IPSA RC 25 - Comparative Health Policy

The provisional program-schedule of the 22^nd World Congress is on-line but here is a summary of the five panels organized by RC25 – followed by information on another panel organized by SG19.

8 July (Sunday) 15.00-16.45

Policy Analysis, Health Politics and Policy Change: Values, Ideas and Policies

(Chair: Theodore Marmor; Co-chair & Discussant: Shelby Hockenberry; Discussant: Pieter Fourie)

SCHOOL OF PHARMACY / FACULTAD DE FARMACIA - Classroom 223

·         Reforms and New Public Management in the French Healthcare System (Monika Steffen)

·         Cross-border Perceptions of US and Canadian Health Care Systems (François Petry; Nadeau Richard; Éric Bélanger)

·         Divided and Universal: Gradual Changes in Japanese Health Insurance (Ryozo Matsuda)

·         Fertilize This: Comparing Decision-making Processes in the Regulation of Infertility Treatments Provision in Canada and Britain (Audrey L’Espérance)

·         Pay for Performance: Physician’s Involvement in P4P System Design (Christiaan Lako; Pauline Rosenau)

·         Politics and Policy Analysis: The Field of “Collective Health” in Brazil (Jeni Vaitsman; José Mendes Ribeiro; Lenaura Lobato)

9 July (Monday) 09.00-10.45 

Comparative Health Policy: Foundations, Foibles and Futures

(Chair: James Björkman; Discussant: Christa Altenstetter)

SCHOOL OF JOURNALISM / FACULTAD DE CIENCAS DE LA INFORMACION - Classroom 8   

·         Abortion in Western European Health Systems (Deborah McFarlane, Dominika Ornatowska)

·         "Consumer-driven Health Care" in Switzerland and The Netherlands: Much Discussed, but Much Misunderstood (Kieke Okma)

·         Critique of Basic Universalism: Guidelines for Comparative Research between Chile and Argentina (Paula Ferro Ariella; Marisol Mancini)

·         Federalism and Social Justice in Health Financing and Provision in Brazil (Nilson Costa)

·         Marketization of Public Health Services? Comparing Public Hospital Service Policies in Germany and France via their Instrumentation (Renate Reiter)

·         The Promises and Pitfalls of Comparative Policy Studies in Health Care (Theodore Marmor)

9 July (Monday) 11.00-12.45

Policy Analysis, Health Politics & Policy Change: Arguments, Evidence and Policies

(Chair: Monika Steffen; Co-chair: Jeni Vaitsman; Discussants: Iris Geva-May; Lenaura Lobato)

SCHOOL OF JOURNALISM / FACULTAD DE CIENCAS DE LA INFORMACION - Classroom 8

·          Coalitions of Policy Change in Health Care and Public Health (Dorte Hering)

·         Constructing Knowledge on Hospital Activity in France: A Co-production of State and Academia (Renaud Gay)

·         Health Policy and Health Reform in Russia: Problem Solving or Problem Making? (Tatiana Chubarova; Natalia Grigorieva)

·         Hygiene Inspection Disclosure System as an Instrument to Improve Public Health (Anne Lévy; Markus Gmür)

·         Introducing Economic and Managerial Knowledge within Health Policy instruments: France, England and Germany (Magali Robelet; Patrick Hassenteufel; Daniel Benamouzig)

·         The Role of Evidence in HIV Policy in Switzerland: A Success Story? (Kathrin Frey)

9 July (Monday) 13.00-14.45

The Changing Architecture of Global Health Governance

(Chair: Pieter Fourie; Co-chair: Pauline Rosenau; Discussant: Kieke Okma)

SCHOOL OF JOURNALISM / FACULTAD DE CIENCAS DE LA INFORMACION - Classroom 8  

·         Global Health Governance and the African Postcolonial State (Ricardo Pereira)

·         Global Health Regimes in Promoting Policy Transfer: The Role of the WHO and Private Actors in the Diffusion of E-health Policies (Achim Lang)

·         Regulatory Policy of Medical Technology. Demystifying the Role of the FDA, 1976-2011 (Christa Altenstetter)

·         The Emergence of Surge Capacities in Pandemics: A Comparative Epidemic Policy Analysis from SARS to H1N1 in Taiwan and Singapore (Allen Lai)

·         The Impact of Economic Uncertainty and Grant Mismanagement on the Role of Public-Private Partnerships in Addressing Global Health Policy: The Global Fund in Times of Change (Shelby Hockenberry)

