The Fight Against Big Tobacco: The Movement, the State, and the Public's Health

Front Cover
Transaction Publishers - 273 pages
Tobacco control leaders were extremely proud of the movement's achievements in the state of Minnesota. In sharing their perspectives and experiences with Mark Wolfson, they found a way of making sure that the story would get told. His training in social movements had given him an appreciation of the importance of understanding the social infrastructure on which movements are built, and Minnesota had built heavily on the infrastructure of health care and public health. What became apparent is that the struggle against the tobacco industry in Minnesota involved a close, collaborative relationship between government (or "state") actors and the leaders of the tobacco control movement.

Wolfson develops both of these themes: building on the infrastructure of health, and state-movement interpenetration, to understand the emergence, growth, and outcomes of the tobacco control movement in Minnesota. He focuses on the advantages and constraints associated with these two related themes. He goes beyond the case study method to assess the generalizability of the pattern, and whether the same sort of movement can be used by other states in North America, and even in other countries and their social movements.

How has the tobacco control movement become such a significant and successful force in shaping public policy, social norms, and the habits of millions of Americans? In this first such detailed study by a sociologist, Wolfson documents how the movement has grown over nearly three decades by building an infrastructure of health organizations and health professionals, and by fostering relationships with government. Rich in survey data, extensive interviews, and archival sources, this text is essential reading for courses in social problems, social movements, and public health. The general reader will also find it engaging, given the issues of tobacco use as an addiction and a social problem.

Mark Wolfson is associate professor and director for community Research, Department of Public Health Science, Wake Forest University School of Medicine. His research has been funded by both governmental and private research grants.
 

Contents

Social Movement Theory and Tobacco Control
3
Tobacco Use and Tobacco Control in the United States
21
The SingleIssue Groups 1
47
The SingleIssue Groups 2
71
The Health Voluntaries
85
The Health Professionals and Health Care Organizations
103
The State
123
The Opposition
151
Arenas of Contention
161
Conclusion
181
References
225
Index
263
Copyright

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page xiii - The method of nature: who could ever analyze it? That rushing stream will not stop to be observed. We can never surprise nature in a corner; never find the end of a thread; never tell where to set the first stone. The bird hastens to lay her egg: the egg hastens to be a bird. The wholeness we admire in the order of the world is the result of infinite distribution. Its smoothness is the smoothness of the pitch of the cataract. Its permanence is a perpetual inchoation.
Page iv - Holstein (editors), Constructionist Controversies: Issues in Social Problems Theory Philip Jenkins, Intimate Enemies: Moral Panics in Contemporary Great Britain Philip Jenkins, Using Murder: The Social Construction of Serial Homicide Valerie Jenness, Making It Work: The Prostitutes...
Page 5 - ... the stability or instability of that broad set of elite alignments that typically undergird a polity...
Page 236 - Fleming, DW, Cochi, SL, Hightower, AW, Broome, CV Childhood upper respiratory tract infections: To what degree is incidence affected by day-care attendance?
Page 241 - Institute, a joint program of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School (UMDNJ-RWJMS) and of Rutgers University.

Bibliographic information