• Citer

A constructivist approach to understand the fight against diabetes in low-income countries: The case of the engagement of patients’ associations in Bamako, Mali

par Martini, Jessica ;Mahieu, Céline
Référence International conference on public policy (5: 5-9/07/2021: Barcelona)
Publication Non publié, 2021-07-08

Communication à un colloque

• Détails
• Contenu

Résumé :

This paper aims to present how patients with diabetes engaged in the fight against this disease from 1991 to 2014 in Bamako, Mali. By tracing the history of their collective mobilisation, it focuses on the way that patients’ associations framed problems, solutions, and motivations over time. It shows how this definitional work shaped their forms of engagement in the fight against diabetes and how paradoxically it contributed to the low progress of the issue onto the national policy agenda. It also discusses how, at the same time, this definitional work was very much interrelated to (and cannot be separated by) the multiple constraints faced by patients’ associations in a context where diabetes has long been neglected by national and international policymakers, and where scientific knowledge has long dominated the policy debates.The following research questions are explored: How did patients’ associations frame problems and solutions in the fight against diabetes in Mali ? And how did they try to motivate collective action against diabetes? How did this definitional work impact national (and international) policy agendas ? And in turn, how was this work influenced by stakeholders’ configuration and by resources available to patients’ associations?This paper draws on an extensive research that has formed the basis of a PhD thesis defended in 2020. Data was collected in Bamako in the framework of four field missions conducted every two years from 2008 to 2014. The analysis is based on political sociology of public policy and constructivist approaches of collective actions.By presenting an empirical case study related to the fight against diabetes in Mali, this paper discusses how the definitional work made by patients’ associations influenced the way this health issue was debated and included into the national (and international) policy agenda. It shows how this constructivist perspective proved relevant to understand policymaking processes related to an issue, that of diabetes, which has long remained a low priority for national and international policymakers in the context of low-income countries.