·         The Politics of Pre-Empting Poor Pharmaceutical Patents: Brazil, India, and Beyond (Kenneth Shadlen)

9 July (Monday) 15.00-16.45

Patient Empowerment and Democratic Policy: Political Challenges and Theoretical Issues (co-sponsored by RC25 & RC32)

(Chair: Fabrizio Cantelli; Co-chair: James Björkman; Discussant: Naonori Kodate)

SCHOOL OF JOURNALISM / FACULTAD DE CIENCAS DE LA INFORMACION - Classroom 12

·         Broadening the Patient Safety Discourse: Theorizing Patient and Public Involvement as Empowerment (Josephine Ocloo)

·         Consumer Empowerment in U.S. Federal Government Health Sector Organizations (Pauline Rosenau, Christina Daw; David Buck)

·         Is Empowerment Possible in Professional Practice? (Per-Anders Tengland)

·         Perceived Ethnicity: Reversing the Patient-Provider Relationship (Dorothée Prud'homme)

·         Reforming the Welfare State in the Age of Financial Crises: How Personalization of Social Care is Quietly Revolutionizing Welfare Provision (Barry Macleod-Cullinane)

·         Towards a Politics of Vitality: New Ways to Understand Patients’ Activism (Jorge Castillo Sepúlveda; Patricia Núñez; Francisco Tirado)

ADDITIONAL PANEL FROM RESEARCH COMMITTEE 19 ON GENDER POLITICS & POLICY

12 July (Thursday) 11.00-12.45

Comparative Health Politics and Policy (Chair: Patrick Hassenteufel)

SCHOOL OF JOURNALISM / FACULTAD DE CIENCAS DE LA INFORMACION - Classroom 13

·         A Fresh Look at Health Legacy Foundations: Philanthropy, Public Policy and Hospital Conversions in the Aftermath of the ACA (Sabrina Niggel; William Brandon)

·         Health Care Governance in Federal Systems: Can Europe's Experimental Governance Models Work in Canada? (Katherine Fierlbeck)

·         Introducing Economic and Managerial Knowledge within Health Policy Instruments: A Comparison between France, England & Germany (Patrick Hassenteufel) – NB: identical title in RC25 panel on 9 July at 11.00

·         Japan’s Healthcare Reform from a Comparative Perspective (Toshiyuki Nishikawa)

·         The Effects of Contracts on Health Policy: The Case of Primary Health Care in Spain (Rosario Morillo Balado)

Note: the author of this panel’s second paper – Katherine Fierlbeck, Professor at Canada’s Dalhousie University – is an RC25 member and last year published Health Care in Canada: A Citizen’s Guide to Policy and Politics (University of Toronto Press, 2011), ISBN 9781442609839. Its blurb notes that the book examines the pressures faced by the Canadian health care system [and] explores how health care decisions are shaped by politics and why there is so much disagreement over how to fix the system.

The deadline for nominations for RC25 officers has been postponed from 31 March to 30 April – at the request of IPSA HQ in Montreal because the relevant issue of PARTICIPATION had been delayed.

Please send your nominations to Professor Olivier Nay (o.nay@free.fr) who agreed to serve as Returning Officer.

Remember that the three positions to be filled for a three-year term (2012-2015) are a new RC chair and two RC vice-chairs.

RC25 Panels at IPSA’s 22^nd World Congress of Political Science

Madrid, Spain (8-12 July 2012)

Comparative Health Policy: Foundations, Foibles and Futures

Chair:               James Björkman (The Netherlands)

Discussant:       Christa Altenstetter (USA)

Synopsis: Comparison is a method rather than substance per se so every topic in health policy can be subsumed within the rubric of comparative enquiry. Comparison examines similarities and differences in the objects or subjects being investigated. When the latter have few or no differences among them, they are expected to act in a predictable way. When things differ greatly, then their behavior cannot be predicted because each set of objects or subjects is unique and incapable of generalization. Comparison is “a discovery of those relations, either constant or inconstant, which two or more objects bear to each other” (David Hume 1985:121). For a quarter-century IPSA’s Research Committee 25 has engaged in comparative analyses of health policies, yet there is a substantial gap between promise and performance. Unwarranted inferences, rhetorical distortion, and caricatures often appear in comparative health policy scholarship and debates. The purpose of this panel is to explore methodological questions raised by these weaknesses in international comparisons of health policy.

