MACMILLAN The Politics of Healthcare Reform in Turkey

This book explores the transformation in the healthcare system in Turkey since 2003, which has been portrayed as a benchmark for building universal healthcare systems in emerging market economies. Focussing on healthcare politics in an under-researched developing country context, it fills a significant lacuna in existing scholarship. This study answers these questions: What were the political dynamics that enabled the introduction of healthcare reform in Turkey? What political conflicts did the reform generate? How and to whose benefit have these conflicts been resolved? Drawing on qualitative interviews with a diverse set of actors, Yılmaz explores the actors’ subjective interpretations of the reform, the discourses and strategies they used to influence the reform, and the changing healthcare politics scene. He demonstrates that the reform has been a complex political process within which actors negotiated whether and to what extent healthcare remains a citizenship right or a commodity. This book will appeal to students and scholars of social policy, politics, health policy, public health and sociology. Review “The Politics of Healthcare Reform in Turkey takes its rightful place on the comparative health policy shelf as the first book to offer a comprehensive analysis of Turkey’s recent health reforms. Yılmaz identifies the tensions and conflicting components within the health reform program, and explores how key actors―such as the AKP governments, the TTB, and private healthcare organizations―have tried to shape the reforms’ content and implementation.” (Tuba I. Ağartan, New Perspectives on Turkey, Vol. 60, May, 2019) Review “Healthcare reform is a significant issue across the world and how policies are developed and implemented in different countries is of the utmost importance. This excellent analysis of Turkish healthcare politics is greatly welcomed.” (Nick Ellison, University of York, UK) “This timely book by Volkan Yılmaz on health sector reform in Turkey offers important insights into the political aspects of the reform processes and the growth of the private provision of healthcare. Yılmaz's analysis sheds new light on the decrease of the power of medical associations and considers what role should now be assigned to “professional knowledge” at a time where it is frequently replaced by the drive for economic profit. The Turkish case has important parallels with wider health sector reform processes in both the Global North and South, and the book offers an original contribution to these debates.” (Jasmine Gideon, Birkbeck, University of London, UK)< “We have much to learn from the politics of healthcare in middle-income countries and emerging economies. Yılmaz’s fascinating book on healthcare reform and its marketization in Turkey stands out for its empirically grounded analysis of the changing political foundations of Turkey’s welfare system and for its account of the contestations and negotiations between different political actors over the reform.” (Susan F Murray, King’s College London, UK) “This empirically rich investigation of the often-neglected political aspects of healthcare reform in Turkey provides valuable theoretical insights into the politics of social policy. It is also an excellent guide to the political dynamics of institutional change in contemporary Turkish society.” (Ayşe Buğra, Boğaziçi University, Turkey) From the Back Cover This book explores the transformation in the healthcare system in Turkey since 2003, which has been portrayed as a benchmark for building universal healthcare systems in emerging market economies. Focussing on healthcare politics in an under-researched developing country context, it fills a significant lacuna in existing scholarship. This study answers these questions: What were the political dynamics that enabled the introduction of healthcare reform in Turkey? What political conflicts did the reform generate? Ho