Brown Bag Seminar with Erlend Vik

At this talk I will present my work on developing a new theoretical perspective on integration of health services. The perspective is inspired by Luhmann’s theory of social systems, recent developments in Scandinavian systems theory and own empirical studies. The theory developing will be presented through eight theses concerning the functional differentiation of healthcare, how we can understand coordination as a social phenomenon, and how coordination can lead to social integration in health care. The theses highlight key tensions and paradoxes between the goal of integration and the organization of healthcare. Through concepts such as polyphony, closedness, complexity and conflict, the aim is also to challenge the normative rhetoric in health politics, a rhetoric that can complicate the goal of social integration.