ABSTRACT

The recent proliferation of calls for public engagement in health policy making has outpaced careful theorising about the normative foundations of the practice. Analysing policy examples of resource allocation, health care reform, and emergency preparedness, this chapter argues that public engagement is best justified as means of shoring up different weak points in the representative policy-making process. Because different weak points have distinct features, the ways in which they can be addressed by public engagement are varied. What makes a particular approach to public engagement inappropriate in one context can be a virtue in another.