Influence, 68. 108. Marie-Rose Rialand, L’alcool et les Russes (Paris: Institut d’études slaves, 1989), 108; Sokolnikov et al., Soviet Policy in Public Finance: 1917–1928, 195–96. 109. Sir John Maynard, The Russian Peasant and Other Studies (New York: Collier Books, 1942), 287; Joseph Stalin, Sochineniya: tom 9: Dekabr’ 1926—Iyul’ 1927 (Moscow: State Publishing House of Political Literature, 1948), 192.

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110. See concluding speech of E. I. Deichman, Vsesoyuznyi sovet protivoalkogol’nykh obshchestv v SSSR, Bor’ba s alkogoloizmom v SSSR (Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe meditsinskoe izdatel’stvo, 1929), 87–88; Emmanuil I. Deichman, Alkogolizm i bor’ba s nim (Moscow: Moskovskii rabochii, 1929), 164–200. See also Leo M. Glassman, “Russia’s Campaign to Keep Ivan Sober,” New York Times Magazine, 1933. Association Against the Prohibition Amendment Papers, Library of Congress Manuscripts Division, Box 4, Glassman File. 111. Little is known of the operations of the OBSA, since its archives were destroyed during World War II. Transchel, Under the Influence, 9–10. The high caliber of the founding members signaled an accordingly high level of government and party support. Neil Weissman, “Prohibition and Alcohol Control in the USSR: The 1920s Campaign against Illegal Spirits,” Soviet Studies 38, no. 3 (1986): 360–61. 112. Joseph Stalin, Pis’ma I.V. Stalina V.M Moltovu, 1925–1936 gg.: sbornik dokumentov (Moscow: Rossiya molodaya, 1995), 209–10. On the economic needs for vodka, see RGAE, f. 733, op. 1, l. 107–8; RGAE, f. 733, op. 1, d. 1, l. 1–56. On the five-year plans for increased vodka output, see RGAE, f. 733, op. 1, d. 143a, l. 1–156; RGAE, f. 733, op. 1, d. 144, l. 1–216; Ivan Viktorov, Spirtovaya promyshlennost’ SSSR (Moscow: Snabtekhizdat, 1934). 113. See chapter 2 as well as Ruth Dupré, “The Prohibition of Alcohol Revisited: The U.S. Case in International Perspective,” Cahier de recherche 4, no. 11 (2004). 114. This analysis finds numerous parallels with comparisons between democracies and non-democracies in the international literature on policy decisions and their influence on leadership tenure. See Bruce Bueno de Mesquita et al., “Policy Failure and Political Survival: The Contribution of Political Institutions,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 43, no. 2 (1999); Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, Randolph Siverson, and Gary Woller, “War and the Fate of Regimes: A Comparative Study,” American Political Science Review 86, no. 3 (1992); Bruce Bueno de Mesquita et al., The Logic of Political Survival (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2004). 115. José Antonio Cheibub, “Political Regimes and the Extractive Capacity of Governments: Taxation in Democracies and Dictatorships,” World Politics 50, no. 3 (1998): 354; Kenneth Schultz, “Do Democratic Institutions Constrain or Inform? Contrasting Two Institutional Perspectives on Democracy and War,” International Organization 53, no. 2 (1999): 236. 116. See also Jack Snyder, Myths of Empire: Domestic Politics and International Ambition (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1991), 39. 117. Karl W. Ryavec, Russian Bureaucracy: Power and Pathology (New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003), 47–55. 118. Yurii Ivanov, Kniga o vodke (Smolensk: Rusich, 1997), 5–40. See also fn. 57. 119. Evangelista, Unarmed Forces, 378. 120. W. Bruce Lincoln, In War’s Dark Shadow: The Russians before the Great War (New York: Dial Press, 1983), 224. 121. George Thomas Marye, Nearing the End in Imperial Russia (Philadelphia: Dorrance & Co., 1929), 38. 122. Quoted in: Marc Ferro, Nicholas II: Last of the Tsars (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 71. 123. Last Imperial Assistant Interior Minister V. I. Gurko notes the exemplary composure and the lack of mobilizational disorder. Gurko, Features and Figures of


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the Past, 537. Peter Bark’s glowing reports are reproduced in: Gordon, Russian Prohibition, 11. See also Johnson, The Liquor Problem in Russia, 213. For evidence to the contrary, see fn. 68. 124. GARF, f. 579, op. 1, d. 2598, l. 1; GARF, f. 579, op. 1, d. 2549, l. 1–2. 125. Francis B. Reeves, Russia Then and Now: 1892–1917 (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1917), 110. 126. See, for instance, Peter L. Bark, “Doklad P. L. Barka Nikolayu II o rospisi dokhodov i raskhodov na 1917 god, s predisloviem B. A. Romanova,” Krasnyi arkhiv 26, no. 4 (1926); Bogolepoff, “Public Finance,” 348; “Finansovoe polozhenie Rossii pered Oktyabr’skoi revolutsiei, s predisloviem B. A. Romanova,” Krasnyi arkhiv 25, no. 6 (1927): 4–5; Friedman, “The Drink Question in Russia,” 449; Graham, Russia in 1916 120–25; Sergei N. Prokopovich, Voina i narodnoe khozyaistvo, 2nd ed. (Moscow: Tipografiya N. A. Sazonovoi, 1918), 115; D. N. Voronov, Zhizn‘ derevni v dni trezvosti (St. Petersburg: Gosudarstvennaya Tipografiya, 1916). 127. In his memoirs, Count Witte makes reference to this particular aspect with respect to the rapid introduction of the Russian liquor monopoly under Alexander III: “Had [Alexander III] not been strong I would never have been able to carry out the reform. Under parliamentary regimes, particularly republican ones, such a reform would be unthinkable because it hurts the interests of highly placed and wellto-do persons.” Sergei Witte, The Memoirs of Count Witte, trans. Sidney Harcave (Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, Inc., 1990), 289–90. On the influence of private liquor interests in the Russian policy process, see GARF, f. 586 (Vyacheslav K. Plevhe), op. 1, d. 276, l. 1–17. 128. Abraham Ascher, P. A. Stolypin: The Search for Stability in Late Imperial Russia (Stanford, Cal.: Stanford University Press, 2001), 11–12. 129. Peter Bark, Memoirs, Chapter X, 6–7. 130. Arthur Toombes, Russia and Its Liquor Reforms: National Experiments in License, State Monopoly and Prohibition (Brisbane, Australia: Queensland Prohibition League, 1920), 9. See also: GARF, f. 586 (Vyacheslav K. Plevhe, Nikolai Vycheslavovich Plevhe), op. 1, d. 1477 (pis’mo neustanovlennogo litsa Nikolayu II s pros’boi naiti novye istochniki dokhoda v vidu zakritiya vinnikh lavok), l. 1–2. 131. George Snow, “Alcoholism in the Russian Military: The Public Sphere and the Temperance Discourse, 1883–1917,” Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas 45, no. 3 (1997): 428–29; Toombes, Russia and Its Liquor Reforms, 2; Guy Hayler, Prohibition: The Remedy for the World’s Drink Problem (Birmingham, England: n.p., 1916) 3. Guy Hayler—Temperance Tracts, vol. XIV, no. 35. Joseph Malins, The Horrors of Russian Liquor Nationalisation: “an Object Lesson” for Britain (Birmingham, England: Templar Printing Works, 1916?) 3. Guy Hayler— Temperance Tracts, vol. XXI, no. 8. 132. Nuzhnyi, Vino v zhinzni i zhizn‘ v vine, 234. For the Kaiser’s interpretation, see “Kaiser Wilhelm Seeks to Curb Drink Evil,” Union Signal, September 25, 1913; James S. Roberts, Drink, Temperance, and the Working Class in Nineteenth-Century Germany (Boston: George Allen & Unwin, 1984), 68–69. 133. See: Stephen Van Evera, “The Cult of the Offensive and the Origins of the First World War,” International Security 9, no. 1 (1984). 134. See, for instance, the report of A. Shingarev of the Finance Ministry on “War, Temperance and Finances”: GARF, f. 579, op. 1, d. 2547, l. 1.

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135. Steinberg and Khrustalëv, Fall of the Romanovs, 6–7. 136. Ibid., 8. citing Anna Viroubova, Memories of the Russian Court (London: 1923), 127. 137. The crisis of war has also been implicated in the acceleration of other reforms, including the displacement of private economic interests with those of the state. William Rosenberg, “The Problem of Market Relations and the State in Revolutionary Russia,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 36, no. 2 (1994): 365. 138. Sergei S. Ol’denburg, Tsarstvovanie Imperatora Nikolaya II, 2 vols., vol. 2 (Munich: Izdanie Obshchestva Rasprostraneniya Russkoi Natsional’noi i Patrioticheskoi Literaturoi, 1949), 154–55. 139. Yanni Kotsonis, “‘No Place to Go’: Taxation and State Transformation in Late Imperial and Early Soviet Russia,” Journal of Modern History 76 (2004): 555– 56; Michelson, “Revenue and Expenditure,” 171. 140. Russkaya vedomosti, no. 115, May 24, 1917, 3. Reproduced in Robert Paul Browder and Alexander F. Kerensky, eds., The Russian Provisional Government, 1917: Documents, 3 vols., vol. 2 (Stanford, Cal.: Stanford University Press, 1961), 493. 141. Bark, Memoirs, Chapter X, 1–2, 8, 16–22. 142. Christian, “Prohibition in Russia 1914–1925,” 93. 143. Barnes, “Liquor Regulation in Russia,” 228. 144. Vladimir D. Nabokov, The Provisional Government (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1970), 30–31. 145. T. P. Korzhikhina, “Bor’ba s alkogolizmom v 20-kh—nachale 30-kh godov,” Voprosi istorii, no. 9 (1985): 21. 146. Indeed, Joseph Barnes’s analysis of Stalin’s repeal makes explicit that “It involved no change of opinion on the basic question of alcohol, to which the Communist leaders remained opposed,” but rather as a strategic move necessitated by the revenue needs of the state. Barnes, “Liquor Regulation in Russia,” 229. See also Peter Gatrell and R. W. Davies, “The Industrial Economy,” in From Tsarism to the New Economic Policy, ed. R. W. Davies (London: Macmillan Academic and Professional Ltd., 1990), 152. 147. This parallel between the policy decisions of Nicholas II and Gorbachev provides a convenient epilogue for historical speculation, though the institutional reasons for the repetition of such bad decisions are rarely if ever scrutinized. See Herlihy, The Alcoholic Empire, 162; Himelstein, The King of Vodka, 333–35; Transchel, Under the Influence, 156; A. Stickley, Y. Razvodovsky, and M. McKee, “Alcohol Mortality in Russia: A Historical Perspective,” Public Health 123, no. 1 (2009): 26. 148. This result is hardly surprising, given the fate of similar policies amidst the rapid institutional change of the late Soviet era. See Evangelista, Unarmed Forces, 369–73.

NOTES TO CHAPTER 6 Epigraph Source: Robert Hercod, “Alcoholism as an International Problem,” British Journal of Inebriety 23, no. 3 (1926): 115–16. 1. See, for instance: Mark Evans, “At the Interface between Theory and Practice: Policy Transfer and Lesson-Drawing,” Public Administration 84, no. 2 (2006);


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Richard Rose, Learning from Comparative Public Policy: A Practical Guide (London: Routledge, 2005). 2. For a review, see John L. Campbell, “Where Do We Stand? Common Mechanisms in Organizations and Social Movements Research,” in Social Movements and Organization Theory, ed. Gerald F. Davis et al. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 53–58; David Dolowitz and David Marsh, “Who Learns What from Whom? A Review of the Policy Transfer Literature,” Political Studies 44 (1996). 3. Frances Stokes Berry and William D. Berry, “Innovation and Diffusion Models in Policy Research,” in Theories of the Policy Process, ed. Paul A. Sabatier (Boulder, Col.: Westview Press, 1999), 171–72. 4. John L. Campbell, Institutional Change and Globalization (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2004), 106–7; Sidney Tarrow, The New Transnational Activism (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 40. 5. Richard Rose, Lesson-Drawing in Public Policy (Chatham, N.J.: Chatham House, 1993). 6. David Dolowitz and David Marsh, “Learning from Abroad: The Role of Policy Transfer in Contemporary Policy-Making,” Governance: An International Journal of Policy and Administration 13, no. 1 (2000): 10. 7. See, for instance, Greg Marquis, “‘Brewers and Distillers Paradise’: American Views of Canadian Alcohol Policies, 1919 to 1935,” Canadian Review of American Studies 34, no. 2 (2004); Ian Tyrrell, “Prohibition, American Cultural Expansion, and the New Hegemony in the 1920s: An Interpretation,” Histoire sociale/ Social History 27, no. 54 (1994). 8. Edith Smith Davis, “What Other Lands Teach Our Own,” Union Signal, July 30, 1914, 12. 9. J. A. Homan, Prohibition: The Enemy of Temperance (Cincinnati, Ohio: Christian Liberty Bureau, 1910), 111. 10. Arthur Newsholme, “Some International Aspects of Alcoholism with Special Reference to Prohibition in America,” British Journal of Inebriety 19, no. 3 (1922): 99. 11. The subheading above is in direct refutation of: Ernest Gordon, Two Footnotes to the History of the Anti-Alcohol Movement (Boston: 1916). 12. F. G. R. Gordon, How Sweden and Quebec Control the Liquor Traffic (Haverhill, Mass.: Record Publishing Co., 1926); Arthur Shadwell, Drink, Temperance and Legislation, 3rd ed. (New York: Longmans, Green and Co., 1915). See also John Greenaway, “Policy Learning and the Drink Question in Britain: 1850–1950,” Political Studies 46, no. 5 (1998). On the cross-pollination of American and European (primarily British) social ideas more generally in the early twentieth century, see Daniel T. Rodgers, Atlantic Crossings: Social Politics in a Progressive Age (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1998). 13. On international interest in the Gothenburg option, see “Das Gothenburgersystem,” in Bericht über den XI. internationalen Kongress gegen den Alkoholismus. Abgehalten in Stockholm vom 28 Juli-3 Aug. 1907 (Stockholm: Oskar Eklunds Boktryckeri, 1908); Olaf Hermelin, “The Temperance Reform in Sweden,” in Centennial Temperance Volume: A Memorial of the International Temperance Conference, Held in Philadelphia, June 1876 (New York: National Temperance

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Society and Publication House, 1877); Lars O. Jensen, “The Norwegian System for the Control or Management of the Liquor Traffic,” in Proceedings of the Twelfth International Congress on Alcoholism (London: National Temperance League, 1909); Joseph Malins, “Observations on the Gothenburg System,” in Bericht über den V. internationalen Kongress zur Bekämpfung des Missbrauchs geistiger Getränke zu Basel, 20–22 Aug. 1895 (Basel: Schriftstelle des Alkoholgegnerbundes, 1896). 14. Early contacts include Oskar Carlheim-Gyllenskjöld, A Memorandum Concerning the Use of Intoxicating Liquors in Sweden, the Amount of Crime Produced by Them, and Their Effects on the Health and Prosperity of the People: In Reply to Inquiries Made on Behalf of the State Board of Health of Massachusetts, Delivered to the Minister Resident of the United States of America (Stockholm: P. A. Norstedt & Söner, 1872). Federal investigations include E. R. L. Gould, The Gothenburg System of Liquor Traffic (Washington, D,C,: Government Printing Office, 1893). State investigations include The Commission to Investigate the Gothenburg and Norwegian Systems of Licensing the Sale of Intoxicating Liquors, “Report to the General Court, No. 192” (Massachusetts General Court, 1894). NEH Preservation Project, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. 15. See, for instance, Charles E. Ebersol, “Types of Public Control of the Liquor Traffic: In Sweden; in Norway; in South Carolina; and in Athens, Georgia” (Chicago: Chicago Theological Seminary, 1904); George Frederick Shrady, “Propagator of Pauperism: The Dispensary,” Forum, June 1897. 16. Harry G. Levine, “The Committee of Fifty and the Origins of Alcohol Control,” The Journal of Drug Issues, Special issue on the political economy of alcohol (1983); Frederic H. Wines and John Koren, The Liquor Problem in Its Legislative Aspects: An Investigation Made under the Direction of the Committee of Fifty (New York: Houghton Mifflin and Company, 1897). 17. Shadwell, Drink, Temperance and Legislation, 258. 18. William Johnson, The Gothenburg System of Liquor Selling (Chicago: The New Voice Company, 1908); Guy Hayler, The ‘Disinterested’ Liquor Monopoly Scheme: A Seathing Exposure (n.p., 1911), Guy Hayler—Temperance Tracts, vol. 14, no. 34; Guy Hayler, The Gothenburg System (Birmingham: I.O.G.T. Grand Lodge of England, 1912), Guy Hayler—Temperance Tracts, vol. XIV, no. 26. 19. William E. Johnson to Howard Hyde Russell, June 21, 1932, “Notes on the Liquor Monopoly in Russia,” 2. Howard Hyde Russell Series, Temperance and Prohibition Papers. Ohio Historical Society, Folder 42, “Correspondence and other papers, 1932, concerning W. E. ‘Pussyfoot’ Johnson” (Roll 6). 20. Ernest H. Cherrington, ed., Standard Encyclopedia of the Alcohol Problem, vol. 3 (Westerville, Ohio: American Issue Press, 1926), 1410. 21. William E. Johnson to Howard Hyde Russell, May 22, 1932. Howard Hyde Russell Series, Folder 42, (Roll 6). 22. Ernest Gordon, The Anti-Alcohol Movement in Europe (New York: Fleming H. Revel Company, 1913). 23. Temperance, Aug. 1912, 2; Guy Hayler, Prohibition Advance in All Lands; a Study of the World-Wide Character of the Drink Question, 2nd ed. (London: International Prohibition Confederation, 1914). 24. See, for instance, American Legislators’ Association, State Liquor Control Laws (Chicago: 1933); Association Against the Prohibition Amendment, Bratt

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System of Liquor Control in Sweden (Washington, D.C.: AAPA, 1930); Harold Callender, “Control of Liquor in Sweden: Its Aim to Restrict Drinking,” New York Times, Aug. 21, 1932; Raymond B. Fosdick and Albert L. Scott, Toward Liquor Control (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1933); Olov Kinberg, “Temperance Legislation in Sweden,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 163 (1932); Moritz Marcus, Swedish Alcohol System: Address at the Fifth Conference of the International League against Prohibition, the Hague, 1924 (Stockholm: Isaac Marcus’ Boktryckeri-Aktiebolag, 1925); Research Committee on Social Trends, Recent Social Trends in the United States: Report of the President’s Research Committee on Social Trends, 2 vols., vol. 1 (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1933); “Swedish Liquor Control System Urged for the United States: Ambassador Morehead Explains How the Bratt Monopoly Works and Argues for Adoption of a Similar Plan by American States,” New York Times, May 22, 1932. The Wickersham Commission recommended giving prohibition “one more go,” although a significant proportion of the commission members were swayed by commissioner Henry Anderson as to the viability of the Gothenburg/dispensary option—largely on the basis of firsthand studies of its operation in Sweden. Henry Anderson, “Liquor Control—a Substitute for Prohibition,” Forum, April 1931, National Commission on Law Observance and Enforcement, Enforcement of the Prohibition Laws. 25. “The Czar’s Public Houses,” Temperance, March 1913, 10; “The Drink Scourge in Russia,” Temperance, Nov. 1913, 15; “Russia Sees in Drunkenness a National Menace,” Union Signal, April 2, 1914, “The Russian ‘Drunken Budget,’” Temperance, Sept. 1913, 12; “Russian Statesman Denounces Liquor,” Union Signal, Feb. 19, 1914. The alleged “prosperity” of the Russians under prohibition arose, in the opinion of foreign prohibitionists, because “Liquor Nationalisation had brought her to the verge of physical and moral destruction” (sic). Henry George Chancellor, Why Nationalise Strong Drink? An Address Delivered at the Autumnal Meeting of the Congregational Union, Birmingham, Oct. 4, 1916 (Manchester: United Kingdom Alliance, 1916), 10, Guy Hayler—Temperance Tracts, vol. XXI, no. 18. See also Joseph Malins, The Horrors of Russian Liquor Nationalisation: “An Object Lesson” for Britain (Birmingham, England: Templar Printing Works, 1916); Guy Hayler— Temperance Tracts, vol. XXI, no. 8; National Temperance Federation, 33rd Annual Report of the Executive Committee to Be Submitted to the Annual Meeting to Be Held in the Caxton Hall, Westminster, S.W., on Thursday, Feb. 15, 1917 (London: National Temperance Federation, 1917), 20; Guy Hayler—Temperance Tracts, vol. XXVIII, no. 21. 26. Hyperbole in verse: “Old Russia’s brand of law prohibits, in country and in town, and soon her prisons and gibbets will all be taken down. If someone hasn’t told a whopper about conditions there, the country soon won’t have a pauper, which had them everywhere. The world will watch this Russian measure, so timely and so wise; ‘twill watch and doubtless note with pleasure a nation nobly rise, from abject depths of degradation, from lying in the ditch; oh, happy that progressive nation which hits the pumpovitch!” Walt Mason, “Prohibition in Russia,” Union Singal, Feb. 18, 1915. On Nicholas’s “progressivism” and the “awakening” of Russia to the evils of alcoholism as viewed by American commentators, see David S. Foglesong, The American Mission and the ‘Evil Empire’: The Crusade for a ‘Free Russia’ since 1881 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 47–49.

