Initially designed to protect the population, public health systems can lead to demands being made for personal rights. This process is illustrated by an unexpected comparison between the legalisation of abortion and the provision of drug consumption rooms.
While ideal Victorian women were supposed to be “angels in the house”, female criminals were seen as “demons in the jailhouse”. As such, they were a disruptive force and had to be dealt with. Deconstructing and reconstructing these deviants to make them more “womanly” became a major issue in the late 19th century.
The management of the Ebola epidemic by the international community has revealed the deficiencies of health development aid, as well as long overlooked structural problems. Yet it may also be an opportunity to establish long-term mechanisms of international solidarity and improve the basic health capacities of affected countries.
The non take-up of social benefits is becoming increasingly widespread as a phenomenon, and is now a central concept within public policy analysis. Philippe Warin examines the diverse reasons for why people fail to claim the benefits they are entitled to, which range from a simple lack of awareness and entitlement to more complex issues of indifference towards and even rejection of the social security system.
Randomized evaluation has become very fashionable. Initially developed in the field of development economics, it has now spread to many public policy areas. Yannick L’Horty and Pascale Petit here discuss the advantages and the limits of this relatively recent tool for evaluating social policies.
Youth has all the trappings of the universal, eternal value—one that is especially mobilized when there is a need for change. Looking at its history is delving into the construction of a category, and the ubiquituous use and abuse of the people it covers. Historian Ludivine Bantigny sheds light for us on this very political notion.
