Book Launch: Remaking Policy

Focusing on health care policy but with an eye to the policy process at large, Carolyn Tuohy argues for a more nuanced conception of the dynamics of policy change, one that distinguishes between the opening of opportunities for change and the magnitude of the changes that then occur. Four possible strategies emerge: large-scale and fast-paced (“big bang”), large-scale and slow-paced (“blueprint”), small-scale and rapid (“mosaic”), and small-scale and gradual (“incremental”). As Tuohy demonstrates, these strategies are determined not by political and institutional conditions themselves, but by the ways in which political actors, individually and collectively, read those conditions to assess their prospects for success in the present and over time.

Drawing on interviews as well as primary and secondary accounts of ten health policy cases over seven decades (1945—2015) in the US, UK, the Netherlands, and Canada, Remaking Policy represents a major advance in understanding the scale and pace of change in health policy and beyond.

Book sale, signing and reception to follow.

Welcome Remarks: Randall Hansen, Interim Director, Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, University of Toronto

Opening Remarks: The Hon. Tony Dean, Senator, Parliament of Canada; Distinguished Fellow, Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, University of Toronto

Speaker: Carolyn Tuohy, Professor Emeritus and Founding Fellow in Public Policy, Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, University of Toronto

Discussant: Gregory P. Marchildon, Ontario Research Chair in Health Policy and System Design, Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation and Professor, Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, University of Toronto

Discussant: Rob Vipond, Professor, Department of Political Science and Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, University of Toronto

Discussant: Linda White, Professor, Department of Political Science and Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, University of Toronto