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27. Lloyd George hailed Russian prohibition as “the single greatest act of national heroism.” Quoted in Vladimir A. Rebrikov, “O vliyanii zakonodatel’stva na potreblenie alkogolya v Rossii,” in Alkogol’ i zdorov’e naseleniya Rossii: 1900–2000, ed. Andrei K. Demin (Moscow: Rossiiskaya assotsiatsiya obshchestvennogo zdorov’ya, 1998), 144. See also “From a ‘Budget of Drunkenness’ to a ‘Budget of Sobriety,’” Union Signal, Oct. 29, 1914; Stephen Graham, “How the Russian Soldier Feels About Prohibition,” Union Signal, Oct. 5, 1916; Nicholas Iserguine, “Russian Bank Inspector Says Russia Is ‘Bone Dry,’” Union Signal, March 8, 1917; “Russia Transformed: Passing of Vodka Brings Prosperity,” Union Signal, Jan. 1, 1915. 28. See, for instance, “The Miracle-Working Law of Russia,” Union Signal, Oct. 19, 1916; “Russia’s Financial Stability and Prohibition,” Union Signal, March 4, 1915; Christine I. Tinling, “The Story of a Russian Peasant,” Union Signal, Jan. 28, 1915; “The Truth Concerning Russia: Red Cross Nurses Recount What They Have Seen of the Effects of Prohibition in Russia,” Union Signal, May 18, 1916. For a retrospective view, see William E. Johnson to Howard Hyde Russell, June 14, 1932, “Notes on the Liquor Monopoly in Russia,” p. 2. Howard Hyde Russell Series, Folder 42 (Roll 6). 29. “Census in Russia Shows Popularity of Prohibition,” Union Signal, July 1, 1915; John Foster Fraser, “Teetotal Russia,” Union Signal, Nov. 23, 1916; “Popular Sentiment Favors Prohibition in Russia,” Union Signal, April 8, 1915. 30. AP report. “Can a Nation Prosper without Liquor Revenue?” Union Signal, March 23, 1916, 9. Echoing a report in the Petit Parisien, the American temperance press reprinted Bark’s continuing claims of a 50 percent increase in the productivity of Russian labor, and a savings of two billion rubles thanks to prohibition. “How Russia Has Gone Dry,” Review of Reviews 51 (1915): 97; “Russia Experiences Phenomenal Prosperity,” Union Signal, Aug. 17, 1916; “Russian Budget under Prohibition Interesting Reading,” Union Signal, Dec. 21, 1916, 11; “Russia’s WealthConserving Experiment,” Union Signal, May 25, 1916; “Sale of Vodka to Be Prohibited Forever in Russia,” Chicago Tribune, June 21, 1916. 31. Ernest Gordon, “Prohibition in Russia Proves Law Itself Schoolmaster,” Union Signal, March 15, 1917, 5. See also “Russia’s Wealth-Conserving Experiment: What the United States Can Learn from It,” Union Signal, May 17, 1917, 13. 32. Francis B. Reeves, Russia Then and Now: 1892–1917 (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1917), 113. 33. See Union Signal, June 22, 1916, 15. 34. “An Alcohol-Less, Therefore an Almost Bloodless Revolution,” Union Signal, Nov. 9, 1917, 5. 35. John A. Nicholls, “Study of Conflicting Statements of Liquor Journals,” Union Signal, Sept. 20, 1917, 6. See also reprint of Seattle Times article: “Prohibition a Liberalizing Agency in Russia,” Union Signal, April 12, 1917, 3. 36. Foglesong, American Mission and the ‘Evil Empire,’ 56–58. 37. Other noteworthy Rogers-isms include: “See we have Russian Boomb throwing, if we have to take it to get that other Russian evil prohibition why I am in favor of giving them both back” (sic), and “Russia was doing fine till some nut took their Vodka away from them and they went back to look for it and nobody has ever heard of them since” (sic). Will Rogers, The Cowboy Philosopher on Prohibition (Stillwater: Oklahoma State University Press, 1975), xvi, 38, 39.


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38. See, for instance, “Pussyfoot” Johnson. William E. Johnson to Howard Hyde Russell, June 14, 1932. Howard Hyde Russell Series, Folder 42 (Roll 6). The first mention of the Soviet prohibition within the pages of the Union Signal constituted a brief note on 1923 Anglo-Soviet trade agreements that contained prohibitionist notions. “The Anti-Alcohol Movement in Many Lands,” Union Signal, June 14, 1923, 13. 39. Ernest H. Cherrington, “The Liquor Problem in Other Lands,” in The AntiSaloon League Year Book, 1912 (Westerville, Ohio: The American Issue Press, 1912), 200. 40. Ernest H. Cherrington, “The World-Wide Liquor Problem,” in The AntiSaloon League Year Book, 1916 (Westerville, Ohio: The American Issue Press, 1916), 5–11. 41. See: Ernest H. Cherrington, “The World-Wide Liquor Problem,” in The AntiSaloon Year Book, 1917 (Westerville, Ohio: The American Issue Press, 1917), 317– 22; Ernest H. Cherrington, “The World-Wide Liquor Problem,” in The Anti-Saloon League Year Book, 1920 (Westerville, Ohio: The American Issue Press, 1920), 250–52. 42. “Booze and Bolshevism,” Literary Digest, Nov. 29, 1919; “Calls Dry Rule Czarism,” New York Times, Dec. 23, 1926. 43. Walter Duranty, “Masses Defeat Red Prohibition,” New York Times, Feb. 20, 1927, X20. Later: Walter Duranty, “Tells Why Russia Ended Prohibition,” New York Times, March 15, 1931; Walter Duranty, “Russia’s Dry Laws Ended 9 Years Ago,” New York Times, Oct. 8, 1933. 44. Thomas Risse-Kappen, “Ideas Do Not Float Freely: Transnational Coalitions, Domestic Structures, and the End of the Cold War,” International Organization 48, no. 2 (1994). 45. New State Ice Co. v. Liebmann, 285 US 262, 311 (1932) (Brandeis, J., dissenting). 46. Björn Schauman and Allan Zilliacus, En blick på rusdryckslagstiftningen i Amerika (Helsingfors, Finland: Hufvudsbladets nya tryckeri, 1908), 11. 47. On European studies of American alcohol control, see Hubert Brunard, Rapport: 6me Congrès international contre l’abus des boissons alcooliques: Premiere section, legislation—sociologie—economie politique (Bruxelles, Belgium: E. Guyot, 1897); “Das Gothenburger System in England und Deutschland,” in Bericht über den IX. internationalen Kongress gegen den Alkoholismus. Abgehalten in Bremen vom 14.-19. April 1903 (Jena, Germany: Verlag von Gustav Fischer, 1904); “Das Gothenburger System in Skandinavien,” in Bericht über den IX. internationalen Kongress gegen den Alkoholismus. Abgehalten in Bremen vom 14.-19. April 1903 (Jena, Germany: Verlag von Gustaf Fischer, 1904); Matti Helenius-Seppala, “Some Modern Problems of Prohibition,” in Proceedings of the Twelfth International Congress on Alcoholism (London: National Temperance League, 1909); F. S. Spence, “Recent Developments and No-License Legislation,” in Proceedings of the Twelfth International Congress on Alcoholism (London: National Temperance League, 1909); Edvard Wavrinsky, “Der Alkoholverbrauch in den Vereinigten Staaten,” in Bericht über den XI. internationalen Kongress gegen den Alkoholismus. Abgehalten in Stockholm vom 28 Juli-3 Aug. 1907 (Stockholm: Oskar Eklunds Boktryckeri, 1908).

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48. On the focus on effective implementation, see: Gerard Halfred von Koch, Rusdrycksförbud: Studier av amerikansk nykterhetsrörelse och rusdryckslagstiftning (Stockholm: A. B. Svenska nykterhetsförlaget, 1910), 115–22. For a more sympathetic early view of American prohibition, see Johan Bergman, Är ett rusdrycksförbud, i vårt land önskvärt och utförbart? (Stockholm: AB Svenska nykterhetsförlaget, 1908). 49. For instance, Eyvind Andersen, Förbudskomedien i sydstaterna (Stockholm: Centraltryckeriet, 1909). 50. H. J. Boström, Rusdryckslagstiftningen i Nordamerikas Förenta Stater (Stockholm: Centraltryckeriet, 1908), 7–8. Likewise Koch, Rusdrycksförbud, 130–90. 51. See, for instance, Boström, Rusdryckslagstiftningen i Nordamerikas Förenta Stater 5–6; Koch, Rusdrycksförbud xi, xv-xvi; Schauman and Zilliacus, En blick på rusdryckslagstiftningen i Amerika, 13. 52. Indeed, many of the published studies of American alcohol policy currently housed in the Swedish Labor Movement Archive and Library were previously owned by Social Democratic Prime Minister Hjalmar Branting himself. Arbetarrörelsens Arkiv och Bibliotek (ARAB), Stockholm: placering 16304, 3817. 53. See Boström, Rusdryckslagstiftningen i Nordamerikas Förenta Stater. 54. Hans Meijer, Kommittépolitik och kommittéarbete. Det statliga kommittéväsendets utvecklingslinjer 1905–1954 samt nuvarande function och arbetsformer (Lund, Sweden: C. W. K. Gleerup, 1956). 55. See Karl Arvid Eden to Temperance Committee: Dec. 26, 1911; Nykterhetskommitténs (Nov. 17, 1911) inkomna skrivelser, allmänt; Riksarkivet (YK85: EI: 1); Temperance Committee to Finance Department, May 24, 1912; Nykterhetskommitténs (Nov.17, 1911) concept till utgående skrivelser 1911–1920; Riksarkivet (YK85: BI: 1). The survey would not be completed until 1914: Nykterhetskommittén, Betänkande VI, 3: Redogörelse för några främmande staters lagstiftning angående handeln med rusdrycker (Stockholm: 1914). 56. Nykterhetskommittén, Betänkande II: Utlåtande öfver en hemställan om sammankallande af en internationell konferens i ändamål att upprätta ett internationellt institute för studium af alkoholfrågan (Stockholm: 1913). 57. See Nykterhetskommittén, Betänkande IX: Underdånigt betänkande med förslag till lag om alkoholvaror m. m. (Stockholm: 1920) 33–162. Of particular note are the economic arguments of Professor Eli Heckscher: Temperance Committee minutes for Oct. 31, 1914, No. 259, Nykterhetskommitténs (Nov. 17, 1911) protokoll, 1911–1919. Riksarkivet (YK85: AI: 1). 58. Committee on local veto: Temperance Committee minutes for Dec. 4, 1911, No. 3; Nov. 8, 1912, No. 75; Nov. 11, 1912, No. 76, Nykterhetskommitténs (Nov. 17, 1911) protokoll, 1911–1919. Riksarkivet (YK85: AI: 1). See also chap. 4, fn. 40. 59. Nykterhetskommittén, Betänkande IX 64–67. One likewise finds references to previous studies of American temperance by von Koch and others: Nykterhetskommittén, Betänkande IX 226. Temperance Committee minutes for May 12, 1914, No. 253, Nykterhetskommitténs (Nov. 17, 1911) protokoll, 1911–1919. Riksarkivet (YK85: AI: 1). 60. On media coverage, see Bror Lyckow, En fråga för väljarna? Kampen om det lokala vetot 1893–1917 (Stockholm: Stockholms Universitetet, 2001), 171–72, 201. “Den första förbudsstaten,” Reformatorn, Jan. 21, 1915; “Förbudsarbetet i Amerika


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går med jättefart,” Reformatorn, March 18, 1915; “Hur spritförbud verkar i Amerika,” Svenska dagbladet, May 3, 1914; “Sju nya förbudsstater,” Reformatorn, Feb. 3, 1916. On debates on foreign experiences with prohibition, see Nykterhetskommittén, Betänkande IX236–49; Temperance Committee minutes for Dec. 2, 1918; Nykterhetskommitténs (Nov. 17, 1911) protokoll, 1911–1919; Riksarkivet (YK85: AI: 1); Correspondence of Dec. 8, 1916: Nykterhetskommitténs (Nov. 17, 1911) concept till utgående skrivelser 1911–1920; Riksarkivet (YK85: BI: 1). 61. Alexis Björkman, Rusdrycksförbudet i Förenta Staterna: hur det genomförts och hur det verkat (Stockholm: 1921); H. Å. Totalförbudet i Amerika: Intryck från en studieresa av H. Å. (Stockholm: Nymans eftr., 1922); O. R. Johnson, Vad är sanning? Det amerikanska förbudet belyst med några fakta (Nyköping, Sweden: Södermanlands läns förbudskommitté, 1922); David Östlund, 48 Förbudsstater: en översikt över rusdrycksförbudets verkningar i USA (Stockholm: Riksutskottet för de kristnas förbudsrörelse, 1921); David Östlund, Amerikas heliga krig: hur Förenta Staterna torrlagts: föredrag (Stockholm: Svenska nykterhetsförl., 1921). Lennart Johansson estimates over 200,000 copies of pamphlets for prohibition based on Swedish, Finnish, and American experiences in the run-up to referendum. Lennart Johansson, Systemet lagom: Rusdrycker, interesseorganisationer och politisk kultur under förbudsdebattens tidevarv 1900–1922 (Lund, Sweden: Lund University Press, 1995), 237. 62. Johansson, Systemet lagom, 223, 227, fn. 106. 63. Irving Fisher, Är förbudet genomförbart?, trans. Hugo Hagelin (Köping: Tidn. a.-b. Västmanlands, 1920), Cora Frances Stoddard, Skola vi skona öl och vin?, trans. Hugo Hagelin (Köping, Sweden: Tidn.-a.-b. Västmanlands, 1920). Postreferendum attempts to salvage the cause of prohibition: James Cannon, Förbudslagen i Amerika: En redogörelse framlagd inför det ekumeniska mötet i Stockholm (Stockholm: Riksutskottet för de kristnas förbudsrörelse, 1925); Andrew J. Volstead, Rusdrycksförbudet i Förenta Staterna: Allmänna resultat: Föredrag vid 17: de anti-alkoholkongressen i Köpenhamn (Stockholm: Riksutskottet för de kristnas förbudsrörelse, 1924). 64. Cannon, Förbudslagen i Amerika; Howard Hyde Russell, Kampen emot rusdryckerna i Förenta Staterna: Föredrag hållet i 8 svenska städer under hösten 1921. Stenografiskt upptecknat (Stockholm: 1921). 65. Except perhaps the Ligue nationale Suisse contre les prohibitions. Johansson, Systemet lagom, 231. 66. Ibid., 240. 67. Ibid., 260–61. 68. Nykterhetskommittén, Betänkande VI, 3, 42. 69. “I det helnyktra Petersburg,” Svenska dagbladet, Nov. 29, 1914; Lyckow, En fråga för väljarna? 172; “Svårigheten att upprätthålla ryska spritförbudet,” Svenska dagbladet, April 19, 1916. 70. Indeed, the Temperance Committee archives contain a surprisingly detailed account of “Ryska spritförbudets inverkan” from Petrograd temperance activist and frequent attendee to international temperance conferences, Dr. Dmitri Voronov. Dec. 27, 1916; Nykterhetskommitténs (Nov. 17, 1911) Inkomna skrivelser 1911– 1920; Riksarkivet (YK85: EI: 1). See also correspondence of Dec. 8, 1916: Nykterhetskommitténs (Nov. 17, 1911) concept till utgående skrivelser 1911–1920; Riksarkivet (YK85: BI: 1).

