Tobacco control in the EU-15: the role of member states and the European Union

Abstract

Various explanations have been advanced for the adoption of increasingly restrictive tobacco control policies in Western democracies, usually based on an examination of individual instruments. Some of the more popular explanations are socioeconomic modernization, interest group politics, political institutions, government ideology and vertical diffusion from the European Union (EU). This paper uses statistical models to test explanations of tobacco control policy across 15 EU member states adopting instruments of Comprehensive Tobacco Control Policy (CPTC) over two decades. Socioeconomic modernization, economic interest groups and domestic political factors all play a role in policy. Although there is declining influence of pro-tobacco domestic constituencies, adoption of CPTC is still inhibited by corporatist practices in member states. Vertical policy diffusion through the EU has aided domestic sources of policy adoption, making tobacco control policy one of multi-level governance and enhancing its comprehensiveness.

Keywords:

• convergence
• diffusion
• European Union
• multi-level governance
• tobacco control policy
• Western Europe

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Previous versions were presented at American Political Science Association, Boston, MA, 27–31 August 2008; Rocky Mountain European Studies Conference, Tucson, AZ, 10–12 October 2008; and Department of Government, University of Strathclyde, 10 May 2010. We thank the JEPP referees for their helpful comments.

Notes

Voluntary agreements were present historically in a few cases, notably in the UK.

The correlation between taxation and comprehensive tobacco control policy is 0.42, indicating a weak positive relationship. This also indicates a degree of separation between applications of taxation for revenue purposes and the adoption of a range of comprehensive policies to curtail smoking.