Delegating tough decisions on healthcare: Explaining different national approaches
Policymakers in many countries are increasingly delegating complicated and political sensitive decisions about provision of health care to specialized bodies. In the current issue of Governance (24.4, October 2011), Claudia Landwehr and Katharina Böhm of Goethe-Universität am Main examine the trend. They find significant differences in the approach to delegation, and provide a framework for explaining those differences. Policymakers are engaged in “strategic institutional design,” but subject to two important constraints, Landwehr and Böhm conclude. The first is the weight of institutional and administrative tradition, and the second is the pressure toward policy convergence that arises out of international networks. Read the article.
