Book Review: The Ashgate Research Companion to Moral Panics
| Author | Vickie Cooper |
| Published date | 01 April 2014 |
| Date | 01 April 2014 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/1473225413520364b |
| Subject Matter | Book Reviews |
Book Reviews 103
includes the need to facilitate cooperation between various stakeholders and the promo-
tion of youth involvement in the policy making process. The fourth chapter is devoted to
outlining the main institutions and organizations dealing with youth policy, while the fifth
analyses how the lives of young people are affected by youth policy. Chapter 6 draws
attention to overall integration of youth policy, inter-sectoral cooperation and youth net-
work coordination and highlights how the associated ministries make strategic plans and
how research is conducted. Finally, the book focuses on practical proposals for the key
stakeholders and organizations involved in youth policy, both to enhance current practice
and to eliminate weaknesses. Overall, Estonian youth policy provides an interesting
example of an approach that combines the integration of EU frameworks for youth poli-
cies (the protective model) with several traditions of Soviet youth work (the centralized
model); highlighting that ‘youth policy in Estonia is still in a transition period’ (p. 55) (the
transitional model).
There are, of course, issues within the book that would benefit from some further
exploration. For example, while the report emphasizes the importance of the idea of
‘youth as a resource’ within Estonian youth strategy, it lacks a deep explanation and anal-
ysis of why policy and practice are predominantly driven by the ‘youth as a problem’
approach. A greater diversity of expert views on Estonian youth policy would also have
proved welcome, as would more detailed explanation and analysis of the mechanisms,
other than state funding, in place for supporting youth policy, particularly that provided by
local governments and European Union structural funds. Furthermore in comparing the
Estonian approach with reports from other countries, one minor weaknesses is the lack of
illustrative material in the form of charts, tables and statistics.
Overall, the book provides an interesting and accessible overview of Estonian youth
policy and is likely to prove of interest to lawyers, youth workers and students. It also
provides an important overview of new methods and techniques to study young people
and youth policy that will be of particular interest to researchers in the field of youth stud-
ies and youth policy.
Reference
The Council of the European Union (2009) A Renewed Framework for Cooperation in the Youth Field
(2010-2018), Official Journal of the European Union, C11/11. Available at: http://eur-lex.europa.eu/
LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:C:2009:311:0001:0011:EN:PDF
Krinsky C (ed.) The Ashgate Research Companion to Moral Panics, Ashgate,
Burlington and Farnham, 2013, £90.00 Pb, ISBN 978-1-4094-0811-6.
Reviewed by: Vickie Cooper, School of Humanities and Social Science, Liverpool John
Moores University, UK.
Charles Krinsky has brought together 23 chapters, organized across six thematic sections,
to address various historic, contemporary, theoretical and empirical contributions to the
study of Moral Panics. As such, this edited collection is a salutary reminder of the influ-
ence of Stanley Cohen’s Folk Devils and Moral Panics and its relevance to scholars
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