Spirit of the Hawk: Colonial intensity and alcohol use disorders across 178 countries

Qualitative research links colonial history to alcohol-related harms in specific populations, and econometric studies show that colonial institutions shape long-run health trajectories, yet no study has connected these literatures by testing whether colonial intensity predicts national-level alcohol outcomes in a spatially explicit panel framework. We construct a colonial intensity composite (the duration of colonial rule weighted by colony type-extractive versus settler) from COLDAT 3.0 and estimate panel Spatial Durbin Models on 178 countries over 21 years (2000-2020), using geographic contiguity and shared-colonizer spatial weights across four WHO alcohol outcomes. Colonial intensity shows a significant positive direct association with alcohol use disorder (AUD) prevalence across all eight specifications (0.065-0.238 percentage points per unit), accompanied by negative spillover effects (associations transmitted to geographically neighbouring or co-colonized countries). The AUD association emerges only after controlling for cultural confounders (suppression effect) and shows no temporal decay, while consumption effects weaken over time-a pattern consistent with intergenerational trauma persistence. Effects concentrate in British colonies. Standard alcohol policies reduce consumption but not AUD, suggesting regulatory tools alone cannot close the colonial legacy gap in disorder prevalence. These findings provide the first large-scale quantitative evidence linking colonial intensity to contemporary AUD.