Benjamin Ewert

• Professor
• Professor (Full) at Fulda University of Applied Sciences

Zusammenfassung Public Health-Maßnahmen sollen oft den Menschen gesundheitsförderliche Verhaltensweisen erleichtern, z. B. indem die sozialen und materiellen Lebensbedingungen dafür verändert werden. Die Weltgesundheitsorganisation (WHO) hat mit dem Konzept der „Behavioural and Cultural Insights“ (BCI, deutsch etwa „verhaltens- und sozialwissenscha...

Front-of-pack labeling schemes are an effective but contested regulatory approach to nudge consumers toward healthy food choices. The Nutri-Score, being implemented by eight European countries, is one of the most elaborated and evidence-based examples. Therefore, the Nutri-Score has been deemed as the front-runner within the European Commission's a...

Der vorliegende Beitrag benennt Charakteristika und Potenziale von Sozialen Innovationen auf kommunaler Ebene und fragt nach den Bedingungen für ihre Verstetigung. Es wird erläutert, dass das Spektrum an Typen und Formen von Sozialer Innovation im lokalen Wohlfahrtsbereich außerordentlich breit und multi-dimensional ist. Exemplarisch kann dieses Ve...

Hintergrund: Zur Anzahl und Verteilung akademisch qualifizierter Fachkräfte aus dem Bereich Public Health in den unteren Gesundheitsbehörden liegen bislang wenige Daten vor. Das Ziel der vorliegenden Untersuchung war die Analyse der Verteilung von Public-Health-Professionals im Öffentlichen Gesundheitsdienst in Deutschland. Methode: Mittels Online-...

This chapter delves into the interplay between the state and citizens within the context of the German health system which has been characterized by a bulwark of bureaucratic state institution and corporatist stakeholders. However, over the years, it has evolved to embrace a more civic-minded approach. Nowadays, user organizations rooted in civil s...

This chapter analyses SI in the field of personalized health services. Recurrent service features, such as investing in capabilities, bridging the gap between professional services and people’s life worlds, or developing tailor-made support packages, have become synonyms for SI. However, despite this affinity between SI and health services, transfo...

Behavioural public policy is predominantly based on insights from behavioural economics and psychology in order to ‘nudge’ people to act in line with specific aims and to overcome the dilemma of behaviour that contradicts economic rationality. In contrast, we define behavioural public policy as a multi-disciplinary and multi-methodological concept...

In this introduction, we develop a behaviourally informed, integrated conceptual model of the policy process that embeds individual attitudes and behaviour into context at the meso and macro level. We argue that behavioural approaches can be situated within a broader tradition of methodological individualism. Despite focusing on the micro level of...

Insights emanating from our model support and accelerate the unfinished process of applying behavioural sciences in public policy and administration. This final chapter investigates the opportunities for applying our behavioural model of the policy process in three steps. First, we discuss how the model has been perceived by scholars of public poli...

This chapter sheds light on potential implications emanating from COVID-19 for the future outlook of German health policy. To investigate to what extent the pandemic will change health policymaking in Germany, two turning-point conceptions are applied: theoretical insights on 'critical junctures' and Peter Hall's (1993) approach to policy paradigms...

Social innovation and social cohesion are frequently cited alongside each other. Indeed, both concepts, experiencing an upsurge in attention after the financial crisis, share the same version of thinking and doing welfare that is less formal and bureaucratic but more personal, relational and context-bound. However, the ‘added’ social value of socia...

Zusammenfassung Hintergrund Bewegungsmangel ist mitverantwortlich für die Entstehung nichtübertragbarer Krankheiten und zählt zu einem der führenden Risikofaktoren für frühzeitige Todesfälle. Treppensteigen bietet eine niedrigschwellige Möglichkeit, das Aktivitätsniveau im Alltag zu steigern. Studien berichten über positive Effekte von sog. „Nudge...

Der Beitrag möchte zwei Perspektiven der sozialwissenschaftlichen Forschung zu sozialen Innovationen in den Mittelpunkt stellen. Im ersten Teil soll theoretisch dargelegt werden, worin die den gesellschaftlichen Zusammenhalt stärkende Kraft von sozialen Innovationen liegt und inwiefern sich diese qualitativ vom Status quo des herkömmlichen sozialen...