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71. Anton Karlgren, Ryssland utan vodka: studier av det ryska spritförbudet (Stockholm: Åhlén & Åkerlund, 1916), 83. 72. Ibid., 170–75. 73. Nykterhetskommittén, Betänkande IX 234. 74. See, for instance, W. Bruce Lincoln, The Great Reforms: Autocracy, Bureaucracy, and the Politics of Change in Imperial Russia (Dekalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1990), 198–99. With reference to the United States, see Gosudarstvennyi Arkhiv Rossiiskoi Federatsii [GARF], f. 601 (Imperator Nikolai II), op. 1, d. 1026 (Vsepoddanneishii doklad finansov Vitte o neobkhodimosti ustanovit’ i zatem neprelozhno priderzhivat’sya opredelennoi politiki imperii, 1898), l. 11. 75. George Kennan to Frances Willard, Aug. 29, 1888. Women’s Christian Temperance Union Series, Temperance and Prohibition Papers, Evanston, Ill., Folder 47—Correspondence, 1888: July-Sept. (Reel 15). 76. Indeed, the intelligentsia long kept tabs on temperance developments in Western Europe. See Grigorii S. Petrov, Apostoly trezvosti (St. Petersburg: V. Mil’shtein, 1903); Sergei Shipov, O trezvosti v Rossii (St. Petersburg: S. Bekenev, 1859), 16–18. 77. See, for instance, Ya. Mikhailovskii, O prichinakh p’yanstva sredi rabochikh i o merakh k ego oslableniyu (St. Petersburg: P. P. Soikin, 1894); Mikhail N. Nizhegorodtsev, “Alkogolizm i bor’ba s nim,” Zhurnal russkago obshchestva okhraneniya narodnago zdraviya 8 (1909): 61; Petr Kh. Shvanebakh, Nashe podatnoe delo (St. Petersburg: M.M. Stasyulevich, 1903), 59. 78. Vladislav D. Shidlovskii, “Obzor deyatel’nosti, napravlennoi na bor’bu s p’yanstvom v Severnoi Amerike i Zapadnoi Evrope,” Trudy kommissii po voprosu ob alkogolizm: zhurnaly zasedanii i doklady III (1899). 79. Ibid., 249. 80. Quoted in: William Johnson, The Liquor Problem in Russia (Westerville, Ohio: American Issue Publishing House, 1915), 153–54. 81. “Esli my srazu primem reshitel’nyya mery, to poidem po sledam amerikanskikh obshchestv trezvosti, deistvuyushchikh, kak fanatiki srednikh vekov.” Pavel Ya. Rozenbakh, 9 zasedanie Kommisssii pr voprosu ob alkogolizme, Oct. 7, 1898; Trudy kommissii po voprosu ob alkogolizm: zhurnaly zasedanii i doklady II (1899): 89. 82. John F. Hutchinson, “Medicine, Morality, and Social Policy in Imperial Russia: The Early Years of the Alcohol Commission,” Histoire sociale/ Social History 7 (1974): 203–5. 83. 1-oe zasedanie—7 yanvarya, 1898 goda.: 2–3. The first official commission report was Ivan R. Mintslov, “Dushevoe potreblenie spirta v nekotorykh inostrannykh gosudarstvakh i v Rossii,” Trudy kommissii po voprosu ob alkogolizm: zhurnaly zasedanii i doklady I (1898). 84. “Esli u nas net svoego opyta, to est’ instruktivnyya ukazaniya drugikh stran.” 4-oe zasedanie, 4 marta 1898 goda. Trudy kommissii po voprosu ob alkogolizm: zhurnaly zasedanii i doklady I (1898): 38. 85. On American temperance education and literacy: Aleskandr M. Korovin, “Dvizhenie trezvosti v Rossii,” Trudy kommissii po voprosu ob alkogolizm: zhurnaly zasedanii i doklady 5 (1900): 443. On alcohol in the American military: Fedor I. Piotrovskii, “K voprosu o p’yanstve i alkogolizme v voiskakh,” Trudy kommissii po


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voprosu ob alkogolizm: zhurnaly zasedanii i doklady II (1899). 4-oe zasedanie, 4 marta 1898 goda: 45. 86. Ivan R. Mintslov, “Monopoliya torgovli spirtnymi napitkami v nekotorykh inostrannykh gosudarstvakh i v Rossii,” Trudy kommissii po voprosu ob alkogolizm: zhurnaly zasedanii i doklady I (1898): 67. 87. III zasedanie, 18 fevralya 1898 g. ibid., 29. 88. “Zapretitel’naya zhe sistema ne dostigaet tseli, sposobstvuya razvitiyu i drugikh obkhodov zakona.” V. D. Shidlovskii, 8-e zasedanie, 29 aprelya 1898 g. ibid.: 84. 89. 8-e zasedanie, 29 aprelya 1898 g. ibid.: 86. 90. John F. Hutchinson, “Science, Politics and the Alcohol Problem in Post1905 Russia,” Slavonic and East European Review 58, no. 2 (1980): 240–42. 91. “Bor’ba s p’yanstvom,” Novoye vremya, Jan. 5, 1910. GARF, f. 102 (Departament politsii (4-oe deloproizvodstvo)), op. 1909, d. 194 (Vserossiiskii s”ezd po bor’be s p’yanstvom), l. 24. 92. “Konechno, rost alkogolizma ne mozhet byt’ prekrashchen odnim zapreshcheniem spirtnykh napitkov.” On the need to give cities the local option. “Itogi protivoalkogol’nago s”ezda,” Birzhevyya vedomosti, Jan. 7, 1910. GARF, f. 102 (Departament politsii (4-oe deloproizvodstvo)), op. 1909, d. 194 (Vserossiiskii s”ezd po bor’be s p’yanstvom), l. 33. 93. 4-oe zasedanie, 4 marta, 1898 goda,: 33. 94. Alexis Raffalovich, “The State Monopoly of Spirits in Russia, and Its Influence on the Prosperity of the Population,” Journal of the Royal Statistics Society 64, no. 1 (1901): 24–28. 95. GARF, f. 586 (Plevhe, Vyacheslav K.), op. 1, d. 275 (Stat’ya iz gazety “Morning Post” o prodazhe spirtnykh napitkov v Anglii), l. 1. 96. 2-oe zasedanie, 28 yanvarya 1898 goda,: 28–29; D. N. Borodin, “Vinnaya monopoliya,” Trudy kommissii po voprosu ob alkogolizm: zhurnaly zasedanii i doklady III (1899). Also L. K. Dymsha, “Kazennaya vinnaya monopoliya i eya znachenie dlya bor’by s p’yanstvom,” Trudy kommissii po voprosu ob alkogolizm: zhurnaly zasedanii i doklady IV (1900); Shidlovskii, “Obzor deyatel’nosti.” 97. Ivan Mintslov, 2-oe zasedanie, 28 yanvarya 1898,: 30, Mintslov, “Monopoliya torgovli spirtnymi napitkami,” 73. 98. S. V. Shidlovskii, 8-oe zasedanie, 28 aprelya 1898 goda: 86. 99. Hutchinson, “Medicine, Morality, and Social Policy in Imperial Russia,” 218. 100. “Pri sovremennom kul’turnom sostoyanii Rossii vvodimaya nyne u nas monopol’naya sistema, kak sredstvo bor’by s alkogolizmom, mozhet prinesti bol’she pol’zy, chem sistemy: shveitsarskaya, gotenburgkaya i zapretitel’naya.” 7-oe zasedanie, 18 aprelya 1898 goda: 79. 101. Mikhail Fridman, Vinnaya monopoliya, tom I: Vinnaya monopoliya v inostrannykh gosudarstvakh, 2 vols., vol. 1 (St. Petersburg: Pravda, 1914), 548. 102. On policy practicality versus desirability, see for instance, Richard Rose, “What Is Lesson-Drawing?” Journal of Public Policy 11, no. 1 (1991): 25. 103. Charles Bailey, “Conspicuous Success of a Military Prohibition Experiment,” Temperance, Aug. 1912; M. G. Popovitsch, “Der Alkohol im Balkankrieg,” in Compte-rendu du XIV Congrès international contre l’alcoolisme, Milan 22–28

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Septembre 1913 (Milan: A. Bari, 1921). It is noteworthy that such policy proposals were promoted in publications focusing on military and veterans affairs. A. Bil’dering, Russkii invalid, Jan. 5, 1910. Quoted in: Patricia Herlihy, The Alcoholic Empire: Vodka and Politics in Late Imperial Russia (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 62–63. 104. Hutchinson, “Medicine, Morality, and Social Policy in Imperial Russia,” 215. 105. Michael T. Florinsky, The End of the Russian Empire (New York: Collier Books, 1961), 43. 106. Rose, Learning from Comparative Public Policy, 57–58, 90–95. 107. Thomas Risse-Kappen, “Bringing Transnational Relations Back In: Introduction,” in Bringing Transnational Relations Back In: Non-State Actors, Domestic Structures and International Institutions, ed. Thomas Risse-Kappen (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 23–24. 108. Frank R. Baumgartner and Bryan D. Jones, “Positive and Negative Feedback in Politics,” in Policy Dynamics, ed. Frank R. Baumgartner and Bryan D. Jones (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002), 22. 109. Hugh Heclo and Henrik Madsen, Policy and Politics in Sweden: Principled Pragmatism (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1987), 8; Walter Thompson, The Control of Liquor in Sweden (New York: Columbia University Press, 1935), 228. 110. On the “crystallization” of such frames with regard to Tsar Nicholas II and the alcohol issue, see Vladimir N. Kokovtsov, Out of My Past: The Memoirs of Count Kokovtsov, trans. Laura Matveev (Stanford, Cal.: Standford University Press, 1935), 422. 111. Matthew Evangelista, “The Paradox of State Strength: Transnational Relations, Domestic Structures and Security Policy in Russia and the Soviet Union,” International Organization 49, no. 1 (1995); Matthew Evangelista, Unarmed Forces: The Transnational Movement to End the Cold War (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1999). 112. David P. Dolowitz, “Policy Transfer: A New Framework of Policy Analysis,” in Policy Transfer and British Social Policy: Learning from the USA? ed. David P. Dolowitz (Philadelphia: Open University Press, 2000), 21–32. 113. Margaret Keck and Kathryn Sikkink, Activists Beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in International Politics (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1998), 18. On the changing impact of social movements at different stages of the policy process, see Sarah A. Soule and Brayden G. King, “The Stages of the Policy Process and the Equal Rights Amendment, 1972–1982,” American Journal of Sociology 111, no. 6 (2006). On the influence of institutions on movements and vice versa, see Kathrin S. Zippel, The Politics of Sexual Harassment: A Comparative Study of the United States, the European Union, and Germany (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006).

NOTES TO CHAPTER 7 Epigraph Source: David R. Mayhew, “U.S. Policy Waves in Comparative Context,” in New Perspectives on American Politics, ed. Lawrence C. Dodd and Calvin Jillson (Washington, D.C.: CQ Press, 1994), 335–36.


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1. Mark Lawrence Schrad, “The Prohibition Option: Transnational Temperance and National Decisionmaking in Russia, Sweden and the United States” (University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2007), 3. 2. John Stuart Mill, “The Claims of Labour,” Edinburgh Review 81, no. 164 (1845): 503. Quoted in: Peter Hall, “Conclusion: The Politics of Keynesian Ideas,” in The Political Power of Economic Ideas: Keynesianism across Nations, ed. Peter Hall (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1989), 390. 3. Peter Gourevitch, Politics in Hard Times: Comparative Responses to International Economic Crises (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1986), 17. 4. Thomas Risse-Kappen, “Structure of Governance and Transnational Relations,” in Bringing Transnational Relations Back In: Non-State Actors, Domestic Structures and International Institutions, ed. Thomas Risse-Kappen (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 293. 5. Marquis W. Childs, Sweden: The Middle Way (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1936), 103. 6. Richard Hamm, Shaping the Eighteenth Amendment: Temperance Reform, Legal Culture, and the Polity, 1880–1920 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995), 247. 7. See, for instance, Grigori Medvedev, The Truth About Chernobyl (New York: Basic Books, 1991); Zhores A. Medvedev, The Legacy of Chernobyl (New York: W. W. Norton, 1990); Vassili Ya. Voznyak, Anatoly P. Kovalenko, and Sergei N. Troitskii, Chernobyl’: sobytiya i uroki (Moscow: Politizdat, 1989). 8. See, for instance, Carl Friedrich and Zbigniew Brzezinski, Totalitarian Dictatorship and Autocracy (New York: Praeger, 1961); Samuel P. Huntington, “Social and Institutional Dynamics of One-Party Systems,” in Authoritarian Politics in Modern Society, ed. Samuel P. Huntington and Clement A. Moore (New York: Basic Books, 1970). More recently: Jennifer Gandhi and Adam Przeworski, “Cooperation, Cooptation, and Rebellion under Dictatorships,” Economics & Politics 18, no. 1 (2006). 9. See chapters 3, 4, and 5 for American, Swedish, and Russian acceleration of the prohibition cause. Parallels in Great Britain can be found in John Greenaway, “Policy Learning and the Drink Question in Britain: 1850–1950,” Political Studies 46, no. 5 (1998): 909–10; John Turner, “State Purchase of the Liquor Trade in the First World War,” Historical Journal 23, no. 3 (1980). 10. James A. Monroe, Hellfire Nation: The Politics of Sin in American History (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2003), 316. 11. David R. Mayhew, “Wars and American Politics,” Perspectives on Politics 3, no. 3 (2005): 473. 12. Joshua Cohen, “Deliberation and Democratic Legitimacy,” in Deliberative Democracy: Essays on Reason and Politics, ed. James Bohman and William Rehg (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1997); Stephen Krasner, “Approaches to the State: Alternative Conceptions and Historical Dynamics,” Comparative Politics 16, no. 2 (1984): 234. 13. Bryan D. Jones, Reconceiving Decision-Making in Democratic Politics: Attention, Choice and Public Policy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994), 28; Beth A. Simmons, Frank Dobbin, and Geoffrey Garrett, “Introduction: The Diffusion of Liberalization,” in The Global Diffusion of Markets and Democracy, ed.

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Beth A. Simmons, Frank Dobbin, and Geoffrey Garrett (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 9. 14. Sergei S. Ol’denburg, Tsarstvovanie Imperatora Nikolaya II, 2 vols., vol. 2 (Munich: Izdanie Obshchestva Rasprostraneniya Russkoi Natsional’noi i Patrioticheskoi Literaturoi, 1949), 154–55; William Johnson, The Liquor Problem in Russia (Westerville, Ohio: American Issue Publishing House, 1915), 211. 15. Hamm, Shaping the Eighteenth Amendment, 240. 16. L. Mervin Maus, “Total Abstinence a Natural Result of the War, Says Colonel Maus,” Union Signal, May 20, 1915. 17. Thomas Risse, “Transnational Actors in World Politics,” in Handbook of International Relations, ed. Walter Carlsnaes, Thomas Risse, and Beth A. Simmons (Thousand Oaks, Cal.: Sage Publications, 2001), 264. 18. Ibid., 267. 19. Margaret Keck and Kathryn Sikkink, Activists Beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in International Politics (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1998), 28. 20. Even in updated analyses of the influence of TANs, “effectiveness” is seen as contingent upon network density, the nature of the issue are, and the intrinsic appeal of certain issues or ideas, rather than the interface with domestic structures. See Kathryn Sikkink, “The Power of Networks in International Politics,” in Networked Politics: Agency, Power, and Governance ed. Miles Kahler (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2009), 237–38. 21. Matthew Evangelista, “The Paradox of State Strength: Transnational Relations, Domestic Structures and Security Policy in Russia and the Soviet Union,” International Organization 49, no. 1 (1995); Matthew Evangelista, Unarmed Forces: The Transnational Movement to End the Cold War (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1999). 22. Mauro F. Guillén, Models of Management: Work, Authority, and Organization in a Comparative Perspective (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994), 1. 23. David S. Meyer and Sidney Tarrow, “A Movement Society: Contentious Politics for a New Century,” in The Social Movement Society: Contentious Politics for a New Century, ed. David S. Meyer and Sidney Tarrow (New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 1998). 24. Sidney Tarrow, The New Transnational Activism (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 76. 25. On convergence, see Katharina Holzinger and Cristoph Knill, “Causes and Conditions of Cross-National Policy Convergence,” Journal of European Public Policy 12, no. 5 (2005); Cristoph Knill, “Introduction: Cross-National Policy Convergence: Concepts, Approaches and Explanatory Factors,” Journal of European Public Policy 12, no. 5 (2005). 26. See Robert Hercod, “Alcoholism as an International Problem,” The British Journal of Inebriety 23, no. 3 (1926). 27. See, for instance, Ivan Bratt, A propos de la reglementation actuellement en vigueur en Suede de la vente des boissons alcooliques (“System Bratt”) (Copenhagen: International League Against Prohibition, 1929). 28. See, for instance, Randall Hansen and Desmond S. King, “Eugenic Ideas, Political Interests, and Policy Variance: Immigration and Sterilization Policy in Britain and the U.S.,” World Politics 53 (2001): 239; Johan Olsen and B. Guy Peters,


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“Learning from Experience,” in Lessons from Experience: Experimental Learning in Administrative Reforms in Eight Democracies, ed. Johan Olsen and B. Guy Peters (Oslo: Scandinavian University Press, 1996), 20–32; Colin J. Bennett, “How States Utilize Foreign Evidence,” Journal of Public Policy 11, no. 1 (1991). 29. See, for instance George Lawson, “The Promise of Historical Sociology in International Relations,” International Studies Review 8, no. 3 (2006): 415. 30. This builds on the following literatures: Robert C. Lieberman, “Ideas, Institutions and Political Order: Explaining Political Change,” American Political Science Review 96, no. 4 (2002): 709; Thomas Risse-Kappen, “Public Opinion, Domestic Structure, and Foreign Policy in Liberal Democracies,” World Politics 43, no. 4 (1991): 480. 31. Here, Avner Greif and David Laitin’s work on endogenous institutional change suggest alluring opportunities for synthesis. Avner Greif and David D. Laitin, “A Theory of Endogenous Institutional Change,” American Political Science Review 98, no. 4 (2004). 32. Monroe, Hellfire Nation, 287. 33. John Maynard Keynes, The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1935), 383–84. 34. See, for instance, Bryan D. Jones and Walter Williams, The Politics of Bad Ideas: The Great Tax Cut Delusion and the Decline of Good Government in America (New York: Pearson Longman, 2008); Matt Miller, The Tyranny of Dead Ideas: Letting Go of the Old Ways of Thinking to Unleash a New Prosperity (New York: Times Books, 2009). 35. Jones and Williams, Politics of Bad Ideas, 332, 60. Author correspondence with Bryan D. Jones, Jan. 6, 2009. 36. David E. Kyvig, Repealing National Prohibition, 2nd ed. (Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 2000), 112–14. 37. Jones and Williams, Politics of Bad Ideas, 325. 38. This suggests a potential for integration with the burgeoning literature on “deliberative democracy.” See John S. Dryzek, Deliberative Democracy and Beyond: Liberals, Critics, Contestations (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000); Jon Elster, ed., Deliberative Democracy (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998); Amy Gutman and Dennis Thompson, Why Deliberative Democracy? (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2004).


Index

Aaron, Paul, 236n41 Abbot, Willis John, 239n72 abolitionist movement, 37, 43, 46, 55, 59–60, 216n5 About America, 169 abstinence, 34–36, 39, 41–44, 52–54, 66, 94, 128, 143. See also temperance; teetotal pledge Activists Beyond Borders, 197, 222n66, 223n7, 224n11, n13, 233n120, 272n113, 274n19 addiction, 58–59, 103 Africa, 37, 55 Agendas and Instability in American Politics, 63, 218n20, 219n40, 220nn54–55, 233n6 agenda‐setting. See policy process, agenda setting stage in Agrarian Party (Sweden), 92 Alabama, 67 alcohol and agriculture, 84 consumption of, 35, 38, 60, 71, 93–94, 101, 107, 247n66 licensing, 41, 45, 47, 67, 68, 70, 82, 96, 101, 105, 114, 160, 177 and mortality, 162 poisoning, 131 revenue from, 45, 66–67, 71, 84, 96, 101, 105, 118, 126–129, 131–134, 137, 139, 141–145, 153–157, 172–174, 183, 191–194, 248n67 Alcohol Committee (Finland), 115–116 alcohol control, 6, 10, 34, 41, 44–48, 54, 59, 66–69, 83, 87, 89, 94–108, 128–130, 148, 150, 159, 165, 167, 177–195, 202–204 definition of, 216n6 excise taxation as, 10, 47, 74, 202 as first social policy, 34 global wave of, 4, 9, 10, 12, 29, 32, 55, 56, 72, 147, 150, 162, 185, 186, 202–207

Gothenburg system as, 10, 22, 66–67, 70, 80–82, 96–97, 101, 107–108, 114, 148, 155–158, 161, 167, 172–174, 180, 182, 199, 202 high license as, 10, 47, 68, 70, 80, 160–161, 163, 167, 177, 180 local option as, 10, 22, 68, 70, 96–99, 101, 108, 128, 148, 156, 161, 167, 177, 180, 202, 204 monopolization as, 10, 22, 82, 102, 128–132, 155, 180 as programs, 22, 47, 59, 148, 161, 180, 202 prohibition as, 10, 22, 44–48, 56, 59, 66–69, 82–83, 96, 107–108, 129–131, 148, 155, 161, 167, 180, 190–195, 202–203 punctuated equilibrium and, 64–65, 75, 83, 183, 202–203 security and, 71–72, 75, 86, 100, 140–142, 156, 173–174, 183, 191 Alcoholics Anonymous. See self‐help movement alcoholism/alcoholics, 58–59, 107, 113, 126, 134, 144, 170 cause of, 35, 113, 126, 129, 173 in the military, 55, 127–128, 138, 155, 170, 173–174, 183, 196 rehabilitation of, 103, 128, 248n76 and religion, 126–127 as sin/“evil”, 36–37, 39, 41, 46, 47, 48, 54, 66, 70, 71, 94, 96, 97, 142, 154, 158, 167, 177, 186 See also International Congresses on Alcoholism Aldrich, Howard E., 251n108, 251n113 Alekseev, Peter, 169 Alexander III (Russia), 46, 120, 123, 229n77, 261n127 Alexander, Prince (Russia), 129, 256n61 All‐Russian Congress for the Struggle against Drunkenness, 171, 254n41, 271nn91–92

