University of Helsinki
As of the beginning of this year the CEACG became a research unit at the Faculty of Social Sciences. The research unit has names in both official languages in Finland. In Finnish: Riippuvuuksien, yhteiskunnallisen sääntelyn ja hallinnan tutkimuskeskus (CEACG), and in Swedish: Center för forskning i beroenden, kontroll och styrning (CEACG) The shortening is pronounced [SE-AGG].
There has, however, been little time to celebrate, due to an ongoing intense focus group interview data collection phase of the PUBFUNC-study. A total of 19 groups and 110 participants are expected to have participated in the study by the end of January 2018 when the material gathering is ending.
This is the first time that a Finnish study inquires into people’s views on the gambling policy system and its consequences in this scale. Researchers Anna Alanko and Michael Egerer have carried the main responsibility for the recruitment and execution of the interviews.
Brain-based addiction
In December 2017 the Centre received a positive funding intention for the ERA-NET project “Addiction in the Brain: Ethically Sound Implementation in Governance” (A-BRAIN), which aims at formulating sustainable and ethically sound ways for implementing neuroscientific knowledge and ideas surrounding addiction, commonly referred to as the Brain Disease Model of Addiction (BDMA).
The point of departure for this international consortium project lies in the idea that if the BDMA is to be integrated in governance in a meaningful, ethically solid and efficient way there is a need to identify the apparatus of ideas and visions that such a governmentality allows for and strives towards.
The main objective of the A BRAIN project is achieved with the help of empirical inquiries into conceptualizations of the BDMA in different settings and among different stakeholders: the media, scientists and experts, prevention programmes, and among staff and clients in treatment. The goal is to accomplish a formulation of principles whereby knowledge and notions of the BDMA can best serve jurisdictions’ overall aims, mandates and purposes.
Other partners in the consortium are Leibniz Institute for Prevention Research and Epidemiology (BIPS) the Toronto-based Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH); and Centre Hospitalier de l’Université de Montréal (FRQS) The CEACG holds the lead in the consortium (PI: Matilda Hellman) .
New projects
The Finnish Foundation for Alcohol Studies (ATS) announced in December 2017 that they have granted funding for three CEACG-projects:
Sebastien Berret: The evolution of European Gambling industry since 1990 through the notion of Responsible Gambling and Problem Gambling. A qualitative analysis of Gambling in France, Finland and Hungary since 1990
Virve Marionneau: Best practice policies in the regulation of online gambling: A comparative study of European gambling regimes
Janne Nikkinen: The political economy of gambling – Developing models for comparison
Each of these projects continue CEACG’s approach to gambling regulation as a societal question that actualizes certain, often contradicting, principles at the heart of the tasks and accountability of the (welfare) state. These vary between cultures and welfare state systems. Studying the differences between systems exposes their main logics (and the implications of the same).
New book
In the pamphlet book “Promoting Vices: An introduction to research on the advertising of coercive products”, Matilda Hellman discusses how marketing of coercive has been studied in the past and new challenges for this type of research. Examples and employed from research on alcohol, tobacco, sugary foods, and gambling, can be downloaded here.