LIST OF PANELS

In the policy studies literature crises have been highlighted as main factors of policy change, for instance with the notions of “critical juncture” (Gourevitch, 1986 ; Capoccia and Kelemen 2007) and of “focusing event” (Kingdon 1984, Birkland, 1997). Different types of crises, especially economic crises, accidents or natural disasters, are conceptualized as turning points opening windows of opportunity for policy change. However, the first policy studies publications analyzing responses the COVID-19 pandemic stress the key role of the legacies of the past and the degree of preparedness to sanitary crises  (Capano and al, 2020). Uncertainty and time pressure that characterize sudden shocks can be a hindrance to policy innovation. Thus, the aim of this panel is to analyze how crises can trigger (or not) health policy innovations in three kinds of crises:

1.     Crises external to the health sector. This is especially the case of economic and financial crises. For instance, in the USA the Affordable Care Act, containing several policy innovations, has been adopted in the context of the Great recession. A first question here is the relation between health policy innovation and economic crises, reinforcing the weight of financial and budgetary issues in healthcare, so as the diffusion of new economic instruments for the healthcare system (for instance capital markets).

2.     Sanitary crises, like the current COVID-19 pandemic. That kind of focusing event cannot only trigger medical innovations but also policy innovations, concerning more policy processes (for instance the shaping of a new scientific council in France) than policy instruments (most of them rooted in the past). Such kind of crisis can also be a window of opportunity to sustain and to legitimate previous policy innovations. In another perspective sanitary crises, like other focusing events, can reveal policy failures and provide evidence and arguments for policy shifts.

3.     Crises in the healthcare system corresponding to longer lasting processes and constructed by policy actors. The main question here is the link between the definition of a health problem as a crisis (for instance the “opioid crisis” in the USA) and policy innovations (for example new primary care organizations developed as a policy response to the “demographic crises” of the medical profession in France and Germany –Hassenteufel and al., 2020).

This panel welcomes papers based on case studies (at the local or national level, comparative or not), exploring the different links between different types of crises and health policy innovations.

References

BIRKLAND T. (1997), After Disaster : Agenda Setting, Public Policy and Focusing Events, Washington (D. C.), University of Georgetown Press.

CAPANO G., HOWLETT M., JARVIS D., RAMESH M. et GOYAL N. (2020), « Mobilizing Policy (In)Capacity to Fight Covid 19 : Understanding Variations in State Responses », Policy and Society, 39 (3), p. 285-308.

CAPOCCIA G. et KELEMEN R. (2007), « The Study of Critical Junctures. Thoery, Narrative and Counterfactuals in Historical Institutionalism », World Politics, 59 (4), p. 341-369.

GOUREVICH P. (1986), Politics in Hard Times, Cornell (N. Y.), Cornell University Press

HASSENTEUFEL P., SCHWEYER F-X., GERLINGER T., HENKEL R., LÜCKENBACH C., REITER R. “The role of professional groups in policy change: Physician's organizations and the issue of local medical provision shortages in France and Germany”, European Policy Analysis, 6 (1), 2020, p.38-57

KINGDON J. (1984), Agendas, Alternatives and Public Policies, Boston (Mass.), Little Brown and Company.

In the policy studies literature crises have been highlighted as main factors of policy change, for instance with the notions of “critical juncture” (Gourevitch, 1986 ; Capoccia and Kelemen 2007) and of “focusing event” (Kingdon 1984, Birkland, 1997). Different types of crises, especially economic crises, accidents or natural disasters, are conceptualized as turning points opening windows of opportunity for policy change. However, the first policy studies publications analyzing responses the COVID-19 pandemic stress the key role of the legacies of the past and the degree of preparedness to sanitary crises  (Capano and al, 2020). Uncertainty and time pressure that characterize sudden shocks can be a hindrance to policy innovation. Thus, the aim of this panel is to analyze how crises can trigger (or not) health policy innovations in three kinds of crises:

1.     Crises external to the health sector. This is especially the case of economic and financial crises. For instance, in the USA the Affordable Care Act, containing several policy innovations, has been adopted in the context of the Great recession. A first question here is the relation between health policy innovation and economic crises, reinforcing the weight of financial and budgetary issues in healthcare, so as the diffusion of new economic instruments for the healthcare system (for instance capital markets).

2.     Sanitary crises, like the current COVID-19 pandemic. That kind of focusing event cannot only trigger medical innovations but also policy innovations, concerning more policy processes (for instance the shaping of a new scientific council in France) than policy instruments (most of them rooted in the past). Such kind of crisis can also be a window of opportunity to sustain and to legitimate previous policy innovations. In another perspective sanitary crises, like other focusing events, can reveal policy failures and provide evidence and arguments for policy shifts.

3.     Crises in the healthcare system corresponding to longer lasting processes and constructed by policy actors. The main question here is the link between the definition of a health problem as a crisis (for instance the “opioid crisis” in the USA) and policy innovations (for example new primary care organizations developed as a policy response to the “demographic crises” of the medical profession in France and Germany –Hassenteufel and al., 2020).

This panel welcomes papers based on case studies (at the local or national level, comparative or not), exploring the different links between different types of crises and health policy innovations.