From Rhetoric to Reality: Comparitive Health Policy and the New Right

Economic circumstances in each country in the 1980s explain the particular pressures placed on policy makers for developing solutions to old and new health problems. Their responses have been political solutions and compromises. The primacy of cultural and political forces over economics and "scientific" knowledge and research shaping policy content and practical solutions and compromises, remains unabated. The chapters point to a considerable gap between the rhetoric of the New Right and policy reality. Health policy remains governed by a social welfare perspective. It touches on every aspect of human experience from the cradle to the grave and health is a precondition to human happiness. The book will be of value to practitioners and scholars in comparative public policy and administration, comparative politics, social policy, health and social services administration, social work and the political economy of the welfare state and management and business.