The COVID-19 pandemic has been an ultimate challenge for health systems as a whole rather than just single sectors (e.g. hospital care). Particularly, interface management between health system sectors and cooperation among stakeholders turned out to be crucial for an adequate crisis response. Dealing with such interfaces, it is argued in the liter...

This article understands COVID-19 as an eruptive event with severe effects on many policy fields beyond (public) health. Based on this assumption, we consider the pandemic as a catalyst for policy change across policy fields. For that reason, we suggest a new approach for conceptualising eruptive events as triggers that provoke far-reaching change...

Activity-based payment systems enforce Israeli and German hospital professionals to continuously balance clinical and economic considerations. As argued this status quo is unsatisfactory due to two reasons. First, professional hybridity in hospital management is restricted to the physician versus manager dichotomy rather than a multifaceted-identit...

Der Beitrag plädiert für ein mehrdimensionales Verständnis von Schüler/innen. Im Lern- und Lebensraum Schule entwickeln Schüler/innen, so das zentrale Argument des Beitrags, plurale Identitäten, die weit über die ihnen traditionell zugeschriebene Rolle des/der Lernenden hinausgehen. Je nach schulischem Kontext agieren Schüler/innen somit als Bürger...

Zusammenfassung Der Beitrag widmet sich der Frage, inwieweit die Corona-Pandemie als "eruptives Ereignis" einen paradigmatischen Wandel (Hall, 1993) in der deut-schen Präventionspolitik herbeiführt. Erst recht vor dem Hintergrund der kollektiven Pandemieerfah-rung müsste ein umfassender Gesundheitsschutz der Bevölkerung, so die leitende Annahme, du...

This article scrutinizes citizenship implications in the field of preventive health policy in Germany. While at first glance prevention policies seem fairly uncontroversial, they have intricate links concerning the impact on preventive policies to social citizenship and to the notion of the “good” citizen. I argue that prevention is a future‐orient...

Eine grüne Regierungsbeteiligung, ja sogar eine Kanzlerschaft von Spitzenkandidatin Annalena Baerbock rücken angesichts des aktuellen Höhenflugsder Grünen in greifbare Nähe. Doch wofür steht die Partei jenseits ihrer ökologischen Kernthemen? Der Sozialwissenschaftler Benjamin Ewert analysiert deren sozialpolitische Agenda und kommt zu dem Schluss:...

The concept of the bioeconomy has risen to great popularity with governments around the world as a new paradigm for a sustainable economy. However, it is still highly contentious what the bioeconomy actually is or should be, which results in a certain vagueness of bioeconomy policy strategies. European bioeconomy policy is a prime example of this....

Given that many factors bar the way to the democratic and social ambitions of mainstream co-production being achieved essentially through evolution, it makes sense to frame the concern with more co-productive services as a matter of social innovation. This contribution presents firstly some key findings from social innovation research in the field...

This Themed Issue features theoretical, methodological, and empirical advancements of the state-of-the-art in behavioural public policy and administration. In this introduction, we develop a behaviourally-informed, integrated conceptual model of the policy process that embeds individual attitudes and behaviour into context at the meso and macro lev...

Behavioural public policy is predominantly based on insights from behavioural economics and psychology in order to ‘nudge’ people to act in line with specific aims and to overcome the dilemma of behaviour that contradicts economic rationality. In contrast, we define behavioural public policy as a multi-disciplinary and multi-methodological concept...

Behavioural interventions are much more than 'just another policy tool'. Indeed, the use of behavioural science has the potential to lead to a wide-ranging reassessment of policymaking and public administration. However, Behavioural Public Policy remains a policy paradigm 'under construction'. This paper seeks to contribute to this development proc...

Policy-making in public health is highly complex, which is one reason why the behavioural turn is now playing a significant role in this field. Against this backdrop, this book aims to develop a theoretical understanding of how policymakers take up public health challenges and how policies change over the course of time. Accordingly, the book revea...