278 All‐Russian Labor Union of Christian Teetotalers, 129, 131 Åmark, Klas, 244n30 ambassadors, 35, 38–40 American Issue, 55, 66 American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missionaries (ABCFM), 36 American Legislators’ Association, 264n24 American Society for the Promotion of Temperance, 224n17. See also American Temperance Society (ATS) American Sunday School Union (ASSU), 38, 226n40 American Temperance Society (ATS), 34–40, 94, 224nn17, 22, 25, 225nn27–28, 225nn30–34 Andersen, Eyvind, 268n49 Anderson, Benedict, 232n114 Anderson, Henry, 81, 239n72, 265n24 Andropov, Yuri, 144 Anfinov, Andrei M., 257n74 Anthony, Susan B., 43 Anti‐Saloon League of America, 42, 53, 55, 66, 77, 154, 157, 165, 178, 237n52, 238n67, 240n85 and Congressional legislation, 71 decline of, 58, 77 Year Book of, 157 See also World League against Alcoholism (WLAA) anti‐slavery movement. See abolitionist movement. Anti‐Slavery and Peace Conventions, 43 Antsiferov, Alexis, 258n85 Antwerp, 48–51 Appeal (Appell), 100 Archibald, Rev. A. C., 3, 215 Argentina, 227n57 Aronovich, A. M., 259n103 Arthur, W. Brian, 219n35 Ascher, Abraham, 261n128 Association against Impure Liquors, 237n52 Association against the Prohibition Amendment (AAPA), 77–78, 80–81, 237n54, 238n60, nn63–66, 239n72, 248n67, 251n118, 264n24 Association for Civic Freedom (Sweden), 100 Atlantic Ocean, 35, 37, 42, 137, 143, 153, 162, 165 attention, in decision making, 18, 63–65, 84–87, 104–106, 125, 171–187, 191–197, 202–203

Index crises and, 25, 75–76, 81, 86–87, 111–112, 131, 137–144, 174, 177, 187, 191–197, 202–203 decision maker, 18, 25, 63–64, 104, 108, 137–144, 174–185, 187, 191–194, 203 and institutional venue, 65, 75–76, 85–87, 103–104, 137–141, 162, 167, 187, 191–197 intensity of, 18, 65, 72, 75–76, 85–87, 104–108, 190–194 and prohibition, 71, 75, 85–87, 112, 130–131, 137–144, 171, 174–185, 187, 191–197 public, 18, 64, 75, 81, 84, 85–87, 104, 106–108, 125, 130–131, 140–144, 151–154, 159, 176–185, 191–194 and repeal, 65, 81–85, 155, 200–202 shifting, 26, 64–65, 84–87, 138–144, 174, 187, 191–197, 203 and transnational advocacy networks, 61, 184–185, 187, 192 Australia, 45, 53, 163 Austria, 49–51, 121, 130 autocracy. See domestic structure, autocratic; Russia/USSR. background ideas, 10, 20, 21–26, 56, 148, 149, 173, 176 bad policy, 28, 30, 65, 138, 147, 207–210, 217n13 definition of, 12, 208–209 diffusion of, 147–148, 178–179, 199, 202–205 Iraq invasion as, 208 supply‐side economics as, 208 prohibition as, 3–4, 7–8, 11–12, 28–30, 57–59, 65, 68, 70, 74, 82–88, 105–106, 114–119, 138, 147, 177, 186, 189–192, 207–210 Baggott, Rob, 216n6 Bahamas, 227n57 Bailey, Charles, 271n103 Baird, Henry M., 226n40–43 Baird, Rev. Robert, 38–39, 43, 94, 169, 224n23, 226nn40–44, 227nn47–48, 228n64, 243n19 Bakhmeteff, Boris, 257n76 Balkan Wars, 173, 186 Ball, W. W., 239n72 Baltic states, 37, 39, 46, 127 Baltic Sea Fleet, 55, 128 bandwagoning, 19. See also feedback mechanisms, positive Baptist Church/Baptists, 95, 99

Index Bark, Peter, 130–131, 137–139, 142, 155, 159, 166, 193, 209, 230n89, 256n68, 257nn77–78, 261nn123, 126, 129, 262n141, 266n30 Barnes, Joseph, 257n73, 262n143, n146 Barrows, Susanna, 216n4 bars, 114 Bartles, Larry M., 219n43 Basel, 49–51, 170 Båtefalk, Lars, 245n41 Bates, Robert, 236n32 Baumgartner, Frank R., 63, 65, 76, 218n20, 219n37, nn40–41, 220nn54–55, 222n71, 233nn3, 6, 237nn46–47, nn50–51, 240nn83, 94, 250nn97, 100, 272n108 Bednyi, Demyan, 134 Beecher, Lyan, 43 beer, 82, 99, 134 Behr, Edward, 216n7 Beissinger, Mark R., 219n43, 233n4 Bekhterev, V. M., 257n74 Béland, Daniel, 220n46 Belgium, 48, 49–51, 55, 171, 227n57 and prohibition, 5, 215n2 Belliustin, Ioann S., 254n34 Benford, 221n61 Bengtsson, Halfdan, 226n44, 243n21, 249n78 Bennett, Colin J., 275n28 Berends, A. de, 230n89 Bergman, Johan, 230n86, 243nn21, 25, 244n28, 268n48 Bergström, Olof, 42 Bergvall, John, 245n35, 247n64, 248n66 Berman, Sheri, 241n7, 242n9 Bermuda, 227n57 Bernard, Joel, 227n52 Berry, Frances Stokes, 217n14, 223n5, 263n3 Berry, William D., 217n14, 223n5, 263n3 Betamax, 17 Bible, 36, 225n28 Bickerich, Wilhelm, 244n33, 247n61 Billings, John S., 235n20 Bil’dering, A., 255n54, 272n103 Birmingham (UK), 42 Bjorkenheim Committee (Finland), 115–116 Bjørklund, Tor, 251n114 Björkman, Alexis, 94, 230n86, 269n61 Blagoveshchenskii, V., 255n53 Blaine Resolution (1933), 79 Blatz (beer), 71

279 Block, Fred, 220n51 Blocker, Jack Jr., 224n17, 225n29, 236n41 Blomqvist, Jan, 246n50 Blyth, Mark M., 220n48 Board of Health and Welfare (Sweden), 100 Bogolepoff, M., 257n75, 261n126 bolag, 248n76 Bol’shakov, Anton M., 259n102 bonds, 131 bootlegging, 67 in Sweden, 98, 153, 172 in Russia, 131, 133 in the United States, 7, 78, 151, 162, 163, 171 Borodin, Dmitri N., 172, 255n58, 271n96 Boström, H. J., 161, 268n50–51, 268n53 Botkin, Gleb, 252n4 Brandeis, Louis, 160, 267n45 brandy, 38 brännvin, 94 Branting, Hjalmar, 91, 244n30, 268n52 Bratt, Ivan, 28, 81, 89, 98–103, 110–115, 162, 180, 184, 239n72, 245nn45–46, 246nn47, 55, 247n64, 248n75, 249n87, 251n109, nn111–112, 274n27 Bratt system, 81, 101–103, 110–114, 154, 158, 181, 184, 200, 204, 238nn65–66, 239n72, 244n33, 247nn64, 66, 248nn67, 76, 249n87 bread shortages. See food shortages Bremen, 49–51 Breunig, Christian, 222n71 Brezhnev, Leonid, 144 bricolage, 23, 113–114, 181 definition of, 23 framers and, 23 and temperance, 28, 113 British and Colonial Temperance Convention, 44, 228n72 British and Foreign Temperance Society, 37 broker/brokerage, 21–25, 28, 113, 148–149, 158, 176, 197–199, 209 Brook, Susan Mary, 228n61, 231nn101–102, 232n108 Brooks, Jeffrey, 253n25 Browder, Robert Paul, 262n140 Brunard, Hubert, 267n47 Brussels, 49–51, 55 Brussels International Conference (1889), 55 Bruun, Kettil, 216n6, 245n47 Brzezinski, Zbigniew, 273n8 Buckley, J. M., 229n74 Budapest, 49–51

280 Budennyi, Sergei, 134 Bueno de Mesquita, Bruce, 217n13, 260n114 Bukharin, Nikolai, 134 Bulgakovskii, D. G., 254n42 bureaucracy, 15, 82, 90, 92, 123, 147, 153, 158, 193 and negative policy feedback, 18, 74, 105–106, 137–138, 144, 191–193 Burns, Dawson, 226n46, 229n73, 253n33, 254n36 Buzek, Antony, 253n27 Byström, Jakob, 99, 246n52 Caledonia, 37 California, 154 Calkins, Raymond, 235n20 Callender, Harold, 239n72, 265n24 Campbell, John L., 20–21, 113, 148–149, 199, 218n21, 220nn50, 52, 221nn57, 61, 62, 222n64, 240n93, 251nn106–107, 263nn2, 4 Canada and alcohol control, 80, 151, 153, 159, 169, 237n57, 238nn65, 68 and prohibition, 4, 5, 72, 80, 163, 238n63 temperance in, 38, 41–45, 53, 227n57, 228n72 Cannon, Bishop James, 54, 165, 230n86, 269nn63–64 Capone, Al, 98, 207 Capozzola, Christopher, 236n37 Caribbean, 43 Carlheim‐Gyllenskjöld, Oskar, 229n78, 234n15, 264n14 Carnegie, David, 233n10 Carr, Edward Hallett, 252n10 cascades, 19, 62, 64, 75, 87, 191–192. See also feedback mechanisms, positive Cash on Delivery (COD) Law (1909), 79 Casparsson, Ragnar, 247n60 Catholicism/Catholics, 38, 46, 126 Catlin, George, 239n72 Centennial Temperance Conference, 44, 45, 228n71 Centralradet för Kvinnornas Förbudsarbete. See Women’s Central Prohibition Federation (Sweden) Certified List Law (1906), 79 Ceylon. See Sri Lanka champagne, 77 Chancellor, Henry George, 265n25 Chase, Simeon, 41, 227n56

Index Cheibub, José Antonio, 260n115 Chelyshev, Mikhail, 128, 129 Chernenko, Konstantin, 144 Chernobyl, 190, 194 Cherrington, Ernest, 54, 58, 157, 215n2, 224n18, 227n57, 228n69, 230nn86– 87, 231nn100, 102, 232n109, 234n14, 236n34, 243n23, 251n118, 264n20, 267n39–41 Chicago, 7, 98 Childs, Marquis W., 113, 188, 241n3, 247n66, 249n84, 251n110, 273n5 China, 45, 53, 127, 227n57 Christensen, Niels Finn, 241n3 Christian, David, 132, 142, 254n37, 258n86, 262n142 Christiania. See Oslo Chugaev, Dmitrii, 259n96 churches, 33, 34–40, 45–46, 60, 98 Churchill, Winston, 62, 233, 239n72, 240n91 civil liberties, 16, 18, 104, 120, 123–124, 140, 157, 180, 189 civil society, 16–17, 18, 169. See also societal structure civil unions, 210 Clark, Norman H., 239n77 Clark, Samuel A., 216n8, 217n9 Clear Skies Act (2003), 210 Clemens, Elisabeth, 219n34 clergy, 33–38, 40, 126 coal, 71 Cocks, Paul, 252n15 cognitive ideas, 17, 20–26, 29, 33, 56, 70, 83, 93, 105, 141, 148–149, 161, 167, 173–185, 188–189, 202–203, 209. See also epistemic communities; paradigms; policy images; programs Cohen, Joshua, 240n95, 273n12 collective action, 32, 59, 71 Collier, David, 223n5 Commission on the Means for the Struggle against Drunkenness (Russia), 128 Commission on the Question of Alcoholism (Russia), 12, 127, 129, 170–174, 177, 270nn78–79, 81, 83–85, 271nn86, 96 Committee of Fifty for the Investigation of the Drink Problem, 12, 67–68, 77, 153, 158, 161–162, 167–168, 177–178, 189, 234n18, 235n19–23, 264n16 attacks against, 70, 154, 159 communication technology, 35, 46, 60 communism, 91. See also Communist Party of the Soviet Union; Russia/USSR, communism in

Index Communist Party of the Soviet Union, 122, 125, 134 Central Committee of, 125 Council of Ministers of, 125 Politburo of, 122, 125 communities of print, 60 comparison, 62–65, 81, 115–117, 126, 135, 161, 166, 170, 175, 187–188, 191, 197, 205 benefits of, 29, 145, 204–205 conferences, 41–47, 53, 56–57, 60–61 Connecticut, 236n40 Conservative Party (Sweden), 92 Constitutional Democratic (Kadet) Party (Russia), 121–122 contagion, 32, 146. See also diffusion control states, 204 convergence, 147, 200–202. See also diffusion Cook, James, 219n34 Coolidge, Calvin, 230n88 Copenhagen, 49–52 corporatism. See domestic structure, corporatist; Sweden Cost of Prohibition and Your Income Tax, 78 Couling, Samuel, 224n27 Council of People’s Commissars (Sovnarkom), 133 Crepaz, Markus M. L., 218n26 crime, 3, 4, 7, 77–78, 98, 113, 128, 133–134, 153, 156, 161–162, 166, 170, 210, 248n66 Crimean War, 120 criminal deterrents, 210 crises, 89, 195–197, 202–203 in accelerating policy change, 8, 10, 17–19, 23, 26–29, 65, 71–76, 84–86, 106, 111–112, 130, 137, 140–145, 187–191,194–197, 207, 222n69, 262n137 Great Depression as, 78, 81, 84–85 historical institutionalism and, 85–86 patriotic sacrifice and, 56, 71, 74–76, 91, 100, 111, 121, 130, 178, 182, 188–189, 193, 195 wars as, 8, 17, 75, 187, 195 World War I as, 10, 27, 29, 56–57, 71–75, 85, 91, 100, 106–107, 111–112, 116, 130, 137, 140–144, 166, 178, 186, 189–191, 195–197, 202–203 Crisp, Olga, 257n75 critical events/junctures. See crises critical‐mass models, 64. See also feedback mechanisms, positive

281 Crowley, Jocelyn, 227n55, 232n115 cult of military sobriety, 72, 141, 173–174, 183, 196 cult of the offensive, 141, 261n133 Custine, Marquis de, 38, 226n38 Cyprus, 59 Dagens Nyheter, 98 Darrow, Clarence, 83, 215n1, 240n84 David, Paul, 219n36 Davies, R. W., 262n146 Davis, Edith Smith, 263n8 Davis, Otto A., 219n39 decision makers/decisionmaking, 4, 10–14, 17, 20–29, 33, 39, 45, 52, 56, 92, 135–148, 161, 166–168, 176–185, 190–203 attention of, 18, 25, 63–65, 76, 85, 104, 137–138, 140–145, 150, 190–194, 202–203 venue of, 65, 71, 75–76, 85–86, 167–168, 191 Deichman, Emmanuil I., 260n110 deliberation/debate, 71–72, 76–78, 86–87, 93, 104, 110–114, 126, 140–142, 161, 168, 172, 181–182, 188–199, 203, 210, 275n38 della Porta, Donatella, 222n2 democratic corporatism, definition of, 92. See also domestic structure, corporatism Democratic Party (US), 77, 81 demokratizatsiya, 144 Dempster, M. A. H., 219n39 Denmark, 38, 49–52 and alcohol control, 80, 160, 163, 238n64, 239n72 dependency. See addiction derivatives trading, 63 De Geer, Louis (Swedish Minister of State), 90 Dietrich, John, 241n3 diffusion, 4, 14, 24, 29, 32, 40–41, 53, 55, 77, 80, 159, 169, 202–205, 217n14 bad policy and, 4, 12–13, 147–148, 178, 182, 199, 202–205 historical institutionalism and, 14, 205–206 mechanisms of, 12–13, 24, 32, 146–148, 178–185 DiMaggio, Paul J., 227n53 diminishing returns to scale. See feedback mechanisms Dinwiddie, Edwin, 230n86

282 disinterested management, 8, 67, 96, 102, 114, 151 dispensary system, 22, 67, 70, 88, 96, 114, 129, 154–155, 160, 163, 204. See also Gothenburg system; South Carolina dispensary Dixon, William Hepworth, 229n74 Djelic, Marie‐Laure, 222n69, 223n5 Dobbin, Frank, 20, 217n14, 220nn48–49, 273n13 Dogger Bank incident, 55, 127–128, 232n107 Dolowitz, David, 217n15, 263n2, 263n6, 272n112 domestic structure, 11, 15–17, 19, 24–29, 115–117, 119, 176, 187–194 autocratic, 16, 18, 25–29, 40, 86, 117, 122–126, 135–145, 169–178, 181–185, 189–190, 192–195, 203, 252n5 corporatist, 8, 16, 18, 25–29, 86–89, 92–93, 103–106, 114–117, 122–126, 166–167, 176, 179–195, 203 and feedback mechanisms, 18–19, 63–65, 86–87, 104–105, 110, 115–117, 125, 135–145, 173, 187–194 fragile, 16–17 political institutions and, 15–17, 103, 116–117, 135–137, 146, 162, 167, 173–176, 187–194, 203 predispositions/propensities of, 11, 17, 19, 26, 29–30, 62, 65, 83–87, 105–106, 115–117, 145–148, 158–162, 173–194, 201–203 societal structure and, 16–17 society‐dominated, 16–18, 24–29, 62–65, 70–71, 83, 86–87, 110, 116, 137, 154–155, 158–159, 166–167, 176–179, 188–195, 203 transnational advocacy networks and, 33, 146–148, 175–185, 192–194, 203 vulnerabilities in, 198 Donnally, Thomas, 238n59 Dril’, Dmitri, 230n89 drinking. See alcoholism drug addiction, 59, 103, 210 drunk driving, 249n81 drunkards. See alcoholics drunken budget, 128, 265n25 drunkenness and revolution, 128 dry laws. See prohibition Dryzek, John S., 275n38 du Pont, Pierre S., 80, 238n66, 240n90 Dunlop, John, 35, 224n26 DuPont Company, 80 Dupré, Ruth, 260n113

Index Dur, Robert A. J., 217n13 Duranty, Walter, 267n43 Dymsh, L. K., 271n96 dynamite, 114, 133 Eaton, E. L., 235nn26, 28 Ebersol, Charles E., 235n26, 264n15 Eddy, Richard, 224n16, 229n73 Eden, Karl Arvid, 268n55 Edén, Nils, 91 Edman, Johan, 248n76 Edquist, Samuel, 243n25 education, 31, 53, 58, 123, 146, 156, 170, 174 Eighteenth Amendment, 3, 6, 11–12, 28, 54, 58, 68, 71–75, 79, 83, 118, 156, 206 ambiguity of, 77 and Congressional debates, 71–73, 188–189 and concurrent enforcement, 77 failure of, 58, 77 and speed of ratification, 6, 7, 28, 62, 73–74, 82, 85, 188–189, 206, 210 See also prohibition (United States) Eisner, Marc Allen, 222n72 Eklund, Oskar, 94, 99, 246n52 Ekman, Carl Gustaf (Swedish Prime Minister), 99, 245n39, 246n52 elites, 23–25, 39–41, 45–46, 52, 61, 90–91, 119, 123, 127, 130, 135, 138, 142–143, 148, 158, 168–174, 177, 190, 200 elections/electoral systems, 91, 135, 140, 156, 189 Elkins, Zachary, 215n3, 217n14, 223n5 Elmér, Åke, 243n21 Elster, 275n38 Ely, Richard T., 234n18, 237n44 emissaries. See ambassadors emulation, 147, 205. See also diffusion Engels, Friedrich, 258n94 England. See Great Britain English Channel, 128 English language, 48 English Temperance Magazine and Review, 36 entrepreneur. See policy entrepreneur environmental movement, 31 epistemic communities, 21, 24, 33, 148–149, 178, 180, 185, 198–199 definition of, 33 Ericsson, Ollas Anders, 99 Eriksson, Bernhard, 99 Esping‐Anderson, Gøsta, 242n9 Estonia, 49–51, 55, 127, 246n52 and prohibition, 5, 215n2

