Making health policy - Andy Alaszewski

This new textbook opens up the policy-making process for students,uncovering how government decisions around health are really made.Starting from more traditional insights into how ministers andcivil servants develop policy with limited knowledge and money, thebook goes on to challenge the conception of policy as a rationalprocess, revealing it to be something quite different.

Knee-jerk reactions to disasters, keeping voters satisfied, thepowerful leverage of interest groups, and the skewing of debatethrough ideology and the media are each considered in turn. Theseprocesses render policy far from rational or at least require amuch broader approach for considering policy 'logic',one that is open to different rationalities of values, norms andpragmatism. The book draws on historical and contemporary examplesto highlight that though challenges to policy-makers may seem insome ways novel, in many senses key processes endure and indeed arerooted in historical contexts. Although the examples are drawn fromUK health and social care, the book's theory-driven approachis applicable across national contexts
especially forcountries where uncertainty, risk and resource pressures createsignificant dilemmas for policy-makers.

The book's multi-perspective, thematic approach will beespecially relevant to students, as will the broad range of casestudy examples used. Making Health Policy will be essentialreading for students of health policy, social policy, social work,and the sociology of medicine, health and illness.