Das deutsche Gesundheitssystem gilt gemeinhin als „Haifischbecken“, in dem mächtige Selbstverwaltungsakteure wie Krankenkassen und Ärzteverbände gesetzliche Vorgaben ausgestalten. Die Rolle der Zivilgesellschaft im deutschen Gesundheitswesen gerät dabei trotz institutionalisierter Formen der Patientenbeteiligung nicht selten außer Acht. Der Beitrag...

Der vorliegende Beitrag präsentiert internationale Ergebnisse der sozialwissenschaftlichen Forschung zu sozialen Innovationen und fragt nach deren Implikationen für intermediäre Organisationen des Sozialsektors. Maßgeblich sind hierfür zwei Leitfragen: • Welche Typen sozialer Innovation entstehen im Umfeld von intermediären Organisationen? • Wie la...

Ungeachtet der Vielzahl und zum Teil widersprüchlichen Reformen in Schulen werden Schülerinnen und Schüler weiterhin als monolithisch verfasste Personen verstanden. Eine individuelle und/oder plurale Vorstellung des Selbst, Eigensinn und persönliche Charaktermerkmale werden hingegen nicht mit der Figur des Schülers und der Schülerin assoziiert. Ein...

This chapter explores and revisits the assumptions that underlie policymaking in the field of health promotion. It starts by clarifying what is meant by the term ‘underlying assumptions’ in the field of health promotion and disease prevention. Subsequently, the central concepts of how public health may be improved will be recapitulated in terms of...

Accountability relations in modern‐day welfare states have multiplied due to the complex interaction of institutional and sectoral logics. Against this backdrop, this article seeks to unravel complexities which surround accountability relations in hybrid healthcare arrangements. For this purpose, a framework of multi‐faceted identity is suggested i...

Policy-making in public health is highly complex, which is one reason why the behavioural turn is now playing a significant role in this field. Against this backdrop, this book aims to develop a theoretical understanding of how policymakers take up public health challenges and how policies change over the course of time. Accordingly, the book revea...

Loer and Ewert introduce the key issues of the book and initiate the discussion on contemporary public health policymaking: they point out how individual and societal parameters interfere with policy interven- tions. The introduction to the book explains how this idea of reciprocity will be combined with the current debate on struggles against life...

The conclusion recapitulates main findings concerning policy- 5 making in public health in the light of the behavioural turn. First, the huge 6 potential that behavioural policies could hold, if they are combined with 7 classic instruments for health promotion, will be emphasised. Second, 8 implications of the rise of behavioural health policies fo...

Behavioural Public Policy seeks to produce behavioural change by altering people’s choice architecture. As exemplified in the field of health, this behavioural turn in public policy comes at a cost since policymakers (‘nudgers’) tend to disregard the historical policy legacies and policy rationales that have shaped the notion of health citizenship....

This paper compares and contrasts two different concepts of health promotion in schools from a theoretical perspective: on the one hand, nudge tactics seeking to change both students’ eating behaviour and their exercise routine and, on the other hand, the settings approach which focuses on the social determinants of health. After assessing both con...

Purpose Literature suggests that integrated palliative care (IPC) increases the quality of care for palliative patients at lower costs. However, knowledge on models encompassing all integration levels for successfully implementing IPC is scarce. The purpose of this paper is to describe the experiences of IPC leaders in seven European countries reg...

The innovation of “Kreuzberg Acts—entrepreneurship in the district” results in the intertwining of two issues that are usually separated: On one hand, individual consultancy for (future) entrepreneurs and, on the other hand, a kind of concern with community development and urban planning addressing different local groups. Thereby, “Kreuzberg Acts”...

Background: The outpatient medical care of palliative patients (PPs) has always fallen within the duties of general practitioners. Since the specialized palliative out-patient care (SAPV) legislation in 2007 palliative home care teams (PCTs) were established, providing holistic medical, nursing, and psychosocial support for patients with life-limi...

