The Politics of Health Promotion

Much has been written about policy efforts to achieve ‘Health in All Policies’: an ambitious attempt to improve population health and reduce health inequalities by ensuring multiple policy areas are more attuned to their health impacts. However, most accounts focus on technical challenges, such as implementing impact assessments. In contrast, and focusing on the European Union, this book argues that ‘Health in All Policies’ is essentially a political project shaped by institutional power, competing ideas, and discourses. We can only really understand the failure to realise its ambition through political analysis.

“Dr Godziewski has written the definitive account of public health politics in the European Union. It provides state-of-the art research on EU governance and explains the limited progress of international efforts to promote Health in All Policies.”

– Paul Cairney, Professor of Politics and Public Policy, University of Stirling

“Charlotte Godziewski’s insightful analysis of Health in All Policies in the EU brings up the limits, potential, and challenges of applying the approach in the European governance space. In doing she so brings us an excellent and more widely needed analysis on political economy and theorization of power, making it an essential reading and important addition for literature not only on health policy, public health and health promotion, but as well as for wider European studies.”

– Meri Koivusalo, Professor of Global Health and Development, Tampere University

The timing of this book could not be better, with health and wellbeing high on political agendas around the world. However, critical debates surrounding the role of the EU in public health policy predate the pandemic and will continue to have lasting significance. This book skilfully analyses the EU’s role in health protection and promotion, focusing on the power dynamics in EU governance and the epistemological tensions in the field of public health. It draws attention to the connections between public health problems and the underlying political determinants of inequity and precarity and thus the need for a holistic and normative approach to health and wellbeing. The book is thoughtful, provocative, and immaculately assembled. It provides not only a valuable contribution to scholarship on both EU governance and public health, but also to practical debates on how to take forward the health and wellbeing agenda most effectively.

– Ian Bache FAcSS, Professor of Politics, University of Sheffield

Charlotte Godziewski is a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in International Politics at City, University of London. Her research explores the politics of health, with a current empirical focus on the EU. Her doctoral thesis was awarded the 2021 Best PhD Thesis Prize by the University Association for Contemporary European Studies (UACES). Charlotte is a coordinator of ‘EUHealthGov’, the UACES-funded research network on EU Health Governance.