Strategic Knowledge Production and Cherry Picking: A Century of Alcohol Policy

• In Event: Interruptions and Facilitations: Moving Knowledge between Different Contexts

Abstract

Swedish alcohol policy has been investigated and debated with some intensity over the past 100 years. The problem description has been linked to overall societal issues and has thus come to address many fields of knowledge and different ideological positions. Attempts to understand the development in this area by, for example, characterizing the driving forces as (transnational) advocacy networks or epistemic communities (Schrad 2010) have proven to have a limited explanatory value within a field where behind the commitments to drive evidence-based policy we often find cherry picking or even policy-based evidence.
With examples from 100 years of alcohol policy development, this paper discusses the political form of knowledge. The role of research as a strategic resource is analyzed as part of knowledge usage that also includes knowledge of, for example, popular opinion and political strategies.

Author

• Johan Edman, Department of Criminology