Index Eubanks, John Evans, 234n13 European Union, 103, 204 Evangelicals. See Protestants Evangelista, Matthew, 252n14, 253n28, 260n119, 262n148, 272n111, 274n21 Evans, Mark, 262n1 excise taxation, 10, 74, 208 exogenous problems. See crises factories, 134 factory workers, 134 Fahey, David M., 228n60, 231n97 Fainsod, Merle, 253n29 Falun, 96 Father Mathew Temperance Societies, 38 Fatovic, Clement, 240n93 feedback mechanisms, 11, 17–19, 26–29, 190–194 different institutional profiles of, 26–29, 63, 74, 87, 115–117, 135, 144, 185, 188–195, 206 influence on policy, 14, 25–29, 74–76, 115–117, 125, 135, 188–195 negative, 18–19, 25–26, 64–65, 74–76, 83–84, 104–106, 112, 116, 125, 135–138, 142, 190–194 and prohibition, 19, 63–65, 75–76, 83–84, 105–106, 116, 135, 137–138, 142, 188, 190–194 positive, 17, 19, 26, 64–65, 75–76, 84, 104, 111, 116, 125, 138, 156, 182, 204, 219n42 shift from negative to positive, 19, 27, 64–65, 75–76, 84–86, 104, 110–112, 116, 125, 135, 138–139, 142, 188, 190–195, 203–204 Ferro, Marc, 260n122 Figes, Orlando, 253n24, 258nn86, 89 Finland, 39, 46, 115–116, 127 and alcohol control, 151, 160, 163, 171–172, 238n63, 251n115 and prohibition, 5, 58, 72, 78, 80, 102, 115, 163, 166, 200, 215n2 and repeal, 58, 85, 115–116, 239n72, 240n89 First All‐Russian Congress for the Struggle against Drunkenness, 127 Fisher, Irving, 165, 216n1, 217n11, 240n84, 269n63 five year plans, 260n112 flax, 134 Fleisher, Wilfred, 249n80 Flint, George Elliot, 236n31 Florinsky, Michael T., 251, 272n105

283 Foglesong, David S., 265n26, 266n36 food shortages, 100, 132, 258n85 Förbudsvännernas rikskommitté, 163 foreground ideas, 10, 20–26, 56, 148–149, 176–185, 190 Fosdick, Raymond B., 239n72, 265n24 framers, 21–25, 71, 102, 114, 148–149, 154–159, 166–168, 173–185, 191–192, 196 frames/framing, 10–11, 20–21, 25, 29, 47, 102, 117, 149, 154–156, 166–168, 173–186, 198, 202, 205, 221n60 actors and, 21–27, 102, 149, 166–168, 173–185, 191, 192 alcohol control and, 11, 27, 47, 55–56, 71, 75–77, 84–86, 114, 140–141, 154, 156–159, 162–163, 166–168, 173–185, 191–192, 196, 199 definition of, 23, 148 discourse and, 25, 27, 71, 86, 156, 174–185, 191–192, 196–198 influence on policy, 23–29, 75, 86, 140–141, 156, 167–168, 173–185, 191–192, 196 public sentiments and, 23, 33, 47, 60, 70–71, 75, 102, 167–168, 175–185, 191–192, 196 Frånberg, Per, 245n37, 249nn86, 92 France, 35, 37–38, 48, 49–51 and alcohol restrictions, 3, 72, 151, 171 Franco‐Prussian War, 186 Frank, Stephen P., 253n21, 257n69 Franklin, Benjamin, 35 Fraser, John Foster, 266n29 Frederick VI (Denmark), 38 French Evangelical Association, 38 French language, 39, 48, 54 importance in disseminating ideas, 38 Fridman, Mikhail. See Friedman, Mikhail Friedrich, Carl, 273n8 Friedrich Wilhelm III (Prussia), 38–39 Friedman, Mikhail, 171–173, 254n46, 257n74, 261n126, 271n101 Frisinnade Landsföreningen. See Liberal Party (Sweden) gambling, 103 Gamson, William, 221n61 Gandhi, Jennifer, 273n8 Ganz, Marshall, 227nn53, 55 Garrett, Geoffrey, 20, 217n14, 220n49, 273n13 Garrison, William Lloyd, 43

284 Gatrell, Peter, 262n146 gay marriage, 210 Geneva, 48 George, Lloyd, 266n27 Georgia, 66, 67, 264n15 geritocracy, 144 German language, 48, 54 Germany, 38–39, 49–51, 72, 91, 121, 132, 135, 142 and alcohol restrictions, 3, 72, 160, 163, 171 temperance in, 34, 37, 39, 44, 228n64 Gerstein, Dean, 216n6, 233n7 Gilded Age, 68 Glasgow and West of Scotland Temperance Society, 35 glasnost’, 144 Glass, Carter, 217n12 glassblowers, 100, 108 Glassman, Leo M., 260n110 global framing, 46, 54, 162, 199 global justice movement, 31 Goldstein, Judith, 220n48, 221n59 Gordon, Anna, 230n86 Gordon, Ernest, 154, 230nn86, 88, 235n24, nn26–27, 236n30, 255n47, n49, 257n71, 263n11, 264n22, 266n31 Gordon, F. G. R., 263n12 Gorbachev, Mikhail, 144, 259n103, 262n146 Gordon, Ernest Barron, 118, 251, 266n31 Gordon, F. G. R., 239n72 Goremykin, Ivan, 131 Gosspirt, 259n99 Göteborg Systemet. See Gothenburg system Gothenburg, 42, 66, 96, 99, 153 Gothenburg system as alternative to prohibition, 67–70, 80–81, 96–97, 101, 114, 148, 152–158, 171–172, 177–179, 199, 263n13 corruption in, 67, 70, 172 in Russia, 129, 171–174 in Sweden, 66–68, 80, 88, 96–101, 105, 107, 114, 150, 153–154, 171–174, 178–179 in the United States, 27, 66–68, 70, 80–81, 152–158, 160–163, 178–179 Gould, E. R. L., 234n16, 235n23, 264n14 Gourevitch, Peter, 222n69, 273n3 government revenue as negative feedback mechanism, 18, 22, 28, 74, 105–106, 126–129, 137–145, 172–174, 189, 191–194 and narcotics, 22 and opposition to prohibition, 18

Index in Russia, 28, 118, 127–129, 131–134, 137–145, 153, 155, 157, 171–174, 183, 192–193 in Sweden, 67, 96, 101, 105, 248n67 in the United States, 74, 84, 153, 189, 191, 195 gradualism. See incrementalism Graham, Steven, 258n85, 266n27 grain, 71, 84, 122, 134 grain shortages. See food shortages Granovetter, Mark, 219n41 Great Britain, 49–55, 89, 128, 132, 227n57, 246n52 and alcohol control, 3, 57–58, 72, 80, 151, 153, 160, 171, 238n64 navy of, 36 and temperance, 35–37, 40–48, 53, 55, 169 Great Depression, 7, 58, 78, 81, 84, 89 Great War. See World War I Greenaway, John, 263n12, 273n9 Greenland, 37 Green‐Pedersen, Christoffer, 222n71 Grenada, 227n57 gridlock, 18, 90 and negative policy feedback, 18 Grief, Avner, 275n31 Grigor’ev, Dr. Nikolai I., 230n89 Guardianship of Public Sobriety, 127, 165, 254n42 criticisms of, 127–128, 137 Guillén, Mauro F., 198, 222n63, 274n22 Guyana, 227n57 Gurko, Vladimir I., 255n56, 260n123 Gusfield, Joseph, 232n115 Gustav V (Sweden), 91, 98 Gutman, Amy, 275n38 Haas, Peter, 222n65, 224n12 Hacker, Jacob, 220n46 Hagen, V. A., 254n42 Hague, 49–51, 246n52 Hall, Peter, 14, 217n16, 218n23, 219n33, 220n48, n53, 273n2 Hallendorff, Carl, 245n36 Hansen, Randall, 221n59, 274n28 Hamm, Richard, 72, 234n11, 235n24, 236n39, 237n42, 273n6, 274n15 Harding, Warren, 230n88 Harris, A. W., 236n38 Harrison, Brian, 224n21 Harrison, Leonard, 239n77, 240n81 Hayler, Guy, 31, 54, 58, 154, 217n10, 222, 231nn97–98, 232n106, 241n1,

Index 245n42, 246n49, 261n131, 264n18, n23 Hayler, Mark, 58 Heald, Edward T., 258n91 Heck, Ronald H., 222n67 Heckman, Dayton E., 240n81 Heckscher, Eli, 247n58, 268n57 Heclo, Hugh, 218n19, 223n4, 241n5, 242n13, 250n95, 251n103, n105, 272n109 Heidenstam, O. G. von, 242n17 Helenius‐Seppala, Matti, 267n47 Hellfire Nation, 71, 207, 195, 236n36, 239n76, 240n78, n88, 273n10, 275n32 Henius, Max, 239n72 Hercod, Robert, 146, 229n82, 230n86, 250n101, 257n71, 262, 274n26 Herlihy, Patricia, 254n44, 255n50, n54, 256n62, n66, 258n83, n93, 262n147, 272n103 Hermelin, Olaf, 263n13 Hesse, 34 Hewett, Nathaniel, 37, 39 Heyman, Neil M., 252n8 high license, 10, 80, 163, 177. See also alcohol, licensing Hillbo, Arne, 242n18 Himelstein, Linda, 255n46, 256n58, 262n147 hindu, 37 Hinshaw, David, 226n43 Histoire de sociétés de tempérance des États Unis d’Amérique, 38 historical institutionalism(sits), 13–14, 17, 20, 83, 145, 205–206 bricolage and, 113–114 change and 114 ideas and, 14, 20, 205–206 non‐materialist motivations and, 14, 20 path dependence and, 14, 74 policy feedback and, 14 punctuated equilibrium and, 14, 65, 83, 85 Hitler, Adolph, 135 Hobson Resolution, 71, 79 Hodacs, Hanna, 243n19 Hodgson, John, 258n93 Hofstadter, Richard, 6, 216n4 Höjer, Karl, 243n22 Holder, Harold, 248n74, 249n81 Hollywood, 77 Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 77 Holzinger, Katharina, 274n25 Homan, J. A., 235n28, 236n31, 263n9

285 home brew, 7, 98, 133–134. See also samogon Honduras, 227n57 Hoover, Herbert, 7, 77–78, 209 Hopkins, Mark, 253n30 hotels, 100 “hottentot” (Khoikoi), 37 Hough, Jerry F., 253n29 Houghteling, James L. Jr., 258n90 Howe, Daniel Walker, 60, 226n40, 228n65, 233nn116–117 Hu, Tun Yuan, 237n45 Hughes, Charles Evans, 230n88 human rights, 31 Hungary, 39, 49–51 and prohibition, 5, 215n2 Huntington, Samuel P., 273n8 hurricane Katrina, 208 Hurst, William Randolph, 80, 83 hushållningssällskap. See Sweden, agricultural societies in Huskey, Eugene, 253n31 Huss, Gunnar, 244n34 Huss, Magnus, 94 Hutchinson, John F., 254n39, 256n59, 270n82, 271n90, n99, 272n104 Iceland, and prohibition, 5, 72, 163 ideas, 20–33, 53, 104, 113, 138, 146–188, 197–210 actors and, 21–28, 70, 89, 113, 138–139, 149–150 as background assumptions, 21–25, 148–149, 173–185, 198 bricolage and, 113–114, 181 causal mechanisms and, 18, 22–25, 139, 146–185, 197–199 cognitive/normative, 17, 20–25, 29, 33, 47, 60, 141, 148–149, 163–164, 173–189, 192, 197, 199, 202–204, 209 crises/uncertainty and, 23, 26, 29, 140–141, 195–197, 202 definition of, 20 diffusion of, 13, 24, 32, 40, 53–55, 119, 147–149, 174–185, 197–206 epistemic communities and, 24, 33, 148, 180, 185, 198–199 as foreground concepts, 21–25, 29, 148–149, 174–185, 190, 198 of foreign origin, 28, 77, 93, 102, 107, 145, 148, 158–159, 166–185, 197–204, 250n98 frames as, 20–25, 29, 33, 47, 54–56, 60, 70–71, 113, 148–149, 168, 176–185, 198–199, 202

286 ideas (continued ) historical institutionalism and, 20, 83–86, 145, 205 institutions and, 13, 26–30, 33, 40, 57, 61, 65, 70–71, 88, 104, 113, 119, 123–124, 135–140, 148–150, 176–185, 186–187 influence on policy, 4, 6, 9, 13, 17, 20, 22, 25–26, 29–33, 61, 70, 86, 88, 104, 113, 119, 122–124, 138–140, 147–185, 193, 198, 202–203 and interests, 20, 27, 205–207 paradigms as, 18–22, 25, 29, 70, 141, 148–149, 172, 176–185, 194–196, 198–199, 202 path dependence and, 74 programs as, 20–22, 25, 29, 32, 86, 147–149, 161–168, 176–185, 198–199, 202 public sentiments as, 18–22, 25, 29, 40, 140, 148–149, 176–185, 198–199 rational choice institutionalism and, 14–15, 20, 82–83, 207 transnational advocacy networks and, 24, 29, 31–34, 39–40, 44, 53, 54, 55, 56, 61, 72, 148, 174–185, 197–205 See also brokers; frames; paradigms; policy programs; public sentiments ideational entrepreneur. See broker; policy entrepreneur. Ikenberry, G. John, 217n16 Illinois, 85 Immergut, Ellen M., 217n17 incrementalism, 14, 18, 63, 82, 105, 112–114, 137, 173 Independent Order of Good Templars, 41–42, 46–47, 53, 94, 179, 227n57 International Executive Committee of, 42 International Supreme Lodge of, 42 Right Worthy Grand Lodge of, 42 Right Worthy Grand Lodge of North America of, 42 Right Worthy Grand Templar of, 42 See also International Order of Good Templars Independent Order of Rechabites, 38, 43 India, 37, 43, 45, 53, 55, 58, 227n57 Indian Ocean, 37 individual control, 8, 81, 88, 100–103, 113–114, 181, 204. See also Bratt system industrialization, 60, 90, 120 inflation, 257n77 information politics, 33, 39, 61 information processing, 10, 86, 136, 139–140

Index Ingebritsen, Christine, 249n81 Inquiry into the Effects of Ardent Spirits, 34, 45 institutions, 13, 19, 23, 26, 30, 33, 62, 65, 113, 135, 187–203 constraining policy making, 13–14, 23, 26, 40, 65, 87, 113, 135–147, 198 and ideational channels, 10, 13, 26–27, 65, 139–140, 146–148, 150–151, 158–159, 168, 174–187, 203 See also domestic structure institutionalism, 13 historical, 13–14, 20, 83–85, 114, 145, 205 rationalist, 13, 14–15, 18–19, 63–64, 82–83, 207 sociological, 40, 113 insulation of decision makers, 19, 25, 87, 89, 108, 110–112, 115–119, 122–126, 135–143, 167–168, 172–174, 180–183, 188–192, 203 of bureaucracy, 64, 105, 137–139, 191–193 insurrection, 136, 181 intellectuals, 33, 70, 123, 178, 180 intelligentsia, 123, 173, 193 as temperance activists, 45–46, 183 See also intellectuals; elites Intercollegiate Prohibition Association, 230n87 intergovernmental organizations, 33, 148 International Bureau against Alcoholism, 48, 59, 146m 229n82. See also International Council on Alcohol and Addictions (ICAA) International Conferences on Dependencies, 59 International Conferences of the Federation (IPC/WLF), 54 International Congresses on Alcoholism, 41, 48–59, 99, 153, 170 Permanent Committee of, 52, 59, 230n86 See also International Bureau against Alcoholism International Committee of Abstaining Priests, 52, 230n90 International Council on Alcohol and Addictions (ICAA), 59 International Federation of Abstaining Socialists, 231n90 International Federation of the Blue Cross Temperance Societies, 231n90 International Good Templar, 45 International League Against Prohibition, 202, 251n111, 274n27

Index International Order of Good Templars (IOGT), 31, 42–43, 46–47, 53–54, 59, 65, 94–95, 167, 231n104, 244n32 Right Worthy Grand Lodge, 42, 248n73 See also Independent Order of Good Templars International Prohibition Confederation (IPC), 31, 42, 52–55, 58–59, 231n100. See also Hayler, Guy; World Prohibition Federation International Record, 54, 58 International Reform Bureau (USA), 236 n35 International Reform Federation, 230n90 International Teacher’s Federation against Alcoholism, 52, 230n90 International Temperance and Prohibition Convention (1862), 44 International Temperance Bureau, 230n90, 250n101 International Temperance Conference (1876), 44–45, 228n70, 229n75 International Union of Abstaining Teachers, 52 International Union of Medical Abstainers, 52, 230n90 IOGT. See Independent Order of Good Templars, International Order of Good Templars (IOGT) IOGT International, 59 Iowa, 151, 160 Iraq, 208 Ireland, 37 “iron triangles,” 92, 105, 137, 191–192 Iserguine, Nicholas, 266n27 Italy, 49–51, 52 Ivanov, Yurii, 260n118 Jacobsen, John Kurt, 220n48 Järnvägsmännens Helnykterhetsförbund. See Rail Workers’ Total Abstinence Movement Jamaica, 45, 227n57 Jansson, Torkel, 243n27 Japan, 44, 45, 53, 55–56, 127–128, 141, 196, 227n57 Jenkins, David, 244n31, 244n34 Jensen, Lars O., 264n13 Jewish religion/Jews, 128 Jimerson, Randall C., 227n55, 229n81 Johansen, Per Ole, 251n114, n118 Johanson, Kjell E., 244n30, 247n62 Johansson, Hilding, 243n27, 249n85

287 Johansson, Lennart, 246nn48, 51, 247n58, 248nn68, 72, 249nn82, 86, 269nn61–62, nn65–67 Johnson, O. R., 269n61 Johnson, William “Pussyfoot”, 54–55, 154, 227n46, 231n102, 232n109, 235n27, n29, 252n1, 256nn61–62, 65, 257n70, 261n123, 264nn18–19, 21, 266n28, 267n38, 270n80, 274n14 Johnsson, Pehr, 244n29 Jones, Bryan D. on bad ideas, 208, 275n34–35, 275n37 on punctuations, 63, 65, 76, 218n20, 219n37, nn40–41, n44, 220nn54–55, 222n71, 233nn3, 5–6, 237nn46–47, 50–51, 240nn83, 94, 250nn97, 100, 272n108, 273n13 Judson, Harry Pratt, 235n25 Kadet Party. See Constitutional Democratic (Kadet) Party (Russia) Kahler, Miles, 222n66, 223nn3, 9 Kaiser Wilhelm II (Germany), 72, 141, 236n38, 261n132 Kansas, 160–161 Karl XIV Johan (Sweden), 38–39 Karlgren, Anton, 166, 270n71–72 Karlsson, Karl Gustaf, 99, 249n87 Karlsson, Thomas, 216n6 Katzenstein, Peter, 242n12 Katznelson, Ira, 237n43 Keck, Margaret, 197, 216n5, 222n66, 223n7, 224n11, n13, 233n120, 272n113, 273n19 Kenez, Peter, 253n22 Kennan, George, 227n54, 253n32, 254n45, 270n75 Keohane, Robert, 220n48, 221n59 Kerensky, Alexander F., 8, 121–122, 135, 143, 262n140. See also provisional government (Russia) Kerr, K. Austin, 231n101, 235n24, 236nn30, 33, 41 Kerrigan, Colm, 226n37 Keynes, John Maynard, 207, 275n33 Keynesian ideas, 14 Khagram, Sanjeev, 222n2 Khrushchev, Nikita, 144 Khrustalëv, Vladimir M., 252n3, 262nn135–136 Kiaer, A. Th., 233n10 Kinberg, Olov, 245n36, 264n24 King, Brayden G., 272n113 King, Desmond S., 217n17, 221n59, 274n28

