The Politics of Health Care Provision Across Lebanon and Turkey (Webinar)

Across many developing countries, the delivery of basic social services is not universal, and often skewed along politicised identity cleavages. The Middle East and North Africa region is no exception. Under what conditions are some services provided in a more ‘equitable’ fashion, with less apparent favouritism towards particular groups? Drawing on the cases of health care provision in Lebanon and Turkey, this webinar explored this question. Health provision is an area where public delivery is often discretionary, running along partisan, ethnic, or religious identity lines. Featuring work by Melani Cammett, the first part of the webinar explored new empirical evidence on how societal divisions affect the quality of service delivery in Lebanon. In the second part of the webinar, drawing on the case of Turkey under AKP rule, Asli Cansunar discussed how a government, because of its political goals, designed an effective and universal policy which widened health coverage and electorally paid out the incumbent AK Parti.