Ø      The Promises and Pitfalls of Comparative Policy Studies in Health Care, Theodore Marmor (United States)

Ø      Critique of Basic Universalism: Guidelines for Comparative Research between Chile and Argentina, Paula Ferro Ariella (Argentina)

Ø      Abortion in Western European Health Systems, Deborah McFarlane (United States)

Ø      Federalism and Social Justice in Health Financing and Provision in Brazil, Nilson Costa (Brazil)

Ø      ‘Consumer-driven Health Care’ in Switzerland and The Netherlands: Much Discussed but Much Misunderstood, Kieke Okma (United States)

Ø       ‘Marketization’ of Public Health Services? Comparing PublicHospital Service Policies in Germany and France, Renate Reiter (Germany)

Patient Empowerment and Democratic Policy: Political Challenges and Theoretical Issues (co-sponsored with RC32 on Comparative Public Policy and the Public Policy Group of the Belgian Political Science Association)

Chair:               Fabrizio Cantelli (Belgium)

Co-chair:          James Björkman (The Netherlands)

Discussant:       Naonori Kodate (United Kingdom)

Synopsis: There is an inherent tension between the democratic value of equality and the evidence of inequality in practice – for example, in the workplace and the family. The late 20^th century has seen significant mobilization of state authority to redress some of this inequality, but medical treatment remains a problematic area because the doctor/ patient relationship is inherently unequal – even if a patient hires the services of a doctor. Hospital patients are regarded as having little knowledge of their needs and even less capacity to determine what will happen to them. This situation is being challenged by paradigm shifts in health care. One is the spread of discourses of participation and empowerment in governing. Another is the rationalization of medical care, the codification of what was formerly the personal exercise of professional skills, involving changes in the power relations within the hospital. There is also increasing stress on health as the management of the self rather than the professional provision of curative services, as well as recognition that long-term conditions like diabetes require a care regime with the active involvement (not just compliance) of the patient and his/her support team.

Ø      Broadening the Patient Safety Discourse: Theorizing Patient and Public Involvement as Empowerment, Josephine Ocloo (United Kingdom)

Ø      Empowerment through Choice? How a Social Movement Challenging Professional Dominance Embraced Market-type Mechanisms to Achieve Collective Empowerment, Timothy Tenbensel (New Zealand)

Ø      Is Empowerment Possible in Professional Practice? Per-Anders Tengland (Sweden)

Ø      Patient Empowerment in the US Health Sector, Pauline Rosenau, Christina Daw and David Buck (United States)

Ø      Perceived Ethnicity: Reversing the Patient-Provider Relationship, Dorothée Prud’homme (France)

Ø      Towards a Politics of Vitality: New Ways to Understand Patients’ Activism, Jorge Castillo Sepúlveda, Patricia Núñez and Francisco Tirado (Spain)

Policy Analysis, Health Politics and Policy Change: Values, Ideas and Policies

Chair:               Theodore Marmor (United States)

Discussant:       Shelby Hockenberry (United States)

Synopsis: Policy analysis focuses on how public policies are ‘informed’ and how the information process impacts on policy content. Policy analysis therefore comprehends a wide range of studies, including the impact of academic research and other kinds of knowledge and information produced by different actors, in different conditions, in governmental as well as non-governmental sectors, many of them searching to influence the policy process. This influence may range from political and technical arguments added to policy debates to the provision of information to be used by policymakers in their decisions.

Ø      Reforms and New Public Management in the French Health Care System, Monika Steffen (France)

Ø      Co-evolution of Public Health and Health Care, Philipp Trein (Switzerland)

Ø      Cross-border Perceptions of US and Canadian Health Care Systems, François Petry (Canada)

Ø      Divided and Universal: Gradual Changes in Japanese Health Insurance, Ryozo Matsuda (Japan)

Ø      Pay for Performance: Physicians’ Involvement in P4P System Design, Christiaan Lako (The Netherlands)

Ø      Politics and Policy Analysis: The Field of ‘Collective Health’ in Brazil, Jeni Vaitsman (Brazil)

Policy Analysis, Health Politics and Policy Change: Arguments, Evidence and Policies

Chair:               Monika Steffen (France)

Co-chair:          Jeni Vaitsman (Brazil)

Discussants:      Iris Geva-May (Canada); Lenaura Lobato (Brazil)

Synopsis: This panel aims at introducing policy analysis in the health policy field. It will address the capacity of different actors or organizations such as academics, social movements, advocacy groups, governmental or non-governmental organizations, etc, to influence health policy processes by the production of basic, relevant or strategic information. Papers approach different aspects of this theme: the political, institutional, normative and cultural constraints on health policy analysis under which different actors and agencies operate when producing policy-oriented information as well as their impact and effects on policies and policy change; the social and political constraints framing health policy analysis in different national contexts; the specific conditions that promote or hinder the transfer of knowledge towards policies and decision-making in the health field.