288 Kingdon, John, 26, 218n20, 220n55, 221n60, 222nn68, 70, 237n49, 245n40 King’s College, London, 55 Klandermans, Bert, 221n61 Klette, Hans, 242n15 Knill, Christoph, 274n25 Knox, Alfred, 256n67 Knudsen, Tim, 241n2 Koch, Gerard Halfred von, 268nn48, 50–51, 268n59 Kokovtsev, Vladimir N., 129–130, 256n61, 257n79, 272n110 Kolonitskii, Boris, 253n24, 258n89 Kommittépolitik och kommittéarbete, 93 Konstantin Konstantinovich, Grand Duke (Russia), 129–131, 140, 142 Koren, John, 235nn20, 22, 236n31, 264n16 Korovin, Aleksandr M., 270n85 Kotsonis, Yanni, 262n139 Korpi, Walter, 244n30 Korzhikhina, T. P., 262n145 Kovalenko, Anatoly P. 273n7 Kovalevskii, M. M., 171 Krasner, Stephen, 218n20, 237n43, 273n12 Krivoshein, Alexander V., 129 Kronstadt, 259n96 Krout, John Allen, 226n45, 227n49, n51, 233n9 Krukones, James H., 252n19 Kun, Béla, 215n2 Kuran, Timur, 219n43 Kurzer, Paulette, 241n3, 249n81 Kvarnzelius, Svante Herman, 99, 245n39, 246n52 Kyvig, David E., 237n53, 238n62, 239n77, 240n79, 275n36 labor movement, transnational, 31, 95, 100 Laine, Elizabeth, 239n77, 240n81 Laitin, David, 219n43, 233n4, 275n31 Lake, David A., 229n80 Landsföreningen for folknykterhet utan förbud. See National Association for General Temperance without Prohibition (Sweden) Landsorganisationen (LO), 92, 95, 247n62 Lantmannapartiet. See Ruralist Party (Sweden) Larin, Yuri, 134 Larsen, Heather A., 218n20 Larsson, John, 233n10 Larsson, Tage, 243n22 Latvia, 39, 127 and prohibition, 215n2

Index Lausanne, 49–52, 59, 146 Lawson, George, 275n29 League of Nations, 55 Leavitt, Mary Clement, 53, 231n91 lecture tours. See speaking tours Lee, A. M., 234n13 Lee, Chang Kil, 217n14 Lehmbruch, Gerhard, 242n12 Leichter, Howard, 223n6 Lenin, Vladimir, 8, 120–122, 125, 133–135, 143, 157, 256n58, 259n100 Leningrad, 136. See also Petrograd, St. Petersburg lesson drawing, 147, 168, 205. See also diffusion Leuchtenburg, William E., 239n75, 239n77 Lever Act (1917), 79, 156 Levine, Harry G., 235n21, 264n16 Levinson, Sanford, 233n2 Lewin, David, 254n42 Liberal Party (Sweden), 90–92, 98–101 Library of Congress, 238n60 Licensing Act of 1855 (Sweden), 94, 96 licensure states, 204 Lichtman, Allan, 237n58 Lieberman, Robert C., 220n48, 275n30 Ligue Internationale Catholique contre l’Alcoolisme, 230n90 Limassol, 59 Lincoln, Abraham, 60 Lincoln, W. Bruce, 252nn16–18, 260n120, 270n74 Lindblom, Charles, 219n39 Lindman, Arvid (Swedish Prime Minister), 91 liquor control. See alcohol control liquor monopoly, 102, 127–132, 140, 155, 165, 171–174 liquor rationing. See individual control liquor revenues, 66–67, 74, 84, 96, 100–101, 105, 118, 126–134, 137–145, 153–157, 172–174, 183, 189–194, 248n67 liquor stores, 130 attacks on, 128 demand for closure, 97, 144 Literary Digest poll, 81 Lithuania, 46, 127 and prohibition, 215n2 Litvak, Konstantin, 259n102 Liverpool, 35 local option, 10, 22, 68, 70, 97, 99–101, 128, 148, 160–163, 177, 204, 245n40, 246n54 constitutional prohibition versus, 68, 70, 99, 101, 156, 162

Index Gothenburg System and, 68, 70, 97, 156 localt veto. See local option Lockhart, R. H. Bruce, 258n90 Löfgren, Bo, 244n34 London, 42–45, 49–55, 228n66, 228n72, 246n52 Longstreth, Frank, 219n33 Louis XV (France), 38 Löwenhardt, John, 253n20 Lundberg, Urban, 244n30 Lundkvist, Sven, 244nn27–28, 34, 245n43, 249n92, 250n93 Lutherans/Lutheranism, 46, 95 Lyckow, Bror, 245n40, 268n60, 269n69 Lynch, Allen C., 252n6 Lyubimov, N. A., 254n41 MacLeod, Michael C., 219n42 Madagascar, 45 Madsen, Henrik, 242n13, 250n95, 251n103, n105, 272n109 Magnusson, Lars, 243n19 Maguire, John F., 226n37 Maine Law, 6, 44, 47, 66, 160, 161 Malacca, 227n57 Malins, Joseph, 42, 261n131, 264n13, 265n25 Malta, 227n57 Manchuria, 127 Mannström, Oscar, 242n18 March, James G., 217n17, 218n18, 221n57, n60 Marcus, Moritz, 245n42, 247n63, 248n72, 265n24 marijuana. See narcotics Marquis, Greg, 237n57, 238n68, 263n7 Marsh, David, 217n15, 263n2, 263n6 Marxism, 120 Marye, George Thomas, 260n121 Mason, Walt, 265n26 Massachusetts, 67, 85, 154 Massachusetts General Court, 234n17, 264n14 Massachusetts Society for the Suppression of Intemperance, 34 Mathew, Father Theobald, 38–39 matrons, 53 Matsuzato, Kimitaka, 258n83 Maurice, Landgrave of Hesse, 34 Maus, L. Mervin, 196, 236n38, 274n16 Mayhew, David, 186, 222n70, 223n4, 272, 273n11 Maynard, Sir John, 259n109 McAdam, Doug, 221n61, 240n93

289 McCormick, Frederick, 255n48 McGowan, Richard, 240n82 McKean, Matthew K., 231n99, 232n111 McKee, Martin, 262n147 McKee, W. Arthur, 254n34, 255nn52, 57, 256n63 McReynolds, Louise, 253n20 media, 21–24, 33, 40, 45, 55–56, 60, 66, 71–72, 78, 81, 84, 87, 93, 100, 104, 107, 123–125, 128–131, 136, 148–151, 162–163 Mediterranean Sea, 37 Medvedev, Grigori, 273n7 Medvedev, Zhores A., 273n7 Meeting international d’Anvers contra l’abus des boissons alcooliques, 48 Meijer, Hans, 93, 242n16, 268n54 merchants, 35, 37 Merz, Charles, 236nn34, 41 Meshcherskii, Prince (Russia), 129 Messick, Richard E., 223n5 Methodist Church/Methodists, 95 Mexico, 55, 151 Meyer, David S., 274n23 Michanek, Bengt, 244n33 Micheletti, Michele, 243n24, 244n28, 249n79 Michelson, Alexander M., 256n64, 257n78, 258n80, 262n139 Migdal, Joel, 218n30 Mikhailovskii, Ya., 270n77 Milan, 49–51, 52 military, 36, 71, 128, 138, 183 ban on alcohol, 71–72, 138, 141, 155, 173–173, 195–197 drinking among, 127–128, 170 prostitution and, 71 See also cult of military sobriety Military Revolutionary Committee (Russia), 133 Mill, John Stuart, 187, 273n2 Millbourn, Ingrid, 241n8 Miller (beer), 71 Miller, Matt, 275n34 Mills, J. Grant, 232n106 Milyukov, Pavel N., 121, 232n105, 251, 256n62 mimicking behavior, 19, 64, 65, 75, 110, 191, 192 See also feedback mechanisms, negative Mintrom, Michael, 221n59 Mintslov, Ivan R., 170–171, 230n89, 270n83, 271n86 missionaries, 35–37, 40, 60

290 Mississippi, 82 modernization, 59–60 Molotov, Vyacheslav, 134 monopolization, 10, 22, 102, 127–132, 140, 155, 165, 171–174 Monroe, James A., 71, 82, 195, 207, 236n36, 239n76, 240nn78, 88, 273n10, 275n32 moonshine, 94, 131, 133–134. See also samogon Moore, Mark, 216n6, 233n7 “moral zones,” 71 Mordvinov, I., 254n40 Mörner, Magnus, 241n3 Mortensen, Peter B., 222n71 Mosher, Jim, 223n2 Moscow, 121, 133 motbok (ration book), 100–103, 114. See also individual control Motorförarnas Helnykterhetsförbund. See Motorists’ Total Abstinence Movement Motorists’ Total Abstinence Movement, 96 Munson, Ziad, 227n53, 227n55 Murchison, Kenneth, 237n55 Murray, Eustace Clare Grenville, 254n35 Murray, Marr, 236n38, 257n78 Musto, David, 236n41 Nabokov, Vladimir D., 262n144 Nadelmann, Ethan A., 233n118 narcotics, legalization of, 22, 210. See also drug addiction Narodnyi kommissariat truda (Narkomtrud). See People’s Commissariat of Labor Natal, 227n57 The Nation, 45 National Association for General Temperance without Prohibition (Sweden), 102 National Commission on Law Observance and Enforcement (Wickersham Commission), 78–81, 84, 154, 209, 238nn61, 69–70, 238n74, 240n86, 265n24 National Committee of Prohibitionists (Sweden), 102 National Order of Templars, 95 The National Temperance Advocate, 45 National Temperance Society and Publication House, 45 National Templarorden. See National Order of Templars navy, 36, 55 Nelson‐Löfgren, Inger, 244n34

Index Nerman, Ture, 247n62 Netherlands, 39, 48–51, 246n52 Nevins, Allan, 239n72 Newfoundland, prohibition in, 3, 5, 72 New Hampshire, 82, 151 Newsholme, Arthur, 220n45, 263n10 Newton, John, 232n106, 257n78 New York, 41–44, 67, 85, 228n67–68 New Zealand, 45, 55, 163, 227n57 Niagara Falls, 169 Nicholas I (Russia), 39 Nicholas II (Russia), 120–123, 129–132, 135, 252n3, 256n61, 262n147, 270n74 and prohibition decree, 7–8, 119, 130–132, 135, 140–144, 155, 173, 190, 215n2, 252n4, 257n71, 272n110 and the imperial vodka monopoly, 129, 131, 140 Nicholls, John A., 266n35 Nikishin, Aleksandr, 255n48 Nikolai Nikolaevich, Grand Duke (Russia), 141, 253n23 Nilsson, Ingrid, 228n58, 249n79 Nilsson, Victor, 242n17 Nizhegorodtsev, Mikhail N., 170, 255n58, 270n77 No Child Left Behind, 210 nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), 33, 46, 61, 148, 158–159, 167, 169, 177 Norman, Henry, 254n36 normative ideas, 17–18, 20–26, 29, 33, 38, 47, 55–56, 60, 70–71, 112, 148–149, 175–185, 188–189, 197–199, 202–204, 209. See also frames; public sentiments North Carolina, 67 North Dakota, 67, 161 Norway 49–51, 55, 90, 115–116 and alcohol control, 67–68, 151, 160, 163, 171–172, 239n72 and prohibition, 4–5, 102, 115, 163, 166, 200, 238n63, 251n114, n118 and repeal, 80, 115–116 temperance in, 42, 44, 228n64 “Norwegian system,” 67, 68, 264n14. See also Gothenburg system Nova Scotia, 80, 238n63 Nuytemans, Michiel, 222n71 nuclear power, 64, 65 Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 64 Nuzhnyi, Vladimir P., 259n98, 261n132 Nycander, Svante, 243n21, 246n55, 249n83, 251n109

Index Nykterhetskommitté. See Temperance Committee (Sweden) Nykterhetsorden Verdandi (NOV). See Verdandi Obshchestvo po bor’be s alkogolizmom (OBSA). See Society for the Struggle with Alcoholism October Manifesto, 120, 124, 127, 140, 170 October Revolution. See Russia/USSR, Bol’shevik Revolution (1917) in Octobrist Party, 121, 128, 232n105, 255n55 Odegard, Peter H., 236n30, 236n33, 236n41 Office of Supervisors of Temperance (Sweden), 101 Oglethorpe, James Edward, 66 Ogburn, William, 238n59 Ohlin, A. Symonds, 235n24, 241n1 Ohio, 53 Öhngren, Bo, 244n28 Ol’denburg, Prince Alexander (Russia), 129 Ol’denburg, Sergei S., 141, 262n138, 274n14 Oleg Konstantinovich, Prince, 142 Oleszek, Walter J., 249n89 Olsen, Johan P., 217n17, 218n18, 274n28 Olson, Alison Gilbert, 224n23 Olson, Mancur, 236n32 On the Extent and Remedy of National Intemperance, 36 Order of Temperance, 34 Orthodox Church. See Russian Orthodox Church Oslo, 49–51, 55 Oscar I (Sweden), 43 Osipov, Nikolai, 255n46 Östberg, Kjell, 244n30, 250n95 Österberg, Esa, 216n6 Östlund, David, 269n61 Overbeck, Alicia, 239n72 overreaction, 76, 83 Pabst (beer), 71 Pacific Ocean, 37, 53 Palm, August, 100 Palmer, Francis, 258n85 Palmstierna, Carl Fredrik, 245n41 paradigms, 18–25, 29, 56, 93, 105, 141–143, 149, 176–188, 196, 198, 205 actors and, 21–24, 149 as constraints on action, 22, 139, 173, 194, 198 definition of, 22, 148 discourse and, 25, 174–185, 196, 198

291 influence on policy, 25–26, 29, 105, 141, 143, 173, 176–185, 194, 198 institutional influence on, 188 and negative feedback, 18, 64, 83, 105, 143 policy programs and, 22, 173, 188 temperance and, 70, 143, 172–185, 196, 198 theorists and, 21–24, 70, 149, 158, 172, 176, 180, 182, 200 Pares, Bernard, 252n11, 256n58 Paris, 49–51 Parkhomenko, A. G., 259n98 Parliamentary Temperance Society (Sweden), 96 Patenaude, Bertrand M., 259n101 path dependence, 13–14, 17 bricolage and, 113–114 feedback mechanisms and, 17, 74 historical institutionalism and, 14, 83, 85 punctuated equilibrium and, 14, 27, 74 rational choice institutionalism and, 82–83 patriotic sentiment, 130, 188, 194–195 in Russia/USSR, 121, 130, 182, 193–194 in Sweden, 100, 111–112, 188 in United States, 27, 70–71, 75, 76, 112, 178, 195 Parsons, Craig, 220n47 Peabody, Francis, 234n18 peasants, 89, 119, 124, 132, 134, 155–156, 168, 183, 193 as alcoholics, 94, 118, 123, 126 Peel, Roy, 238n59 People’s Commissariat of Labor (Narkomtrud), 134, 259n104 People’s Control Commission, 125 perestroika, 144 Perrin, Steven Wayne, 227n50 personal liberty, 6, 76, 85, 102, 157, 180, 189, 194, 241n6 pesticides, 65 Peters, B. Guy, 217n17, 274n28 Petersen, Klaus, 241n3 Petersson, Oskar, 228n58, 243n24 Petersson, Olof, 244n27 Petrograd, 121, 132–133, 136, 138, 190, 269n70. See also Leningrad, St. Petersburg Petrograd garrison, 121 Petrograd Soviet, 121 Petrov, Grigorii S., 270n76 Pettersson, Jakob, 99, 246n52 Philadelphia, 42–45, 228nn70–71 Phillips, Laura L., 232n115, 256n66

292 Pierre, Jon, 217n17 Pierson, Paul, 219nn34–35 Pinter, Walter M., 253n31 Piotrovskii, Fedor I., 270n85 Pipes, Richard, 252n12 Pitman, Robert, 234n10 plebiscite, 97 pledges of sobriety. See teetotal pledge Plevhe, Vyacheslav K., 232n105, 261n127, 271n95 Pogrebinskii, Aleksandr P., 258n80 pogroms, alcohol, 259n96 Poland, 46, 127 and prohibition, 215n2 police, 53 policy “borrowers,” 150, 179, 184 policy diffusion. See diffusion policy entrepreneurs, 6, 19, 21–23, 26, 78, 113–116, 119, 149, 174, 191, 209 policy failure, 12, 57, 217n13 policy feedback. See feedback processes policy ideas. See ideas policy images, 18, 22, 64–65, 71, 74–75, 83, 105, 137–139, 142–143, 194. See also paradigms policy learning, 4, 13, 28, 147–149, 174, 185, 205, 210, 217n15. See also diffusion policy “lenders,” 150, 184 policy monopolies, 18, 64, 74, 92, 191, 194 policy process, 6, 8, 17, 25, 28, 150, 176–185, 198–199, 206 agenda setting stage in, 10, 19, 25, 28, 61, 86, 98, 108, 123, 125, 150, 161, 176–185, 188, 193, 206 policy decision stage in, 10, 29, 86, 150, 176–185, 188, 206 policy programs. See programs policy transfer, 147. See also diffusion policy “wave,” 4, 29, 32, 147, 185–186, 197, 202–207 policy “window,” 26–29, 76, 78, 84–85, 100, 106, 111–112, 119, 140, 144, 177, 188, 195, 203 policymakers. See decision makers political elites. See elites political institutions, 9, 15–17 centralized, 15–16, 125, 140–143 fragmented, 15–16, 63 See also domestic structure political liberalism, 90–91, 95, 102, 119–123, 128–131, 143 Political Power of Economic Ideas, 14, 218n23, 273n2 political survival, 136

Index Politics of Bad Ideas, 208, 275nn34–37 Politovsky, Eugene S., 232n107, 255n48 pollsters, 21, 24, 149 Pontén, Johan, 242n18 Poole, Ernest, 255n50 Popovitsch, M. G., 271n103 Port Arthur, 127 Portugal, 227n57 Postgate, Raymond, 249n88 poverty, 59, 60, 162 Powell, Walter W., 227n53 Pratt, Edwin A., 234n10 Pravda, 259n107 prayer vigils, 53 Premfors, Rune, 241n4, 248n73, 249n90 press. See media Price, Richard, 223n2 Prince Edward Island, 80, 238n63 profit motive, 66–68, 80, 96–98, 101, 153, 155, 172 Progressive Bloc (Russia), 121 Prokopovich, Sergei N., 261n126 programs, 20–22, 26, 29, 56, 107, 149, 167, 176–188, 198–199, 205 actors and, 20, 21, 149 alcohol control and, 22, 68, 83, 107, 161, 167, 170, 173, 177–185, 198 decision makers and, 21, 147, 149, 177–185, 198 definition of, 20, 148 discourse and, 68, 174 influence on policy, 25–26, 29, 167, 173–185, 198 institutional influence on, 188 prohibition in Africa, 55 ambivalence toward, 77, 178 as bad policy, 3–4, 7–8, 11–12, 28, 30, 57, 62, 65–70, 74–77, 80–88, 98, 105–106, 113–116, 119, 133–135, 138, 147, 151, 153, 162, 170, 182, 189, 191, 195, 207–210 benefits of, 98, 132, 138, 142, 155–156, 163, 166, 208 calls for, 11, 41, 47, 48, 54, 56, 71–76, 96–99, 119, 130, 143, 177–178, 202–203 conspiracy theories, 76, 85, 103 and crime, 3–4, 11, 58, 67–70, 77, 78, 84, 98, 131–134, 143, 147, 151, 153, 156, 162, 165, 170 and corruption, 3–4, 11, 67–68, 77–78, 98, 133, 147, 153, 163, 170, 200 countries, 215n2

