Recap — Rethinking Public Engagement Through Political Theory and Health Policy, with Julia Rodgers

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Published on May 8, 2025

On April 9, 2025, Julia Rodgers, a PhD candidate in Political Science at Dalhousie University, delved into the complexities of public engagement in health policy, drawing from her dissertation and work at the Global Strategy Lab. She challenged the dominant narrative that engagement is inherently positive, arguing instead that without clear purpose and context, engagement risks becoming tokenistic and ineffective.

Rodgers traced the history of engagement from broad community involvement to the current focus on patient-oriented practices. Despite widespread use, she noted a persistent lack of clarity about the objectives, roles and theoretical foundations of engagement. Through her analysis, Rodgers developed a typology that categorizes engagement into three distinct narratives which are systems management, public representation and neutralizing change, each with different goals and theoretical underpinnings.

She emphasized the importance of defining the problem engagement is meant to address before evaluating its success. Her comparative policy analysis revealed that engagement is often used without recognizing its political dimensions or institutional constraints. Rodgers also highlighted how overloaded engagement efforts filled with data but lacking clarity which can obscure rather than clarify decision making.

A key takeaway from her talk was the necessity of aligning engagement design with its intended outcomes. She explained how different types of engagement such as advisory boards, research partnerships or one-off consultations which must be contextually matched to the goals they aim to achieve. Importantly, Rodgers addressed the emotional and ethical toll ineffective engagement can have on participants, particularly those from marginalized communities.

Her work ultimately provides a framework for policymakers and researchers to use engagement more strategically, ensuring that it serves specific, meaningful purposes rather than acting as a symbolic gesture. She concluded by cautioning against assuming more engagement is always better and stressed the need for reflective, purpose driven practices rooted in both theory and lived realities.

Connect With Julia Rodgers.

Watch the full seminar here.

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