The politics of health: the case of smoking control

The policy of the United Kingdom government towards the control of smoking has been characterized by a non-interventionist approach such as persuasion and industrial self-regulation, as opposed to more direct intervention through fiscal policy or control over tobacco production and sales. The effectiveness of the policies adopted by the UK government is difficult to assess, although there has been a reduction over the last ten years in the proportion of smokers in the population. However, evidence from other countries shows that a more comprehensive programme including direct legislation controlling tobacco advertising has a much stronger impact on tobacco consumption. The determinants of the UK government's policy position are analysed and the evidence suggests that this policy position is determined in part by the power of the vested interests in the maintenance of tobacco production, as well as the confusion of interests within the government itself.     

Disability,politics and poverty in a majority world context

This paper argues that the spread of free market economics throughout the world has generated unprecedented inequalities within and between nation states. This has led to the systematic exclusion of people with perceived impairments from the mainstream of economic and community life in almost all societies, the generation of an international disabled people’s movement, and their demand for legal frameworks with which to address the multiple deprivations encountered by people viewed as ‘disabled’. It is argued that the poverty and exclusion encountered by disabled people and other oppressed groups in all societies will not be eliminated without fundamental structural change at the international level.     

The ambiguity of "watershed": the politics of people and conservation in northern Thailand

The current conflict over watershed management between the lowlanders and highlanders in Chomthong has unveiled various aspects of the politics of people versus nature conservation. What is important is that the conflict has exposed the shifting and inconsistent views of the Thai state towards the peripheral areas and its people. Thus, on the one hand, the official discourse on "watershed" was appropriated by the urban middle-class conservationists and lowlanders to legitimize their control of highland resources to the exclusion of the highland minorities. The two groups also used ethnic differences to justify their control over the highland resources. On the other hand, the conflict also showed that the control by the dominant power could never be absolute. Highlanders responded to the "watershed regime" by redefining watershed integrity, adapting to the state conservation pressure, and seeking and forming alliances with other groups.     

The politics of Canadian social scientists: A comment on Baer and Lambert

À partir d'une analyse secondaire d'un sondage national mené en 1983, Baer et Lambert (1990) soutiennent que les études universitaires ont un effet idéologique unidirectionnel allant dans le sens d'un renforcement de l'idéologie dominante. Us affirment de plus avoir démontré de façon «convaincante» que les études en sciences sociales n'ont pas un effet opposé; que les spécialistes des sciences sociales au Canada, loin d'être radicaux, sont probablement plus conservateurs que la population en général, et que leurs résultats contredisent les conclusions de Guimond, Palmer et Bégin (1989). Nous présentons une brève analyse de l'étude de Baer et Lambert (1990) démontrant qu'en raison de certains problèmes dans I'interprétation de leurs résultats en plus de la négligence d'un ensemble de recherches sur le plan national et international, ces auteurs présentent une conclusion fallacieuse. Il existe des démonstrations solides de la libéralisation des attitudes des étudiants sous l'influence des sciences sociales, démonstrations qui ne sont aucunement remises en question par les résultats de Baer et Lambert. On the basis of their reanalysis of 1983 Canadian survey data, Baer and Lambert (1990) argue that the ideological effects of university education are unidirectional, serving to reinforce the dominant ideology. They further claim to have ‘convincingly demonstrated’ that university studies in the social sciences do not have the opposite effect; i.e. that Canadian social scientists, far from being radicals, are probably more conservative than the population at large, and that their findings contradict the conclusion of Guimond, Palmer and Bégin (1989). We present a brief analysis of the Baer and Lambert (1990) study, showing that through a combination of problems in the interpretation of their results, along with their neglecting a substantial body of national and international research evidence, those authors' conclusions are misleading. There is solid evidence that studying the social sciences is related to a liberalization of students' attitudes, evidence that is in no way contradicted by the Baer and Lambert (1990) results.     

Starting somewhere different: methodological cosmopolitanism and the study of world politics

In this article, I contribute to the debate on Ulrich Beck's idea of ‘methodological cosmopolitanism’ from a political science perspective. How fruitful is Beck's idea for the study of world politics? How can a political science perspective turn ‘methodological cosmopolitanism’ into a more transdisciplinary subject of debate? Guided by these questions, I speak to two audiences. First, I offer political scientists a distinct strategy for empirical ‘cosmopolitan political science’ research. At the heart of this strategy is a novel object of research, the ‘cosmopolitan outlook’, understood as a discourse that breaks with the ‘national outlook’ to open possibilities for a world beyond ‘reflexive modernization’. With that, I shift the perspective from structure to discourse and broaden the normative grounds on which to assess cosmopolitan reality. Rather than just considering the emergence of normative cosmopolitan ideals, I build into cosmopolitan research the normative, empirical question of whether we see an emergence of a world beyond reflexive modernization. Second, I address scholars outside the field of political science who are interested in methodological cosmopolitanism by offering the ‘cosmopolitan outlook’ as a novel object of study that could also be explored from other disciplinary perspectives and by proposing they put the question of the purpose of methodological cosmopolitanism centre stage. This question can, I argue, constitute grounds for substantial debates on methodological cosmopolitanism not already precluded through disciplinary premises and concerns. Contributing to such a transdisciplinary debate, I distinguish between the long‐term and immediate purpose of methodological cosmopolitanism, the former being about the development of a cosmopolitan language and grammar and the latter about empirical explorations of the reality of the ‘cosmopolitan outlook’, eventually and in a collective and transdisciplinary endeavour building up to contribute to the former.     