Index culturalist explanations for, 30, 63, 82, 85, 88, 104, 116, 150, 186, 206 and education, 58 enactment, 77, 130–131 global wave/scope, 3, 29, 32, 54–57, 61, 72, 80, 147, 162, 185–186, 197, 202–207 illicit trade and, 3–4, 7, 11, 44–45, 58, 67–68, 77–78, 84, 98, 113, 131–132, 151, 153 and law enforcement, 3–4, 7, 44–45, 58, 68, 77, 84, 98, 112–114, 151, 153, 162, 170 modification of, 79, 82, 84–86, 115 as policy program, 10, 22, 44, 47–48, 161 in promoting democracy, 156 as “pseudo‐reform,” 6 punctuated equilibrium and, 62–65, 74–76, 112, 137, 179, 191, 203 rationalist explanations for, 30, 82, 206–207 and revenue/taxation, 7–8, 74, 78, 84, 98, 101, 105, 128–134, 137–145, 153, 157, 183, 189, 191–194 as success, 56, 97–98, 132, 138, 142, 155–156, 163 and temperance, 6, 9, 27, 29, 47, 62, 68, 96–98, 153, 187 as a wartime measure, 29, 112, 195–197, 203 in Russia, 7–8, 11, 130–133, 141–142, 155, 189–190, 195–197, 203, 256n56 in Sweden, 28, 100, 112, 162, 188 in the United States, 6, 11, 27–28, 62–63, 66, 71–72, 75, 79, 140, 156, 162, 188–190, 195–196 results of, 74–85, 112, 131, 135, 143, 170, 200 security and, 71–72, 75, 86, 111–112, 129–131, 140–142, 156, 173–174, 183, 191, 195–197, 203 shortcomings well‐known, 12, 30, 66, 68, 70, 98, 103, 112–113, 153, 161, 170, 177, 182, 202–203 Prohibition and the Deficit, 78 Prohibition Enforcement: Its Effect on Courts and Prisons, 78 Prohibition Party (United States), 42, 66 propaganda, 54–55, 77, 81, 91, 125, 134, 158, 163, 166 proportional representation, 91 Protestants, 38, 60, 95, 126–127. See also religion; Second Great Awakening provisional government (Russia), 8, 255n57, 258n82

293 Prussia, 37–39 Przeworski, Adam, 242n12, 273n8 public opinion polling, 22, 84, 88 public sentiments/opinion, 7, 10, 18, 20–25, 29, 40, 47, 93, 97–98, 104, 112, 117, 119, 136, 149, 158, 176–185, 186, 198–209 actors and, 21–23, 25, 40, 124, 149 attention of, 18, 64, 75, 81, 84–87, 104–106, 112, 116, 125, 130–131, 136, 177–185, 190–192, 195, 198–202 constituents and, 21, 24, 135, 140, 149, 176 as constraints on action, 22, 136, 139–140, 176–185, 198 crises and, 23, 70, 111–112, 131, 136–137, 194–197, 203 decision makers’ perception of, 140 definition of, 22, 148 discourse and, 25, 29, 40, 47, 64, 161, 174–185, 200–201 feedback mechanisms and, 18, 64–65, 85, 112, 125, 190–194 influence on policy, 24–26, 29, 85, 108, 115–117, 123, 130–131, 140, 156, 177–185, 188–190, 198–202 media and, 21–22, 24, 60, 72, 81, 84, 104, 123–125, 131, 136, 140, 149, 156, 162, 200–202 opinion polling and, 22, 24, 81, 84, 88, 136 perceptual proceses and, 60, 64, 156, 158, 200, 209 shared by decision makers, 23, 81, 85, 89, 108, 136, 140, 190, 203 punctuated equilibrium, 14, 27, 63–65, 82–87, 104, 144, 179, 183, 190–194, 218n20 agenda congruence and, 87, 188–190 in alcohol‐control policy, 62–65, 74–76, 82–87, 104–110, 137, 144, 179, 183, 190–194 crises/shocks and, 71–76, 85–87, 111–112, 137, 140–144, 191, 194–197 historical institutionalism and, 14, 83, 86–87, 116–117, 205–206 negative feedback in, 64, 65, 74–76, 83–84, 104–106, 112, 135, 137, 190–194 overreaction in, 76, 110 positive feedback in, 64–65, 75–76, 83–84, 104, 111, 135, 155, 190–194 shift from negative to positive feedback in, 64–65, 74–76, 84–86, 104–106, 110–112, 125, 135, 139, 142, 190–197, 203–204

294 public sentiments/opinion, (continued ) shifting attention to information in, 63–65, 71, 74–76, 84–86, 106, 137–144, 190–197 shifting institutional venue of decision making in, 63–65, 71, 74–76, 85–86, 105, 140, 167, 191, 195–197 Quebec, 80, 238nn65–66, 239n72 Quinn, John F., 226n37 QWERTY keyboard, 17 Rae, John Turner, 230n86 Radzinsky, Edvard, 253n23 Raffalovich, Alexis, 256n60, 257n75, 271n94 railroads, 96, 121, 132 Rail Workers’ Total Abstinence Movement, 96 Raines Law, 67 Rainey Resolution, 79 Ramirez, Francisco O., 228n62 Rappoport, A. S., 257n69, 258n87 Rasputin, Grigorii, 124, 129, 140, 253n23, 256n61 Rathou, Emelie, 95, 99, 246n52 rational choice institutionalism(ists), 14–15, 30, 63–64, 74 shortcomings of, 15, 30, 82 rationalization, 60 ration book, 100 Razgon, Anatolii I., 259n97 Razvodovsky, Yuri, 262n147 RBMK reactor, 190 Reader’s Guide to Periodical Literature, 69–70, 73, 75, 107, 151, 157, 200–201, 250n96 Rebrikov, Vladimir A., 266n27 Rechabites. See Independent Order of Rechabites Red Cross, 266n28 Reed Amendment (1917), 79, 156 Reed, John, 259nn96–97 Reeves, Francis B., 261n125, 266n32 Reforming America with a Shotgun: A Study of Prohibition Killings, 78 refugees, 59 rehabilitation, 41 Rein, Martin, 220nnk51, 57 religion, 35–37, 39–41, 45–46, 53, 60, 89, 95, 126–127 repeal, 4, 57, 58, 200 economic benefits of, 84 punctuated equilibrium and, 65 in Russia, 133–134, 143

Index in the United States, 3, 7, 28–29, 58, 62, 68, 76–87, 154, 158, 161, 200–201 See also Twenty First Amendment; transnational temperance network, decline of Republican Party (US), 77 reputation costs, 198 Research Committee on Social Trends (United States), 265n24 research organizations/foundations, 33 resource mobilization, 6 restaurants, 95, 100, 108, 114 “revealed preferences,” 99 Rhode Island, 236n40 Rialand, Marie‐Rose, 259n108 Rigby, T. H., 259n105 Riga, 39 Riker, James V., 222n2 Riksarkivet. See Swedish National Archives riksdag (Swedish parliament), 88–93, 96, 98–102, 192, 242n10, 244n34 Risse‐Kappen, Thomas, 15–16, 158, 175, 187, 218nn28–29, 31–32, 223n2, 267n44, 272n107, 273n4, 274nn17– 18, 275n30 Roberts, James S., 261n132 Rockefeller, John D., 239n72 Rockman, Bert A., 218n25 Rocky Mountains, 169 Robinson, Geroid Tanquary, 255n46 Rodgers, Daniel T., 263n12 Rogers, Patrick, 226n37 Rogers, Will, 157, 237n56, 266n37 Rolland, Romain, 23 Romania, 72, 215n2 Romanovs, 121, 124, 129, 141–142 Room, Robin, 216n4 Root, Grace C., 239n72 Roosevelt, Franklin D., 7, 81–82 rooted cosmopolitans, 32, 148 Roper, Daniel C., 234n11 Ropp, Stephen C., 223n2 Rorabaugh, W. J., 224n20, 233n8 Rose, Richard, 263nn1, 5, 271n102, 272n106 Rosenberg, William, 262n137 Rossiter, Clinton, 237n48, 240nn92–93 Rothstein, Bo, 241n2, 242nn12–14, 247n57 Rothstein, Jeffrey S., 223n2 Rowney, Don Karl, 253n31 Rowntree, Joseph, 234n10 Royal Patriotic Society of Sweden, 37 Rozenbakh, Pavel Ya., 270n81 Rumbarger, John J., 235n23 Ruralist Party (Sweden), 90

Index Rush, Benjamin, 34, 45 Russell, Howard Hyde, 165, 231n102, 235n29, 264n19, 264n21, 266n28, 267n38, 269n64 Russia/USSR, 7–8, 15, 19, 45, 52, 55, 87, 118–145, 186, 189–190 agriculture in, 121, 132, 134, 139, 142 anti‐alcohol campaign (1985–1988) in, 144–142 as autocratic domestic structure, 11, 16, 18, 24–29, 119, 122–126, 135–145, 169–174, 181–185, 192–194, 203, 252n5 alcohol consumption in, 118, 123, 126, 134, 143, 155, 156 alcohol control in, 127–131, 133–145, 155–160, 171 ,181–183 alcohol as promoter of peasant docility in, 118, 126, 133, 171, 173, 193 anti‐prohibitionists in, 171, 182 Bol’shevik (October) Revolution (1917) in, 8, 91, 119–122, 133–134, 140, 143, 157, 159 brewers in, 131–132 bureaucracy in, 123–124, 127, 136–138, 193, 203 censorship in, 123–127, 136 as centralized state, 15, 119, 124–126, 138–145, 189–190 civil war in, 119, 122, 134 class divisions in, 126, 128–130, 169, 171, 193 collectivization in, 119, 143 committees/commissions in, 123, 127–129, 136, 142, 170–174 communism in, 119–122, 128, 133–145, 157–158, 206 conservatives in, 119–121, 124, 128, 130–131, 143, 155, 173, 193, 206 Constituent Assembly in, 122 contributions to transnational temperance conferences, 52, 165, 170, 230n89 crime in, 128, 132–134, 166 decision making in, 25, 119, 122–126, 129–131, 135–145, 169–174, 181–183, 189–190 distillers in, 131–132, 171 Duma in, 118–121, 124, 128–131, 140, 170, 172, 196 emancipation in, 119, 120 famine in, 119, 122–123, 134, 206 February Revolution (1917) in, 8, 119–121, 124, 131–133, 142–143, 156

295 foreign influences on, 37, 39–40 ,44–46, 52, 55, 141, 168–174, 181–183, 198, 204 foreign views of Russian alcohol control, 7–8, 37, 39, 102, 131, 138, 142, 150–151, 155–159, 165–168, 178 Gothenburg system and, 128, 171–174 government subversion of social organization, 7, 28, 39, 45–46, 52, 118, 123–126, 135, 140, 165, 169, 181–182, 192 hyperinflation in, 131, 144, 156 Imperial liquor monopoly, 7, 118, 127–132, 137, 140, 155, 165, 172–174, 182, 254n42 imperial ministers/ministry in, 121, 124–125, 129–131, 138–144, 181–183, 193 importance of vodka revenues to, 118, 126–131, 134, 137–145, 155, 157, 165–166, 171–174, 183, 192–194 industrialization of, 120–123, 143 labor unions in, 125, 129, 134, 158 liberalism in, 119–123, 128–131, 143 local option in, 128 local/municipal government in, 123, 136–137, 172 medical community in, 126–127, 172, 182 misrepresentation of information in, 124, 130–131, 136, 138–139, 142, 144, 155, 166, 193, 209 New Economic Policy (NEP) in, 122, 134, 259n103 nobility in, 124, 132, 171 obshchestvo in, 123–130, 138, 165, 168–174, 182–183, 193 and prohibition, 4–8, 28, 72, 118–119, 129–133, 138–144, 155–158, 165–166, 171–173, 189–190, 206, 215n2 prohibition and revolution, 7–8, 28, 128, 131–133, 139, 157–158, 166–168 public sentiment in, 119, 124–126, 130, 135–142 Provisional Government in, 119, 121, 124–125, 131–133, 142–143, 156 railways in, 121, 132 repeal in, 133–134, 143, 158–159 repression/terror in, 122, 136, 158 revolutionaries in, 120–121, 127–132, 143–144, 173 1905 Revolution in, 121, 128, 140 riots/protests in, 127–128, 132–133, 140, 143 socialists in, 120–121, 128, 131–134, 143, 173

296 Russia/USSR, (continued ) Soviet liquor monopoly in, 8, 134–135, 144–145, 260n112 taxes in, 131, 139–142, 166 temperance in, 9, 38–40, 45–46, 55, 119, 126–131, 135, 140–145, 155, 165, 169–174, 182, 190 views of American alcohol control, 168–171, 182–183 views of Swedish alcohol control, 168, 172–174, 182–183 war mobilization in, 121, 128, 130–132, 138, 141–142, 155, 166, 171–173, 183, 189–190, 195–197 weak societal structure of, 16, 119, 123, 135–136, 169 workers in, 121, 129, 156, 168 Russian Ministry of Finance, 120, 130–132, 139–141, 155, 170, 172, 193, 209 criticism of, 127 and the Guardianship of Public Sobriety, 127–128 and the imperial vodka monopoly, 127–132 Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs, 230n89 Russian Ministry of War, 173 Russian Orthodox Church, 7, 123–127, 172, 253n34 Russian Social‐Democratic Worker’s Party, 120 Bol’shevik faction in, 8, 91, 120, 133, 143 Menshevik faction in, 120 See also Communist Party of the Soviet Union; Russia/USSR, communism in Russian Society for the Preservation of Public Health, 127 Russkaya vedomosti, 262n140 Russo‐Japanese War, 55–56, 120 drinking and, 55–56, 127–128, 141, 173, 196 mobilization for, 128, 130, 256n67 Rustow, Dankwart A., 241n6, 242n9 Rutherford, Derek, 232n112 Ryavec, Karl W., 260n117 Ryssland utan vodka, 166 saloon, 66–68, 96, 129, 153, 191 Samara, 128 samogon (homebrewed liquor) Bol’shevik fears of, 133 laws against, 133–134 production of, 132, 134 See also moonshine Sanborn, Joshua A., 255n51, 256n67

Index sanctions, 198 Saratov, 133 Sazonov, Sergei, 138 Scandals of Prohibition Enforcement, 78 Schauman, Björn, 267n46, 268n51 Schelling, Thomas C., 219n41 Schlitz (beer), 71 Schmitter, Philippe C., 242n12 Schön, Donald A., 220n51 Schrad, Mark L., 49–51, 87, 152, 160, 216n6, 224n15, 229n76, 233n1, 240n82, 241n97, 273n1 Schück, Adolf, 245n36 Schulkin, Marc Lee, 255n56, 256n59 Schüllerqvist, Bengt, 242n11 Schultz, Kenneth, 260n115 Scobbie, Irene, 241n5 Scotland, 35, 45, 55. See also Great Britain Scott, Albert L., 239n72, 264n24 Scott, Franklin D., 243n20 Scott, George, 226n43, 243n19 Scott, James C., 220n56 Scott, W. Richard, 240n93 Second Great Awakening, 36, 60 Segal, Boris, 259n96, 259n101 self‐help movement, 38 Serbia, 130 Sergei Aleksandrovich, Grand Duke (Russia), 129, 256n61 serial processing, 64, 203 serial shift, 64, 65 219n44 Shadwell, Arthur, 235n26, 263n12, 264n17 Shepsle, 249n89 Sherwell, Arthur, 230n86, 234n10, 257n78 Shidlovskii, Vladislav D., 270nn78–79, 271n88, n98 Shingarev, Andrei, 118, 261n134 Shipov, N. N., 255n53 Shipov, Sergei, 270n76 Shlapentokh, Dmitry, 257n72, 258n92 shocks. See crises Shrady, George Frederick, 264n15 Shvanebakh, Petr Kh., 270n77 Sidorov, Arkadii L., 258n85 Sierra Leone, 227n57 Sikkink, Kathryn, 197, 216n5, 222n66, 223nn2, 7–8, 224nn11, 13, 224n14, 233nn119–120, 272n113, 274nn19–20 Silva, Ruth, 237n58 Siverson, Randolph, 260n114 Simmons, Beth A., 20, 215n3, 217n14, 220n49, 223n5, 273n13 Simpson, J. Y., 257n72 Sinclair, Andrew, 236n41, 238n59, 240n80

Index Sinclair, Upton, 238n71 Sinha, Tarini Prasad, 231n102 Skansen, 31 Skarzhinskii, Lyudvik, 230n89 Skocpol, Theda, 219n33, 227n53, 227n55, 232n115 Smirnov, Anatolii F., 252n9 Smirnov, Pyotr, 255n46 Smith, Al, 77, 237n57 Smith, Charles, 246n55 Smith, Jackie, 223n3 smoking, 65, 103. See also addiction smuggling, 7, 131–133, 151, 162–163, 200 Snow, David E., 221n61, 254n43, 261n131 snowball effects, 19. See also feedback mechanisms, negative Snyder, Jack, 260n116 sobriety. See temperance social class, 60, 89–91, 95, 126–130, 169, 171 social movements, 23, 59, 90–92, 136, 155, 169, influence on policymaking process, 15–16, 25, 70, 85, 92, 155, 177 transnational advocacy networks and, 33, 169 social networks, 169, 245n41 Socialist Revolutionary Party (Russia), 120, 122 Socialstyrelsen. See Board of Health and Welfare societal structure, 16–17 strong, 16, 123 weak, 17, 123 See also civil society; domestic structure Society for the Struggle with Alcoholism (Russia), 134, 260n111 Södertälje, 99 Sokolnikov, Gregory, 259nn106, 108 Sokolsky, Barbara A., 226n40 Sons of Temperance, 37, 43, 66 Soule, Sarah A., 272n113 South Africa, 55, 227n57 South Carolina dispensary, 67–68, 107, 153–155, 159–161, 234nn12–13, 239n72, 264n15 South Dakota, 151 Soviet Union. See Russia/USSR Sovnarkom. See Council of People’s Commissars (Sovnarkom) speakeasies, 7, 77 speaking tours, 52, 55, 165 Special Commission to Investigate the Gothenburg and Norwegian System

