Understanding the health-politics nexus in the shadow of populism: Towards a political science of, and for, health

Political science has failed health. This has been partly compensated by growing numbers of scholars who started paying attention to health during the COVID-19 pandemic. The emerging literature, however, suffers from some limitations as it overlooks the distinctive characteristics of health politics, and reduces complex health politics to a dichotomy between ‘bad populists’ and others. This chapter examines whether ‘populism’ is a helpful concept in understanding health politics. It draws three conclusions. First, populism has become a misnomer for politics. This problem can be addressed through a political compass for health that can situate health-related political ideas and reveal their relations with general political orientations. Second, health matters are not always and everywhere politically salient. Therefore, one avenue for research is to examine the factors leading to the high political saliency of health and its attractiveness for populist strategies. Third, as the core of populism includes attempts to undermine non-electoral checks-and-balances institutions in democracies, one gateway into its health impact - regardless of whether health is explicitly mentioned in populist projects or not - is through examining its influence on these institutions. A new political science of and for health can emerge on the basis of these three research agendas.