Political Science In, Of, and With Public Health

AbstractThere is stalemate of sorts between two views of the place of politics in public health. The public health enterprise is concerned with the ways in which “politics” interferes with the making of public health policy whereas political science sees politics as endemic and something to be better understood. To transcend this stalemate this exploratory essay proposes a typology of the possible interactions between political science and public health: political science without, in, of, and ideally with public health. Each has different implications for what role political science can play in better understanding the role scientific evidence does and does not play in the making of public health policy.