297 of Licensing the Sale of Intoxicating Liquors, 67, 264n14 Spence, F. S., 267n47 Sprague, John, 242n12 Sri Lanka, 227n57 Staaf, Karl (Swedish Prime Minister), 90–91, 93, 98, 104, 246n49 Stalin, Josef, 8, 119, 122, 134–135, 143–144, 259n109, 260n112, 262n146 Stanford, Doreen, 257n72 states’ rights advocates, 74–77, 84 Staunton, Dorothy, 228n61 Stearns, John, 254n36 Steinberg, Mark D., 252n3, 253n21, 258n95, 259n98, 262nn135–136 Steinmo, Sven, 217nn16–17, 219n33, 223n4, 241n2 Sterlitamak, 256n67 Sterner, Mauritz, 94 Steveni, William, 256n67 Stickley, Andrew, 262n147 Stockholm, 31, 43–44, 49–51, 52, 98, 101, 172, 184, 228n64, 246n52, 247n66 Stockholm system, 101. See also Bratt system Stoddard, Cora Frances, 165, 230n86, 269n63 Stolypin, Peter A., 139, 253n23, 261n128 Stone, Helena, 259n97 Strang, David, 217n14 Strange, Douglas Charles, 225n31 State Council (Gosudarstvennyi sovet), 124, 131. See also Russia/USSR, Duma in State Duma (Gosudarstvennaya duma), 124. See also Russia/USSR, Duma in St. Helena, 227n57 St. Petersburg, 39, 46, 120–121, 128–130, 136, 165, 168–169, 172, 229n75. See also Leningrad, Petrograd St. Petersburg Temperance Society Strel’chuk, Ivan V., 256n58 Stykalin, S. I., 253n22 suffragist movement, 43–44, 53, 59, 90–91, 95, 216n5 Sukhomlinov, Vladimir A., 141 Sulkin, Tracy, 218n20 Sulkunen, Irma, 251n115 sustainable development, 59 Sutton, Caroline, 248n77 Svanström, Ragnar, 245n41 Svenska Nykterhetssällskapet. See Swedish Temperance Society Svensk bok‐katalog, 106–107, 159–160, 164, 200–201, 250n96 Sveriges Arbetarparti (SAP). See Swedish Social Democratic Party

298 Sveriges Blåbandsförbund. See Swedish Blue Ribbon Society Sveriges Läkarnas Nykterhetsförening. See Swedish Physicians’ Temperance Union Sveriges Lärares Nykterhetsförbund. See Swedish Teachers’ Temperance Movement Sveriges Studerande Ungdoms Helnykterhetsförbund. See Swedish Students’ Total Abstinence Movement Sweden, 6, 8–9, 15, 25, 28, 31, 49–52, 55, 87–117, 137, 145, 159–168, 186, 203 agricultural societies in, 96, 105 alcohol consumption in, 93–94, 101, 107, 153, 172 alcohol control in, 72, 88–89, 93–97, 100–105, 113–114, 151–154, 172–175, 184 anti‐prohibitionists in, 28, 98–102, 163–168, 184, 251n111 brewers in, 100–102, 108, 112, 192, 247n56, 250n102 bureaucracy in, 90, 92, 100, 105, 191–192 cabinet in, 89–93, 97 as centralized state, 15 class divisions in, 89–91, 95 committees/commissions in, 92–93, 98–101,104–108, 117, 159, 162–167, 180, 183, 188, 203, 245n39, 246n49 compromise in, 89, 93, 98–104, 110, 117, 161, 179–180, 183, 188, 192, 203 conservatives in, 90–91 as corporatist domestic structure, 11, 16, 18, 25–29, 88–89, 92–93, 100, 103, 105, 108, 112–115, 126, 159, 165–168, 179–185, 188–195, 203 crime in, 98, 113, 153, 248n66 democratization of, 88–92, 95 249n90 distillers in, 100, 102, 108, 192, 247n56 farmers in, 90–91, 94 feudal estates in, 89–90 foreign influences on, 31, 37–40, 44–45, 55, 94–95, 100, 159–168, 179–181 foreign views of Swedish alcohol control, 37, 39, 44, 55, 66–68, 80, 88, 96–101, 105, 107, 114, 150–155, 171–174, 178–179 free‐church movement in, 90, 95, 99, 244n28 Gothenburg system in, 66–68, 80, 88, 96–101, 105, 107, 114, 151–155, 158, 172–174, 179–181 IOGT in, 31, 42, 94–95, 99, 165, 249n79

Index labor unions in, 92, 95–102, 105, 108, 247n56, n62, 248n71 local option in, 97, 99–101, 105, 162, 181, 245n40, 246n54, 268n58 local/municipal government in, 96–97, 101–102, 105, 165, 172 monopolization in, 103, 114, 172, 204 national strike (1909) in, 8, 56, 97, 107, 128, 154, 173 neutrality of, 89, 91 philanthropic organizations in, 96, 101, 107, 172 and prohibition movement, 8, 28, 37, 88, 91, 96–102, 107, 118, 161–167, 181, 184, 187–188, 203 prohibition plebiscite (1909) in, 97 prohibition referendum (1922) in, 8, 102, 107, 112, 163–167, 177, 184 royal government of, 89–92, 97, 174 socialist movement in, 90–91, 95, 160 strong societal structure of, 16 suffragist movement in, 90–91, 95 temperance in, 9, 31, 34, 38–40, 43–45, 48, 55, 88, 91, 93–103, 114–115, 153, 162, 228n64 Temperance Boards in, 101–103, 248n76 union with Norway, 90 voluntary associations in, 123 views of American alcohol control, 37, 39–40, 55, 159–168, 184 views of Russian alcohol control, 159, 163, 165–168, workers in, 90–95, 99, 100–102 World’s WCTU in, 95, 165, 244n33 See also Temperance Committee (Sweden) Sweden: The Middle Way, 188, 241n3, 248n66, 249n84, 251n110, 273n5 Swedish Blue Ribbon Society, 95, 99 Swedish Brewery Workers’ Union, 248n71 Swedish Communist Party, 91 Swedish Medical Association, 100, 246n55 Swedish National Archives, 108 Swedish Physicians’ Temperance Union, 95 Swedish Social Democratic Party, 90–92, 95, 98–101 Swedish Students’ Total Abstinence Movement, 95 Swedish Teachers’ Temperance Movement, 95 Swedish Temperance Society, 39, 94, 234n15 Swidler, Ann, 222n63 Switzerland, 37, 48, 49–52, 55, 59, 146, 160, 170–172, 229n74 symbolic politics, 33, 61, 114

Index systembolag, 101, 102, 114. See also Gothenburg system Szymanski, Ann‐Marie, 236n41 Tahiti, 37 Takala, Irina R., 118, 252n2, 254n36, 255n53, 256n65 Talbot, Nell, 238n59 Tarrow, Sidney, 46, 59, 199, 221n60, 222n2, 224n10, 229n79, 232n114, 233n4, 263n4, 274nn23–24 Tarschys, Daniel, 252n13 Tartu, 49–51, 246n52 teetotal pledge, 34, 40, 41, 94 Temperance Committee (Sweden), 8, 12, 89, 93, 108–114, 117, 162, 181, 188, 195–196, 242n18, 243n22, n26, 245nn36, 38–40, 43, 249n85, n92, 250n94, 269nn68, 70, 270n73 activity of, 108–109, 112, 162–163, 166, 177, 180, 247nn56, 58, 250nn101–102, 251n104, 268nn55–59, 269n60 call for, 98–99, 108, 162, 246n49 composition of, 99, 103 divisions within, 101–102, 104, 184, 246n47, 248nn69–70, 249n87 recommendations of, 99–102, 166, 177, 181, 246n54, 247nn64–66, 250nn98–99 Temperance Manual, 37 temperance cafes, 95 temperance conferences, 41–52, 56–57, 61, 162. See also International Congresses on Alcoholism temperance movement, 6, 27–29, 31–61, 66–68, 70–78, 93–103, 135, 143, 161, 168–173, 177, 204 and abolitionism, 60 absolutists in, 66, 97, 102–104, 107, 133, 154–155, 158, 161, 178, 191 and church/clergy, 34–38, 40, 44–46, 52–53, 60, 95, 98, 126, 154, 172 and conservatism, 119, 128–130, 143, 156, 173 decline of, 57–59, 103 and military, 36, 71, 127–128, 138, 155, 170, 173, 183, 196 moderates in, 66, 103–104, 154, 158, 178 and physicians, 94–95, 98, 113, 126–127, 170, 172 and prohibition, 6, 9, 27–29, 39, 44, 56, 68, 75–76, 128, 133, 135, 140–143, 153–154, 161, 173, 187, 204 and radicalism, 127, 133, 143, 157 and socialists, 95, 133, 143, 157

299 and suffragist movement, 41–44, 53, 95 and women, 41–44, 53, 95 See also transnational temperance network temperance press, 45, 53, 94, 100, 136, 156, 157. See also media temperance ships, 37 templars. See Independent Order of Good Templars; International Order of Good Templars textiles, 131, 134 Theen, Rolf H. W., 253n26 Thelen, Kathleen, 217nn16–17, 218n22, 219n33, 240n93 Therborn, Göran, 243n26 Thomann, Gallus, 48, 229n83, 230nn84–85, 233n8 Thompson, Dennis, 275n38 Thompson, Herbert M., 252n18 Thompson, Walter, 88, 241, 241n1, 245n44, 272n109 “three strikes” policy, 210 Thulin, Einar, 250n92 Thunberg, Torsten, 99, 246n52 tidal waves, 19, 63, 189. See also feedback mechanisms, negative Tillman, Benjamin, 234n13 Tilly, Charles, 219n38 Timberlake, James, 236n41 Tinling, Christine I., 266n28 tipping points, 19, 64. See also feedback mechanisms, negative tobacco, 131 Tolstoi, Lev, 169 Tomasson, Richard, 249n81 Tomsk, 133 Toombes, Arthur, 261nn130–131 Toqueville, Alexis de, 37, 224n23, 225n35 trade unions, 33 traders. See merchants Transchel, Kate, 254n38, 259n107, 260n111, 262n147 translation, 13, 29. See also diffusion Transnational Advocacy Networks (TANs), 4, 23–27, 31–34, 39, 47, 95, 148, 176–186, 197–205, 216n5, breadth of, 32, 48, 51, 56, 61, 198, 202 as brokers, 24, 148, 183, 197–199, 202 decline of, 59, 61, 103 definition of, 32–33 density of, 61, 197–198, 202 depth of, 32, 48–50, 56, 60, 197–198, 202 diversification of, 59 epistemic communities and, 24, 33, 148, 178–181, 185, 198–199 familial ties and, 169, 245n41

300 Transnational Advocacy (continued ) influence on policy by, 10, 23–25, 29, 56, 61, 167, 180–185, 197–198, 202–205 information politics and, 33, 46, 54, 61, 176–185, 198, 202–203 life cycles of, 31–34, 39, 59, 61, 177, 205–206 strategies of, 24, 185, 197, 205–206 success of, 59, 197, 205 symbolic politics and, 33, 61 and transmission of ideas, 10, 23–24, 27, 29–32, 43, 46, 53–56, 72, 147–185, 197–198, 205 transnational temperance network, 3, 8–10, 17, 27–61, 94, 97, 143, 146–150, 155, 161–167, 176–186, 197–204, 215n2, 216n5 Anglo‐American axis in, 34–35, 40, 43–45, 48, 54–57, 151 ascendent stage, 10, 27, 32–34, 41–47, 61 church/clergy and, 34–40, 44–47, 52, 54 decline of, 27, 32–34, 48, 57–59, 61, 165 government delegates to, 51–56, 61, 161, 165, 202 incipient stage, 27, 32, 34–41, 61 information politics and, 33, 39–40, 46, 54, 56, 72, 114, 150, 161, 173, 182, 202 influence on policy by, 32, 56, 61, 72, 167, 184–185, 202 mature stage, 27, 32–34, 47–57, 61, 146, 148, 177, 197, 202, 206 professionalization of, 47–48, 52–57 prohibition and, 29, 47, 54, 56, 87, 150, 182, 202–203 religion and, 34–38, 40, 44–47, 52, 54, 95 symbolic politics and, 33 timing of development, 59–60 women in, 41–44, 53, 95 travel/transportation, 35, 46, 60, 77, 131, 132 Treaty of Brest‐Litovsk, 122 Trinidad, 227n57 Troitskii, Sergei N., 273n7 Trotsky, Leon, 134 Trubek, David M., 223n2 Tsebelis, George, 218n24, n27 Turkey, 4, 5, 58 Turnbull, William W., 228n60 Turner, John, 273n9 Twenty First Amendment, 6, 79, 82–83 and speed of ratification, 7, 28, 62, 82, 85, 206 See also repeal

Index Tyrrell, Ian, 36, 53, 225n29, 226nn36, 39, 228nn61, 63, 69, 231nn93–95, 232n110, 263n7 Ukraine, 190 Ulam, Adam B., 132, 258n88 Umeå, 248n76 uncoordinated interdependence, 4 unemployment, 81, 84, 100, 105, 162, 165 Union Signal, 45, 55, 66, 157 Unitarian Church, 37 United States of America, 6–7, 22–23, 27–28, 39, 49–51, 62–87, 89, 137, 145, 159–170, 186–190, 204, 228n64, 246n52 anti‐prohibitionists in, 76–85, 153–157, 167 brewers in, 71–73, 76, 191 distillers in, 73, 76, 191 federal powers of, 71, 74–75, 85, 195–196 foreign influences on, 66–70, 80–81, 150–159, 176–179, 204 foreign views of American alcohol control, 102, 128, 150, 159–165, 168–174, 267n47, 268nn48–53, 269nn60–61 fragmented political structure of, 15, 63, 189 Gothenburg system in, 27, 66–68, 70, 80–81, 107, 151–161 interstate commerce in, 71 IOGT in, 41–42, 66 labor unions in, 76, 191 and nationwide prohibition, 5–7, 11, 27–30, 47–48, 54, 58, 62, 66–82, 107, 118, 154, 169, 188–191, 204 as society‐dominated domestic structure, 11, 16, 18, 24–29, 62–65, 70–71, 83, 86, 105, 126, 154, 158–159, 167, 176–179, 183–185, 189–191, 194, 203–204 state powers of, 71, 74–75, 81, 85, 153–155, 195–196, 204 states as policy laboratories/incubators, 160–163, 169–170, 189, 204 statewide prohibition in, 6, 44, 47, 66, 68, 72, 75, 81–82, 85, 107, 151–155, 160–163, 169–170, 173 strong societal structure of, 16, 63 repeal in, 3, 7, 28–29, 48, 58, 68, 76–87, 154–155, 158–159, 200–201 temperance and, 9, 27, 29–30, 34–48, 52–61, 66–82, 153–154, 167–170, 204 views of Russian alcohol control, 150–151, 155–159

Index views of Swedish alcohol control, 66–70, 80–81, 150–155, 158–159 United States Centennial Exposition (1876), 44 United States Civil War, 41–42, 227n55 United States Congress, 71–73, 77–84, 87, 104, 188–189, 156, 249n89 United States Constitution, 6, 62–63, 74–77, 81–85, 156, 189, 191, 203, 206, 210 United States Department of Energy, 64 United States Department of Labor, 67 United States Revolutionary War, 36 United States Supreme Court, 77 United States War Department, 71 urbanization, 60 Utica, 41 Van Evera, Stephen, 261n133 Vandervelde, Emile, 258n90 Vasselovskii, Vyacheslav, 230n89 Västerbotten län, 248n76 Växjö, 34 Verdandi, 95, 249n79 Vergari, Sandra, 221n59 Vermont, 151 veto players, 14–15, 18–19, 63, 74, 82, 117, 204–205, 218n24, nn26–27. See also institutionalist, rational VHS videocassettes, 17 Vienna, 49–51 Viktorov, Ivan, 260n112 Virginia, 67 Viroubova, Anna, 262n136 vodka, 118, 126–132, 137, 144, 156, 171. See also Russia/USSR, alcohol in void coefficients of reactivity, 190 Volstead, Andrew J., 165, 269n63 Volstead Act, 5–6, 74–75, 77, 79–81, 237n57 veto overridden, 12 Von Laue, Theodore H., 252n7 Voronov, Dmitri N., 261n126, 269n70 Voznyak, Vassili Ya., 273n7 Vserossiiskii trudovoi soyuz khristian trezvennikov (VTSKhT). See All‐Russian Labor Union of Christian Teetotalers Walgrave, Stefaan, 222n71 Wallace, D. MacKenzie, 229n74 Wapner, Paul, 223n2 War of 1812, 36 Warpenius, Kateriina, 248n77 wars. See crises Washington, D.C., 49–51, 55, 246n52 Washington Herald, 83

301 Washingtonian movement, 38, 94 Wavrinsky, Edvard, 94, 232n104, 244n30, 246n53, 247n59, 250n101, 267n47 Weaver, R. Kent, 218n25 Webb‐Kenyon Act, 71, 77 Weber, Max, 20 Weingast, Barry R., 249n89 Weissman, Neil, 260n111 Wells, H. G., 3 Westling, Håkan, 245n45, 248n73 Westin, Gunnar, 243n19 Wheeler, Wayne, 230n86 White Ribbon Society (Vita Bandet), 95, 244n33. See also Sweden, World’s WCTU in Whole World’s Temperance Convention (1853), 43, 228n67–68 Williams, Walter, 208, 275nn34–35, 37 Willis‐Campbell Bill (1921), 78 Wickersham, George, 78 Wickersham Commission. See National Commission on Law Observance and Enforcement (Wickersham Commission) Wieselgren, Peter (Per), 94, 243n21 Wildavsky, Aaron, 219n39 Wilkerson, John D., 240n96, 250n97 Wilks, John, 225n28 Willard, Frances E., 53, 227n54, 253n32, 270n75 Williams, Christopher, 259n103 Willcox, Walter F., 238nn71, 73, 240n87 Wilson, George, 230n86 Wilson, Woodrow, 12, 71, 217n12 wine, 99, 134, 247n66 Wines, Frederick Howard, 234n18, 235nn19–20, 22, 264n16 “winning coalitions” 63, 218n32 Winship, Christopher, 220n57 Winskill, Peter T., 224nn19, 24 Winter Palace, 122, 133, 259n96 Wieselgren, Peter, 34 Wisconsin, 85 Witte, John, 218n19 Witte, Sergei, 120, 127–131, 139, 142, 254nn42, 46, 257n78, 261n127 Wittenmyer, Annie, 44 Woller, Gary, 260n114 Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), 42–45, 53, 58, 66, 156–157, 178, 227n54, 231nn91–92, 232n106 Woman’s International Temperance Convention (1876), 44

302 women, and temperance, 41–44, 52–54, 58–59, 95, 99, 156–157, 165, 167, 178. See also suffragist movement Women’s Central Prohibition Federation (Sweden), 99 Wong, Wendy, 229n80 World League against Alcoholism (WLAA), 42–43, 52–55, 58–59, 165, 167. See also Anti‐Saloon League of America World Prohibition Federation (WPF), 52–55, 58–59, 231n100. See also International Prohibition Confederation World’s Fairs, 43, 46 World’s Temperance Convention (1846), 43, 228n66 World Student Federation against Alcoholism, 52, 230n90 World’s Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (World’s WCTU), 42–44, 46, 52–54, 58–59, 165–167, 231n94. See also Sweden, World’s WCTU in World Temperance Union (proposed), 43 World War I, 3–4, 6, 7–8, 10, 12, 17, 27, 49–51, 55–57, 72, 100, 107, 166, 171, 178, 186, 195–197, 202–203

Index anti‐German sentiment and, 71–72, 84, 112, 189, 192 Russia and, 121–122, 130–133, 140–142, 155, 256n67 Sweden and, 89–91, 100, 107, 116, 162, 192 United States and, 70–71, 74, 140, 162, 192 World War II, 89, 103, 135, 186, 244n34, 260n111 Wotipka, Christine Min, 228n62 Wuorinen, John, 240n89, 251n117 Yale University, 165 Yarros, Victor S., 215n1, 240n84 Ybarra, T. R., 239n72 Yee, Albert S., 220n48 Yugoslavia, 55 Zaigraev, Grigory G., 259n98 Zasurskii, Ya. N., 253n30 Zhukovskii, V. V., 255n57 Zilliacus, Allan, 267n46, 268n51 Zippel, Kathrin S., 272n113 Zurich, 48–51

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