New perspectives on anti-doping policy: from moral panic to moral regulation

Abstract

Understandings of anti-doping policy in sport may benefit from utilizing the perspectives of moral panic and moral regulation. The work of Stan Cohen outlined a model of moral panic, which has since been extended and refined. Its tenets are outlined and then illustrated by a case study of the 'designer drug' mephedrone, which emerged in 2010. More recent ideas about moral regulation are reviewed, with emphasis on how they help contextualize moral panics in a wide process with identifiable characteristics. As a case study, the issue of recreational drugs in general demonstrates the dynamics behind projects of moral regulation. Both perspectives are evaluated and a series of propositions are derived from them to apply to anti-doping policy. The interpretations in two authoritative accounts by Houlihan and Moller indicate a high degree of compatibility with the frameworks of moral regulation and moral panic, which may thus aid future analysis of anti-doping policy.

Understanding the Paths to Appearance- and Performance-Enhancing Drug Use in Bodybuilding

“…Researchers also influence the external identity of bodybuilders and sometimes spread an image of practitioners unaware of the risks. By stressing high prevalence rates, or dramatically exaggerating the consumption of doping products, researchers may contribute to a moral panic (Critcher, 2014). The substantial scientific literature that associates bodybuilding and pathologies may justify the research and its funding, but it also demonizes the bodybuilding drug subculture.…”

Moral panic, moral regulation, and the civilizing process

“…Hier, Walby, Lett, and Smith () subsequently demonstrated how attempts to ban hooded tops from public locations in Britain derived from perceived breakdowns in the regulatory power of the Anti‐Social Behavior Act as a state mechanism of moral regulation. Lundström () applied the framework to claims about benefit fraud in Sweden, Siltaoja () to unethical business practices in Finland, Critcher () to anti‐doping policies in sport, Carlson () to radically motivated police violence and Smoczynski and Fitzgerald () to polish migrants in the UK. The merits of the model have also been examined in a critical exchange between Critcher () and Hier (), as well as in the works of Hunt (), Best (2011), and Rohloff and Wright ().…”

The Cultural Politics of Contemporary Moral Panic Studies: Reflections on a Changing Research Agenda

“…On the one hand, a group of sociologists has endorsed the conceptual argument that moral panics represent short-term expressions of longer-term moral regulation processes [e.g. Siltaoja 2013;Critcher 2013;Lundtröm 2011;Rohloff 2008Rohloff , 2011aRohloff , 2011bRohloff , 2012. In this way, moral regulation and other social, political, and economic processes that span beyond the temporal parameters of moral panic episodes have become an important explanatory foundation for the sociology of moral panic.…”