This article analyzes recent developments in Danish alcohol
policy, culture, and industry. It reveals cross-sector dynamics and
complexities that are often downplayed in existing literature. It
traces how a stable “structural configuration” emerged in the
1960s-1980s between the three domains, based on liberalization.
A particular adolescent alcohol culture of intoxication, however,
emerged in the 1990s, raising public awareness and calls for
policy intervention. Contrary to what may have been expected,
this did not represent a break with the liberal alcohol configuration
in policy, culture, and industry, but an increased segregation of
adolescent consumption from adult consumption, exposing the
former to severe legal and moral regulation. This analysis of
historic-structural dynamics helps explain why adolescent drinking
is dependent on more than isolated causal links such as between
policy events and consumption.