ingredients for good health policy-making: incorporating power and politics into the mix

Ingredients for Good Health Policy-Making: Incorporating Power and Politics into the Mix

The Politics and Analytics of Health Policy

Let us start with an example of health policy analysis in action. Within that category of countries loosely known as ‘the West’, quite basic differences exist in attitudes to health policy and also actual health policy. Comparing the US with mainland Europe and indeed Canada, for example, one perceives a difference in attitude on the part of the majority towards collectivism and individualism i...

Sharpening the Health Policy Analytical Rapier; Comment on “The Politics and Analytics of Health Policy”

This commentary on the Editorial ‘The politics and analytics of health policy’ by Professor Calum Paton focuses on two issues. First, it points to the unclear links between ideas, ideology, values, and discourse and policy, and warns that discourse is often a poor guide to enacted policy. Second, it suggests that realism, particularly ‘programme theory’ are useful tools for health policy analys...

Power and Politics in the Global Health Landscape: Beliefs, Competition and Negotiation Among Global Advocacy Coalitions in the Policy-Making Process

Background Advocacy coalitions play an increasingly prominent role within the global health landscape, linking actors and institutions to attract political attention and resources. This paper examines how coalitions negotiate among themselves and exercise hidden forms of power to produce policy on the basis of their beliefs and strategic interests.   Methods This paper examines the beliefs and ...

The Politics of Researching Global Health Politics; Comment on “Knowledge, Moral Claims and the Exercise of Power in Global Health”

In this comment, I build on Shiffman’s call for the global health community to more deeply investigate structural and productive power. I highlight two challenges we must grapple with as social scientists carrying out the types of investigation that Shiffman proposes: the politics of  challenging the powerful; and the need to investigate types of expertise that have traditionally been thought o...

the politics and analytics of health policy

let us start with an example of health policy analysis in action. within that category of countries loosely known as ‘the west’, quite basic differences exist in attitudes to health policy and also actual health policy. comparing the us with mainland europe and indeed canada, for example, one perceives a difference in attitude on the part of the majority towards collectivism and individualism i...