Politicisation, depoliticisation, and repoliticisation of health care controversies: Vaccination and mental health care reform in the Czech Republic

Result code in IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F00216208%3A11230%2F21%3A10427194" target="_blank" >RIV/00216208:11230/21:10427194 - isvavai.cz</a>

Result on the web

<a href="https://verso.is.cuni.cz/pub/verso.fpl?fname=obd_publikace_handle&handle=jUQrQaDzYG" target="_blank" >https://verso.is.cuni.cz/pub/verso.fpl?fname=obd_publikace_handle&handle=jUQrQaDzYG</a>

DOI - Digital Object Identifier

<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2021.113916" target="_blank" >10.1016/j.socscimed.2021.113916</a>

Result language

angličtina

Original language name

Politicisation, depoliticisation, and repoliticisation of health care controversies: Vaccination and mental health care reform in the Czech Republic

Original language description

This article analyses the politicisation of public health debates by focusing on vaccination and mental health care in the Czech Republic. The mainstream understanding of politicisation commonly refers to politics-as-sphere, linked with the political instrumentalisation of health care controversies as part of electoral campaigning and power struggles. In our analysis, we conceive politicisation more broadly, as politics-as-activity, which encompasses the role of civic engagement and the involvement of patients in these processes. We thus view politicisation as a process which encompasses a plurality of political actors and, in addition to politicians, includes patients, users, carers, citizens, and experts. Our analysis draws on extensive empirical evidence, consisting of observations, semi-structured interviews, and a review of available documents. The study took place in the Czech Republic from 2017 to 2019. We conclude that politicisation takes place alongside four dimensions: (1) contingency, (2) agency, (3) a plurality of opinions and approaches, and (4) visibility. We further argue that the contingent nature of biomedical controversies is articulated in three different, possibly interconnected layers. Thus, the politicisation of the two Czech analysed cases refers to (a) uncertainties and problematic aspects of biomedical objects of controversy; to (b) social rights, economic needs, and legal aspects as well as social representations of illness and vaccinations in the public debate; and to (c) the political processes which determine the previous two layers of politicisation, labelled as meta-politicisation. Last but not least, we stress the dynamic and non-linear nature of politicisation processes, the varieties of connections between the third sector and expertise, and the necessity to analyse the politicisation of public health controversies hand in hand with its connection to depoliticisation and repoliticisation

Czech name

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Czech description

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Type

J_imp - Article in a specialist periodical, which is included in the Web of Science database

CEP classification

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OECD FORD branch

50401 - Sociology

Project

<a href="/en/project/GA17-01116S" target="_blank" >GA17-01116S: Civic engagement and the politics of health care</a><br>

Continuities

P - Projekt vyzkumu a vyvoje financovany z verejnych zdroju (s odkazem do CEP)

Publication year

2021

Confidentiality

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

Name of the periodical

Social Science and Medicine

ISSN

0277-9536

e-ISSN

—

Volume of the periodical

277

Issue of the periodical within the volume

May

Country of publishing house

GB - UNITED KINGDOM

Number of pages

8

Pages from-to

1-8

UT code for WoS article

000648655000011

EID of the result in the Scopus database

2-s2.0-85104395046