Purpose – Integrated health care lacks a theoretical concept of the user figure that is appropriate to reflect users’ various claims and multi-dimensional interrelations in the care process. The paper aims to discuss this issue. Design/methodology/approach – Key goals of integrated health care, such as a continuity of care, seamless services and b...

For a long time, Berlin benefitted much from the myth to be “poor but sexy”. The popular slogan, referring to the coexistence of impoverishment and creativity in the city, expressed very well the Berlin zeitgeist promising “a good life for little money”. Hence the city has been the home for creative workers, artists, cosmopolitans and young people...

Many welfare states have embraced choice and market mechanisms since the 1990s. With respect to welfare users, it has been argued that this led to a change from citizens to consumers. This paper challenges this observation and discusses changes of welfare user roles in the German welfare state. The main argument rests on the assumption that user ro...

In light of the major challenges facing societies and political and social systems in Europe, there is an increasing focus on micro-scale social innovations. But what can such innovations contribute? How can they best be understood? And how can a positive interaction between these forms of social innovation and public policies for reform be ensured...

Background: Empirical evidence suggests that integrated palliative care (IPC) increases the quality of care for palliative patients and supports professional caregivers. Existing IPC initiatives in Europe vary in their design and are hardly comparable. InSuP-C, a European Union research project, aimed to build a taxonomy of IPC initiatives applica...

Die Allianz Chronischer Seltener Erkrankungen (ACHSE) ist ein Netzwerk von mehr als 110 Selbsthilfeorganisationen, das als „Sprachrohr“, „Multiplikator“ und „Vermittler“ für Menschen mit seltenen Erkrankungen eintritt. In Deutschland leiden circa vier Millionen Menschen unter einer von rund 6.000 Seltenen Erkrankungen, wie z.B. dem Marfan Syndrom,...

In emerging healthcare markets, user organizations, conceived as patient organizations, self-help groups and customer services, now face the challenge of acting as both change agents and service providers. On the one hand, they are expected to push for user-oriented healthcare reforms; on the other hand, they are urged to facilitate users’ healthca...

In light of the major challenges facing societies and political and social systems in Europe, there is an increasing focus on micro-scale social innovations. But what can such innovations contribute? How can they best be understood? And how can a positive interaction between these forms of social innovation and public policies for reform be ensured...

This article discusses localised forms of social innovation in social services in relation to social policy and welfare issues. It draws upon research findings from the EU project ‘Welfare Innovations at the local Level in favour of Cohesion’ (WILCO), which takes in social innovations in twenty European cities. First, we argue why there is currentl...

Neither on the level of interactions between organizations nor on the level of servicing users, co-production has a fixed meaning. It is argued that there are different meanings that unfold once one looks at the impact of narratives such as consumerism, managerialism, or participatory governance. Altogether with the traditions of state-welfare, the...

The WILCO project has examined urban social problems in the last years of economic crisis. In addition to an overall increase in social exclusion as a result of the crisis, social vulnerability has also raised, characterized by permanent instability in people’s lives.. Social innovations are part of the solution to such problems. The WILCO project...

European cities have always been attractors of people from all over the world (Häussermann 2005) and, according to recent comparative research (Benton-Short et al. 2005), they are strengthening their attraction capacity towards international migrants. An ongoing influx makes cities such as Amsterdam, Barcelona, Berlin, or Milan laboratories for the...

Die Betrachtung von Modernisierungsdimensionen und Antriebskräften im deutschen Gesundheitssystem geschieht aus einer auf Nutzer und Nutzerorganisationen zentrierten Perspektive. Daher werden einleitend Formen kollektiver Nutzerpartizipation rekapituliert, die sich vor dem Hintergrund der in diesem Kapitel diskutierten Modernisierungsdimensionen en...

Das Ziel dieses Kapitels ist es darzulegen, wie schwer es für Nutzerorganisationen ist, an einem Wandel mitzuwirken, der mit einem reichhaltigeren Nutzerkonzept arbeitet und für Lernstrategien optiert, anstatt für die erzwungene Substitution von Nutzerrollen. Im Idealfall unterstützen Nutzerorganisationen mit ihren Angeboten die Herstellung von Übe...