Ø      Coalition of Policy Change in Health Care and Public Health, Dorte Hering (Switzerland)

Ø      Constructing Knowledge on Hospital Activity in France: A Co-production of State and Academia, Renaud Gay (France)

Ø      Health Policy and Health Reform in Russia: Problem-solving or Problem-making? Tatiana Chubarova (Russia)

Ø      Hygiene Inspection Disclosure System as an Instrument to Improve Public Health, Anne Lévy (

Ø      Introducing Economic and Managerial Knowledge within Health Policy Instruments: France, England and Germany, Magali Robelet (France)

Ø      The Role of Evidence in HIV Policy in Switzerland: A Success Story? Kathrin Frey (Switzerland)

The Changing Architecture of Global Health Governance

Chair:               Pieter Fourie (South Africa)

Co-chair:          Pauline Rosenau (United States)

Discussant:       Kieke Okma (United States)

Synopsis: The pendulum of global health governance is swinging rapidly. In the realm of ideas, the move rom the post-World War II biomedical governance model to the socio-behavioral model seemed to conclude with the 1972 Alma Ata Declaration. However, medical triumphalism is making a dramatic comeback. During the past decade, global health governance has come to refer to mechanisms of surveillance in terms of the post-9/11 securitization fad as well as the institutions established transnationally. The Paris Declaration (2005) framework on global development aid was intended to create a global health governance architecture that would be democratic, consultative and in tune with the health governance realities of developing countries. However, this aspiration has derailed as donors in the global north shift their priorities. Even funding and governance architecture for the AIDS pandemic (the ‘donor darling’ of recent years) has become unattractive. Given the flux in global health governance, this panel features papers that address, describe and explain tensions that shape and determine governance modalities.

Ø      Global Health Governance and the African Postcolonial State, Ricardo Pereira (Portugal)

Ø      Global Health Régimes in Promoting Policy Transfer: The Role of the WHO and Private Actors in the Diffusion of e-Health Policies, Achim Lang (Germany)

Ø      Regulatory Policy of Medical Technology: Demystifying the Role of the FDA, 1976-2011, Christa Altenstetter (United States)

Ø      The Emergence of Surge Capacities in Pandemics: A Comparative Epidemic Policy Analysis from SARS to H1N1 in Taiwan and Singapore, Allen Lai (Singapore)

Ø      The Impact of Economic Uncertainty and Grant Mismanagement on the Role of Public-Private Partnerships in Addressing Global Health Policy: The Global Fund in Times of Change, Shelby Hockenberry (United States)

Ø      The Politics of Pre-empting Poor Pharmaceutical Patents: Brazil, India and Beyond, Kenneth Shadlen (United Kingdom)

The next major event for RC25 is IPSA’s 22^nd World Congress in Madrid during 8-12 July 2012 on the theme of “Reordering Power, Shifting Boundaries”. Its website is www.ipsa.org/events/congress/madrid2012 to which proposals for panels and papers are to be submitted directly – although the RC25 chair would like to be kept “in the loop”.

Important deadlines for the World Congress are as follows:

 Ø      1 July 2011 – deadline to submit panel proposals (except those by Research Committees, the Local Organizing Committee, Main Theme and Special Sessions)

 Ø      08 August 2011 – accepted panels will be posted online

 Ø      18 August 2011 – deadline to submit panels by RCs, LOC, Main Theme, Special sessions

 Ø      06 September 2011 – registration open

 Ø      07 October 2011 – deadline to submit abstract/paper proposals

 Ø      10 November 2011 – deadline to finalize RC, LOC, Main Theme, Special Session panels

 Ø      18 November 2011 – deadline to submit travel-grant applications

 Ø      02 December 2011 – abstract proposers are notified of final results

 Ø      13 January 2012 – travel-grant applicants are notified of final results

 Ø      11 March 2012 – early registration deadline for paper-givers, discussant and chairs who wish their names to appear in the printed program. All panel chairs must register by this deadline

