Browsing by Subject "Health Policy"

Now showing 1 - 2 of 2

Open Access
The impact of regime-type on health: does redistribution explain everything?
(Cambridge University Press, 2011-09-22) Wigley, S.; Akkoyunlu Wigley, A.
Many scholars claim that democracy improves population health. The prevailing explanation for this is that democratic regimes distribute health-promoting resources more widely than autocratic regimes. The central contention of this article is that democracies also have a significant pro-health effect regardless of public redistributive policies. After establishing the theoretical plausibility of the nondistributive effect, a panel of 153 countries for the years 1972 to 2000 is used to examine the relationship between extent of democratic experience and life expectancy. The authors find that democratic governance continues to have a salutary effect on population health even when controls are introduced for the distribution of health-enhancing resources. Data for fifty autocratic countries for the years 1994 to 2007 are then used to examine whether media freedom-independent of government responsiveness-has a positive impact on life expectancy.
Open Access
Policy networks within the Turkish health sector : capacity, institutionalization and impact
(2017-09) Hoxha, Julinda
Policy networks refer to platforms that facilitate collaboration among public, private and voluntary actors with the purpose of public policy making. Despite the extensive research done on the issue, not much is known about the applicability of this concept outside the context of advanced democracies. The purpose of this thesis is to assess the theoretical significance and practical effectiveness of three policy networks within the health sector in Turkey – a crucial case study where conditions for network collaboration are least favorable considering its past record of centralized policy making. Content analysis of 24 semi-structured interview transcripts reveals that networks are relevant policy instruments that have an impact on policy making. Integrated networks with a symmetrical structure and trust among participants display high levels of collaborative capacity, which in turn can generate highly innovative policies, particularly in the early phases of policy making. Aggregate networks have an indirect impact on policy making through ‘pockets’ of deliberation. Moreover, networks that serve as channels of interest mediation for already existing webs of actors such as business-based alliances, turn out to be resilient policy instruments that generate concrete outcomes and contribute to overall policy effectiveness. The findings indicate the importance of network institutional embeddedness in the broader political and economic environment—as a critical factor for the persistence as well as effectiveness of collaboration—particularly in those policy settings where networks represent a vulnerable practice of policy making. At the theoretical level, this study suggests the usefulness of incorporating neo-institutionalist approaches to network analysis.