Process evaluation of integrated West Nile virus surveillance in northern Italy: an example of a One Health approach in public health policy

West Nile virus (WNV) is endemic in the Po valley area in northern Italy. Regional health authorities have implemented integrated WNV surveillance following a One Health approach, based on collaboration between human, animal and environmental health institutions. We evaluated this integrated WNV surveillance system in Emilia-Romagna, Lombardy and Piedmont regions by means of a process evaluation. We examined the system’s implementation fidelity, dose delivered and received, reach, and we identified strengths and weaknesses in the system. Qualitative and semi-quantitative data were obtained from three regional focus groups. Data were discussed in a follow up focus group, where participants suggested recommendations for improving the surveillance system.Inter-institutional and interdisciplinary integration and the creation of a 'community of practice' were identified as key elements for effective surveillance. We identified differences in the degree of interdisciplinary integration in the three regions, likely due to different epidemiological situations and years of experience in surveillance implementation. Greater collaboration and sharing of information, public engagement and economic assessments of the integrated surveillance approach would facilitate its social recognition and guarantee its sustainability through dedicated funding. We demonstrate that a transdisciplinary research approach based on process evaluation has value for designing and fine-tuning integrated health surveillance systems.     

The development of Canadian Indian communities: a two-dimensional typology reflecting strategies of adaptation to the modern world*

Les réserves indiennes du Canada sont habituellement considérées comme des îlots de pauvreté rurale; de façon générale, on ignore les différences entre elles quant au degré et au mode d'adaptation aux conditions modernes. Les rnesures de complétude institutionnelle et de développement des ressources personnelles suggérées ici révèlent une variation importante dans le développement des bandes indiennes et fournissent la base pour une typologie bi-dimensionnelle des réserves. Les bandes inertes, pluralistes, intégrantes et municipales varient de façon marquée selon un éventail considérable de caractéristiques communautaires et se regroupent géographiquement. Une analyse comparative de plus de cinq cent bandes suggèrent que l'on peut s' induire en erreur si l'on ignore les différences entre les communautés indiennes. Canada's Indian reserves are usually considered to be pockets of rural poverty; existing differences, in degree and type of adaptation to modern conditions are generally ignored. Measures of institutional completeness and personal resource development suggested here reveal substantial developmental variation among Indian bands and provide the basis for a two-dimensional typology of reserve communities. Inert, pluralistic, integrative, and municipal bands are shown to vary significantly on a wide range of community characteristics and to cluster geographically. Comparative analysis of more than five hundred bands suggests that it is highly misleading to stereotype Indian communities.     

In sickness and in health: The politics of public health and their implications during the COVID-19 pandemic

Politics is a major player in health, sickness, and death affairs. This article reviews the role of politics in public health and its impact on health outcomes, mortality ratios, and death scenarios amongst the most vulnerable populations. Furthermore, the article explains the reasons behind the absence of politics from health and public health discourses; and examines the role of politics during the mis/management of COVID-19 pandemic. Drawing on Foucault's biopower, Mebmbe's necropolitics, and Butler's precarity, the article illuminates how public health policies are highly political insofar as they offer some individuals access to life but create possibilities of death for others. During COVID-19, politics enabled governors to put at risk the most vulnerable groups, the precariat, namely refugees, asylum seekers, stateless, and immigrants, the majority of whom were impoverished. The article presents COVID-19 as an example of a crisis that unmasks these politics, claiming that these politics are not new but rather a continuum of previous invisible policies that COVID-19 unmasked and intensified. The article describes how the politics of health entail privileging individuals with capital value who can benefit the state's interests and maintains its power.     

Race and the local politics of punishment in the new world of welfare

To illuminate how race affects the usage of punitive tools in policy implementation settings, we analyze sanctions imposed for noncompliant client behavior under welfare reform. Drawing on a model of racial classification and policy choice, we test four hypotheses regarding client race, local context, and sanctioning. Based on longitudinal and cross-sectional multilevel analyses of individual-level administrative data, we find that race plays a significant role in shaping sanction implementation. Its effects, however, are highly contingent on client characteristics, local political contexts, and the degree to which state governments devolve policy control to local officials.     

Museums and the cultural politics of displaying the nation to the world

Focusing on the way nationalist imperatives and cosmopolitan ambitions fold into each other in the making of museum spaces in seven cities across the globe, Artifacts and Allegiances provides an intriguing comparative narrative of museum practices which takes into account the broader differences in social, demographic and historical contexts. Based primarily on interviews with museum professionals, academics and policymakers, the approach favours the production of meanings and representations from above, as opposed to the telling of stories from below. A consideration of multiple readings, appropriations and contestations across different scales would afford us a more dynamic view of the cultural politics that animate the ways in which museums display the nation to the world and draw the world into the nation.