Local politicians and health: territorial political issues

This paper analyses how local politicians legitimise local governments' public health policies: their discourses show that they appropriate and rephrase public health issues in terms of political competition. We first show that the legitimisation of territorial policies rely on local governments' possibilities of influencing the social determinants of health, as well as on a widespread discourse on the alleged merits of proximity. Secondly, we emphasize two different strategies whereby local politicians use health to assert themselves in territorial politics. They resort to different legitimising strategies depending on their professional and political experiences, insisting either on medical or political skills.