„Boundaries are also ‚fuzzy‘ or fluid, and there are reasons why this is necessarily so – I, like you, am simultaneously citizen, neighbour, worker and consumer, and the qualities developed in one of these roles spill over into the others, one hopes with positive effects.“ (Edwards 2004: 24)

Zur Schließung der sozialwissenschaftlichen „Wissenslücke“ in Bezug auf die Frage danach, wie unabhängige Nutzerorganisationen auf parallel verlaufende Modernisierungsprozesse im Gesundheitswesen und sich ausdifferenzierende Anforderungen an Nutzer reagieren, bedient sich diese Arbeit eines „Methodenmixes“: Die theoretisch-konzeptionellen Grundlage...

Forschungsziel dieser Arbeit ist es, neue Muster der Nutzerunterstützung des deutschen Gesundheitswesens ausfindig zu machen. Auf theoretisch-konzeptioneller Ebene setzt dieses Vorhaben zunächst eine Rekapitulation der Zielsetzungen und Instrumente des Sozial- und Gesundheitssystems voraus. Gesundheitspolitik und Leitbilder der Nutzerorientierung s...

Für welchen Nutzertypus ist das deutsche Gesundheitswesen traditionell konzipiert? Welche Logik und Kultur der Leistungserbringung dominiert das korporatistische Institutionengefüge? Was sind die besonderen Charakteristika des deutschen „health policy context“ (Blank/Bureau 2008: 32)? – Ziel des folgenden Abschnitts ist es, wesentliche Struktur- un...

Die theoretische Grundlage dieser Arbeit besteht in der Dynamisierung von Nutzerrollen. Den Kern bildet die Analyse dreier paralleler und sich gegenseitig durchdringender Modernisierungsprozesse (Ökonomisierung, Vermarktlichung und Wissensbasierung) innerhalb des deutschen Gesundheitssystems (vgl. Kap. 3), von denen unterschiedliche Rollenanforderu...

The key argument of this commentary is that patient choice has a broader meaning than suggested by consumerist choice models. In increasingly marketized health care systems with diversified and knowledge-based service arrangements, patients are continuously obliged to choose insurers, physicians or hospitals and treatments-whether they like it or n...

European cities attract immigrants from all over the world in large number. This ongoing influx and spatial concentration diminish the exclusive explanatory power of national migration policies. Instead cities such as Amsterdam, Barcelona, Berlin or Milan become social laboratories where patterns of immigration and respective conflicts can be studi...

This article investigates elements of healthcare consumerism in Germany from a user-centred perspective. Following Albert Hirschman’s well-known framework of exit and voice and using current choice-and-competition discourses as a theoretical backdrop, it will examine the key principles and the embeddedness of the German corporatist healthcare syste...

Welche Bedeutung hat das Wort hybrid? Zunächst einmal zielt die Bezeichnung ›hybrid‹ auf eine simple Feststellung ab: Elemente, die ursprünglich mit einer je unterschiedlichen Sphäre assoziiert wurden, verbinden sich miteinander, und zwar innerhalb einer Organisationsform. Verschiedene Autoren haben in den letzten Jahren den Begriff hybrid in den s...

The focal figure of governance reforms within the German healthcare system is nowadays the ―expert patient‖. Both, state-driven agendas of user activation as well as market-based healthcare services emphasize self-responsibility, financial stakes and participation of healthcare users. Users act in different contexts as citizens, patients, consumers...

Aus dem Inhalt: Verankerung der direkten Demokratie in den politischen Systemen Litauens, Sloweniens und Ungarns – Strukturelle Voraussetzungen für (direkt-)demokratische Partizipation: Entwicklung der politischen Kulturen – Direktdemokratische Praxiserfahrungen und Etablierungschancen von direktdemokratischen Initiativkulturen.

Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster (Germany) WILCO Publication no. 08 This report is part of Work Package 2 of the research project entitled "Welfare innovations at the local level in favour of cohesion" (WILCO). WILCO aims to examine, through cross-national comparative research, how local welfare systems affect social inequalities and how t...