From health care to drug wars: grad students investigate

My current research looks at the impact of politicization — political control by elected officials over bureaucracy — on policy formulation in health care. In a comparative case study of France and Turkey, I examine how different forms of political control affect the way in which health policies are formulated and health outcomes are shaped. 

My dissertation asks two main questions: What explains variation in public bureaucracies’ performance under similar institutional settings facing politicization? And how do different forms of politicization inform policy advisory roles of expert-bureaucrats and shape policy outcomes in health?

Drawing on policy documents and more than 60 in-depth semi-structured interviews with high-ranked bureaucrats in the ministries of health in France and Turkey, my dissertation hypothesizes that a politicized bureaucracy can take several forms and its effects can vary across institutional settings, policy stages and policy fields.

Therefore a general statement about their impact on the policy process would neglect the variation in policy outcomes, which is overlooked by the existing literature.

Özge Uluskaradag won the Stein Rokkan Prize at the 24th International Political Science Association World Congress held in July 2016. 
 

My current research explores the politics of aging with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Specifically, I am investigating how barriers to social inclusion for this population are being addressed by existing policy structures in Canada. 

This involves moving beyond policy designs to analyze the precise outcomes that are produced when policies are implemented at the street level. By comparing these outcomes cross-provincially, my research contributes to a discussion of best practices for this historically marginalized group. 

In addition, by exploring the social barriers that reinforce this marginalization, my research aims to provide new insights into how these barriers are socially constructed.

While negative constructions of “aged” and “disabled” identities are well theorized in academic literature, less is known about how processes of discrimination and exclusion occur where these identity constructions intersect. I hope to help fill this gap.  
 

My research has been focused on feminist and social justice perspectives related to migration and labour policy. In particular I use a lens of “care,” informed by care ethics, to uncover how “women’s work” has been devalued in society, and how this intersects with ethnicity and immigration status.  

What becomes apparent through this research and through a care perspective are the ways in which gender, race, sexuality, ability and socio-economic status do not appear as mere variables, but rather function as organizing principles within policy. In the area of migration, we can see the way that policy constructs how people are able to engage in caregiving, receive care and think about care responsibilities, and how different groups are presented with different barriers.

These questions challenge us to think about the way certain actions and the people who do them are valued, whether we see them as contributing to society or not and how public policy influences or generates these valuations. 
 

To learn more about the graduate work happening in Concordia's Department of Political Science, consult the complete list of PhD students and their research interests.