This document presents a typology of approaches to using history for policymaking. It identifies four modes: [1] Contextualizing current policy issues within past events; [2] Comparing different historical cases to understand policy problems; [3] Examining how past policies evolved over time; and [4] Translating historical insights directly into current policy issues. The document discusses examples of applying these modes to health policy areas like cancer care organization and palliative care. It argues that history provides context, complexity and lessons learned that can inform policy decisions.

1. History and Policy
A Typology of Approaches and Its Uses
Ellen van Reuler
The University of Manchester
Centre for the History of Science, Technology & Medicine
vanreuler@alumni.manchester.ac.uk
QRPM2011, Belfast, 27 May 2011

2. Introduction
- History and policy: What is being done?
-The relevance of history for policy
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3. Historian on History and Policy
‘Policy is always history. Events in the past define the
possible and the desirable, set tasks, and define rewards,
viable choices, and thus the range of possible outcomes.
As we move through time those choices reconfigure
themselves and trends may establish themselves - but at
any given point the ‘actionable’ options are highly
structured. It is the historian’s disciplinary task to define
those likelihoods. Most important, what history can and
should contribute to the world of policy and politics is its
fundamental sense of context and complexity, of the
determined and the negotiated.’
Charles Rosenberg in History & Health Policy in the United States.
Putting the Past Back in (2006, p.28).
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4. CMO on History and Policy
‘I never ever heard a discussion during my twelve years in
post, although I tried many times to raise it, where people
would sit down and say ‘now, have we ever done anything
like this before? What tools did we use? What worked well?
What didn’t work well and how are we going to take that
learning into the change programme that we are now going to
introduce?’ People reached for the tools almost absent-
mindedly. Say, we’ve got to have a few regional road shows,
we’ve got to do some legislation, we’ve got to do this, we’ve
got to do that, but not thinking fundamentally about change
the way that I believe is done in many of the most innovative
organisations in other sectors.’
Liam Donaldson during presentation ‘Leadership in the NHS: Reflections
of a Chief Medical Officer’ (King’s Fund, 2011, 37:43 – 38:30).
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5. Introduction
- The relevance of history for policy
- Agenda for this talk:
1. Typology of history for policy
2. Translating history to policy
3. A note on presentation
4. Examples
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6. 1 Typology
Concept of history
Problem Past Method
Orientation of the study
Mode 1 Mode 2
contextualise
Multiply and
Understanding
Mode 3 Mode 4
Temporalise
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7. 2 Translational devices
Concept of history
Past Method
Problem
Mode 1 Mode 2
A B
Focus of the study
Policy Issue
C D
Understanding
Mode 3 Mode 4
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8. 3 A note on presentation
- Format
- Use of policy models
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9. 4 Examples (I)
- Methods
- Regional organisation of oncological care
in the Netherlands
• Dutch health care system
• Mode 1
• Mode 2
• Mode 3
• Mode 4
• Translation
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10. 4 Examples (II)
- The benefits of comparison
- Voluntary palliative care in England and
the Netherlands (in paper)
• Mode 2 histories
• Policy insights
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11. Conclusion
- Summary
- Concluding remarks
Thank you for your attention!
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12. Presented at the 2nd European
conference on Qualitative Research for
Policy Making, 26 -27 May 2011, Belfast
For more information
Please visit: http://www.merlien.org
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