International Political Science Association

Research Committee 25:

Comparative Health Policy

History

While currently home to over 40 IPSA members (and to as many as 70 in the past), RC 25 began as a six-member panel at the 1982 World Congress in Rio de Janeiro. It was then established within IPSA in 1985 as a Study Group (#19) focused on critical developments in health care. In 1997, at IPSA’s 17th World Congress in Seoul, Korea, the Comparative Health Policy group attained Research Committee status. At the subsequent 2000 World Congress in Quebec City, Canada, a governing Board composed of committee members was elected.

RC 25, like all IPSA Research Committees, has cross-national membership, and its affairs are managed, subject to general IPSA guidelines, by an executive board consisting of IPSA members. Each research committee is required to organize at least one roundtable meeting between congresses; research committees are entitled to organize two panels at IPSA’s World Congress.

Leadership

Professor James W. Björkman (2006-2009) is the current president. Christa Altenstetter (President Emeritus) founded the original Study Group in 1982 and chaired the Group/Committee from the beginning. She has been assisted in this by the following members, who have acted in the past as Secretary of the Group/Committee:

· Stuart W. Haywood (Birmingham, UK, 1985-1991)

· James W. Björkman (Institute of Social Studies, The Hague, NL, 1991-1994)

· Martin Thomas (1994- 1997, York University, Canada)

Professor Björkman is currently aided by the Board, as well as two Vice Presidents:

· Monika Steffen, Universite Pierre-Mendès-France, Grenoble, France
Coordinator for Europe & Latin America

· Pauline Vaillancourt Rosenau, UT-Houston School of Public Health, Houston, Texas, USA
Coordinator for North America, Asia and Eurasia

Publications

Pauline Vaillancourt Rosenau served as Issue Editor of The Politics of Health Policies. International Political Science Review, Vol. 24, No. 2, April 2003. Topics covered are Global Politics of Intellectual Property Rights and Pharmaceuticals; Drug Policies in Developing Countries; Health Policies and the Political Economy in Australia; Slovak and Czech Health Policy, Burkina Faso, and Greece.

RC 25 has published three volumes, Comparative Health Policy and the New Right. From Rhetoric to Reality, (1991) and Health Policy Reform, National Variations and Globalization, (1997) and Health Governance in Europe, (2005). In addition, articles appeared in the Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law in 1984, 1995 and 2005. Also, the latest Volume (#7) in the International Library of Comparative Public Policy, Health Policy (1998), was edited by RC 25’s James W. Bjorkman and Christa Altenstetter.

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