As of now, two panels have been floated for consideration by RC25 members: “Health Policy Analysis” and “The Changing Architecture of Global Health Governance”. Those interested in the former should contact Jeni Vaitsman and/or Monika Steffen (vaitsman@uol.com.br and monika.steffen@iep-grenoble.fr); those interested in the latter should contact Pieter Fourie (ppfourie@gmail.com) who has provided the following description for guidance:

The pendulum of global health governance is swinging rapidly. In the realm of ideas, the move from the post-World War II biomedical governance model to the socio-behavioural model seemed to conclude with the 1972 Alma Ata Declaration. However, medical triumphalism is making a dramatic comeback. During the past decade, global health governance has come to refer to mechanisms of surveillance in terms of the post-9/11 securitization fad as well as the institutions established transnationally. The Paris Declaration (2007) framework on global development aid was intended to create a global health governance architecture that would be democratic, consultative and in tune with the health governance realities of developing countries. However, this aspiration has derailed as donors in the global north shift their priorities. Even funding and governance architecture for the AIDS pandemic (the 'donor darling' of recent years) has become unattractive. Given the flux in global health governance, this panel invites papers that address, describe and explain the tensions that shape and determine governance modalities.

Finally, RC25 is cooperating with RC32 (on Public Policy and Administration) and with the Public Policy Group of the Belgian Association of Political Science for a joint session on “Patient Empowerment and Democratic Policy: Political Challenges and Theoretical Issues”. To describe the topic, there is an inherent tension between the democratic value of equality and the evidence of inequality in the organizing of social existence – for example, in the workplace and in the family. The late 20^th century has seen significant mobilization of state authority to redress some of this inequality – by the imposition of notions of due process in employment relations and by an emerging discourse about the rights of children. 

Medical treatment, however, remains a problematic area because the doctor/patient relationship is inherently unequal – even if a patient hires the services of a doctor. Hospital patients tend to be regarded as having little knowledge of their needs and even less capacity to determine what will happen to them.

It can be argued that this situation is being challenged by a number of paradigm shifts in health care. One is the spread of discourses of participation and empowerment in governing. A related (but distinct) shift is the rationalization of medical care, the codification of what was formerly the personal exercise of professional skill, involving changes in the power relations within the hospital – for example, the mapping of a ‘patient pathway’ that might be given to the patient and used as the basis for performance review. There is also an increasing stress on health as the management of the self rather than the professional provision of curative services as well as recognition that long-term conditions like diabetes require a care regime with the active involvement (not just compliance) of the patient and his/her support team.

Papers are invited which address any aspect of this issue, particularly those blending empirical observation with conceptual/analytical development. If interested, contact Hal Colebatch (hal@colebatch.com). 

After the inter-congress sessions in Baltimore, USA (October 2010) and Varna, Bulgaria (May 2011), the next major event for RC25 is IPSA's 22nd World Congress in Madrid during 8-12 July 2012 on the theme of "Reordering Power, Shifting Boundaries".

As noted in November 2010 in the general letter of the RC Chair and as reiterated by IPSA itself on several occasions, proposals for panels as well as for papers at the 22nd World Congress are to be submitted directly to: www.ipsa.org by the end of May 2011.

While RC25 is obliged to sponsor at least two panels (one of which may be joint -- see below), the "sky is the limit" in terms of opportunities because the Program Committee urges that a wide range of options be submitted in relation to the general theme of the 22nd Congress. Therefore, RC25 members should take the initiative. At present (mid-April 2011), various sources have suggested possible themes for panels and papers by RC25 members but, as yet, no concrete proposals. A non-exhaustive list of possible themes include:

     ** Pay for Performance

     ** Migration and Health

     ** Public-Private Partnerships

     ** Equity and Health Systems

     ** Policy Analysis and Health

     ** Health Reforms

As for joint sponsorship of a panel, RC25 has been approached by RC32 (on Public Policy and Administration) and by the Public Policy Group of the Belgian Association of Political Science for a joint session on "Patient Empowerment and Democratic Polity: Political Challenges and Theoretical Issues". Papers are invited that address any aspect of this issue, particularly those blending empirical observation with conceptual/analytical developments. If interested, contact the RC25 chair (Jim Bjorkman) for more details.