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The Politics of Alcohol in Late Socialist Romania and Czechoslovakia

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The Politics of Alcohol in Late Socialist Romania and Czechoslovakia The politics of alcohol in late socialist Romania and Czechoslovakia Esther Wahlen Thesis submitted for assessment with a view to obtaining the degree of Doctor of History and Civilization of the European University Institute Florence, 23 January 2017 European University Institute Department of History and Civilization The politics of alcohol in late socialist Romania and Czechoslovakia Esther Wahlen Thesis submitted for assessment with a view to obtaining the degree of Doctor of History and Civilization of the European University Institute Examining Board Pavel Kolář, European University Institute Alexander Etkind, European University Institute Ulf Brunnbauer, Universität Regensburg Marius Turda, Oxford Brookes University © Esther Wahlen, 2016 No part of this thesis may be copied, reproduced or transmitted without prior permission of the author Researcher declaration to accompany the submission of written work Department of History and Civilization - Doctoral Programme I Esther Wahlen certify that I am the author of the work "The politics of alcohol in late socialist Romania and Czechoslovakia" I have presented for examination for the Ph.D. at the European University Institute. I also certify that this is solely my own original work, other than where I have clearly indicated, in this declaration and in the thesis, that it is the work of others. I warrant that I have obtained all the permissions required for using any material from other copyrighted publications. I certify that this work complies with the Code of Ethics in Academic Research issued by the European University Institute (IUE 332/2/10 (CA 297). The copyright of this work rests with its author. Quotation from it is permitted, provided that full acknowledgement is made. This work may not be reproduced without my prior written consent. This authorisation does not, to the best of my knowledge, infringe the rights of any third party. I declare that this work consists of 73,276 words. Statement of language correction: This thesis has been corrected for linguistic and stylistic errors. I certify that I have checked and approved all language corrections, and that these have not affected the content of this work. Signature and date: Berlin, 20 December 2016 For my parents Abstract This thesis examines the politics of alcohol in Eastern bloc states in the 1970s and 1980s. In this period, socialist governments ceased describing alcohol problems as a symptom of exploitation or as the result of a lack of socialist consciousness. Instead, they developed short-term methods to tackle the consequences of drinking, such as hospital treatment for alcoholics and counseling services for their family members. The thesis revolves around the question of why socialist states embarked on this pragmatic approach to social problems. The politics of alcohol serves as a lens through which I study how socialist states rear- ranged their ideas about state responsibility and good social order in the 1970s and 1980s. In five chapters, I reconstruct the new categories of social organization that arose in that period. Analyzing consumption politics, treatment programs for alcoholics, debates about family problems, and new safety precautions in Romania and Czechoslovakia, I show how in each of these fields, central governmental institutions delegated the responsibility for coping with alcohol problems to smaller social units: to scientific experts, to the institution of the family, and to the individual. I argue that by reassigning state responsibility, socialist governments did not retreat from authority. On the contrary, they strove to rearrange governing rationali- ties and thereby adapt socialist states to post-industrial realities. Table of contents Abstract .......................................................................................... i Table of contents ........................................................................... ii Acknowledgements ....................................................................... iv Abbreviations ............................................................................... vi Introduction ................................................................................... 1 Alcohol and the socialist state ....................................................................................... 2 The normality of socialist statehood ............................................................................. 5 The 1970s: crisis or reconstruction? .............................................................................. 9 Governing in late socialism .......................................................................................... 13 Sources and chapter outline ........................................................................................ 15 1: The politics of alcohol in modern Europe .................................. 19 Alcohol politics in the context of nation-building ....................................................... 20 Raising the 'alcohol question' ...................................................................................... 22 Alcohol, eugenics, and fascism .................................................................................... 28 Alcohol politics after the Second World War ............................................................. 31 Alcohol problems in the first postwar decade ............................................................. 32 Alcohol politics after 1956 ........................................................................................... 39 Actually existing alcohol problems .............................................................................. 44 Concluding remarks .................................................................................................. 51 2: Responsible consumption ......................................................... 53 Creating a civilized drinking culture ........................................................................... 55 Minimum standards for postwar Europe .................................................................... 56 Appropriate and inappropriate drinking in late socialism ........................................... 62 Creating the responsible consumer ........................................................................... 65 Romania’s program for rational alimentation ............................................................. 66 “Judge for yourself and decide” .................................................................................. 71 Toxikomania and the boundaries of self-control ......................................................... 76 Concluding remarks .................................................................................................. 83 ii 3: Alcohol problems as a pathological condition ........................... 87 The success of the disease theory in late modern Europe .......................................... 89 Women into alcoholics ................................................................................................ 95 The complex psyche of the addict ............................................................................... 99 Psychological or structural? Competing theories of alcoholism ................................ 105 Romania’s reluctant pathologization ......................................................................... 107 “Not reducible to a problem of individual psychology” ............................................ 111 The experts take over ................................................................................................ 115 Concluding remarks ................................................................................................ 118 4: Alcohol: a family affair? .......................................................... 123 Family problems in state socialism .......................................................................... 125 Late socialism and the crisis of the family ................................................................. 128 Masculine failure and female patience ..................................................................... 131 Intervention and its absence ................................................................................... 137 The right to be protected ........................................................................................... 138 Discrete and professional: new forms of intervention .............................................. 143 Wavering Winnifred and other neurotic wives ......................................................... 149 Concluding remarks ................................................................................................ 154 5: Alcohol as a question of risk management .............................. 159 The human factor ................................................................................................... 161 The concept of risk in late socialist traffic debates ................................................... 164 Why alcohol?.............................................................................................................. 170 Instilling responsibility in the 1980s ........................................................................ 174 Permanent control in Romanian workplaces ............................................................ 175 Objective, independent, and in the workers’ own interest....................................... 179 “We are not a society of
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