Workshop: Political parties, health and influence in the EU
Authors:   Organised by: EUPHA (PHPP) Chair persons: Marleen Bekker - EUPHA (PHPP), Sofia Ribeiro - Portugal
Published: November 2019

In light of the 2019 European Parliament elections, signs of a deteriorating public health and the rise of populist radical parties elected in office in some Western countries, this urgent workshop focuses on making sense of the impact of politics on public health.

There is a clear need for in-depth understanding and more effectively engaging with political processes that affect health. Political science articulates the understanding and improvement of the conditions under which politics is able to produce effective and legitimate solutions to policy problems. It involves a systematic inquiry into basic features of the political economy such as institutions, partisanship and the organization of labour markets. Understanding this political landscape of public health helps to define the political options for organizing effective influence on healthy policies and outcomes.

One component in this health political landscape is that of political parties and partisanship. Political parties structure modern politics because they are the teams on which politicians compete for power. They mattered enormously in the post-war years of stable party systems, and their more recent crises and reconstitutions also matter enormously (as a quick look around Western Europe should show). Politicians, and parties, are motivated by the electoral imperative to seek and stay in office. Once elected, politicians on any issue will be looking to claim credit for good outcomes and avoid blame for bad outcomes. If the issue is one that lacks ‘traceability’ such that it produces no obvious credit or blame, politicians will take positions that please their followers and target voters.

This workshop presents five studies on political parties and health, asking the questions ‘Do political parties matter to health? What do political parties talk about when they talk about health? And what do they actually do to health?’ In three studies a health screening was performed on political party manifestos and electoral programmes with additional explorative interviews. Two other studies dive into the academic literature on political parties and partisanship and their presumed effect on health and welfare policies.

After these five presentations the panel, consisting of dr. Natasha Azzopardi Muscat, dr. Holly Jarman and prof Scott Greer, will briefly reflect upon the findings and implications for public health policy and politics. The participants of the workshop will be engaged in an interactive discussion with the panel and presenters focusing on the questions of (a) whether and how, in participants’ home countries, (radical and other) political parties address and affect health and welfare policies; (b) how participants can analyse this themselves; and (c) how they can act upon this evidence.

We end the workshop with five key messages for follow up research and strategy.

Key messages

The 2019 European Parliament elections, signs of a deteriorating public health and the rise of populist radical parties provide opportunity and necessity to understand and influence health politics. Political party manifesto screening detects possible public health opportunities and threats, but party influence on policies is mediated by party system requirements varying across countries.