Civil Society and Global Health Politics

2019 ◽  
pp. 365-385
Author(s):  
David McCoy ◽  
Joseph Gafton
Keyword(s):  
Health Policy ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
Global Health ◽  
International Health ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Global Health Governance ◽  
Health Governance ◽  
Health Politics ◽  
Role Of The State

Civil society may be defined as both a space in society and a collection of certain types of actor. As a space, it exists alongside the state and markets; as a set of actors, it interacts with a range of governmental bodies and businesses. Over the past three or four decades, neoliberal globalisation has dramatically changed the distribution of power across society, while also institutionalising a set of policies that have diminished the role of the state, undermined democracy, and established the dominance of market logic. These developments have influenced both international health policy and the structures of global governance. Furthermore, they have also shaped the nature of civil society’s participation in global health policy and governance. Crucially, civil society does not merely intervene in global health politics from outside, but is itself sculpted by the ideologies and political conditions that surround it. This chapter explores the political nature of civil society and its relationship to global health politics, including the political nature of new non-state actors such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the emergence of global health partnerships, which have ostensibly increased civil society involvement in global health governance. It argues that civil society participation in global health governance tends to represent powerful and hegemonic interests rather than those most in need. It also discusses how current political, economic and technological developments will influence civil society’s participation in global health politics, and shape the challenges faced by society more generally.

Divergent Perspectives in Global Health Governance

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer Prah Ruger
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Health Policy ◽  
Global Health ◽  
Global Public Good ◽  
Global Health Governance ◽  
Actor Model ◽  
Health Governance ◽  
Rational Actor ◽  
Global Health Policy ◽  
Self Interest

The global health governance (GHG) literature frames health variously as a matter of security and foreign policy, human rights, or global public good. Divergence among these perspectives has forestalled the development of a consensus vision for global health. Global health policy will differ according to the frame applied. Fundamentally, GHG today operates on a rational actor model, encompassing a continuum from the purely self-interest-maximizing position at one extreme to a more nuanced approach that takes others’ interests into account when making one’s own calculations. Even where humanitarian concerns are clearly and admirably at play, however, the problem of motivations remains. Often narrow self-interest is also at work, and actors obfuscate this behind altruistic motives.

From Alma Ata to the SDG s

2020 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 176-197 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Weber
Keyword(s):  
Global Health ◽  
Sustainable Development Goals ◽  
Medical Profession ◽  
Final Analysis ◽  
The Political ◽  
Global Health Governance ◽  
Health Governance ◽  
Community Activists ◽  
Development Goals ◽  
Year 2000

Abstract The Alma Ata Declaration of 1978 proclaimed “health for all by the year 2000.” In 2019 health is mainstreamed through the United Nations’ 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG s) initiative. Contributing to critical analysis of global health governance (GHG), this article reconstructs the normative premises of the Alma Ata Declaration, the political project it represented, and the successful cases it was inspired by. It contrasts this with an account of the emergence and gradual consolidation of the GHG agenda that is today reflected in the SDG s. The calls for a return to the Alma Ata Declaration resonate strongly among human rights advocates, community activists, and the medical profession. This is because of the socially exclusionary effects of the dominant health governance agenda shaped by distinctively neoliberal premises. The article argues that in the final analysis the two different approaches reflect very different ideas and ideals about “who global health governance is for.”

"A Promise Unfulfilled": Stakeholder Influence and the 2018 UN High-Level Meeting on NCDs; Comment on "Competing Frames in Global Health Governance: an Analysis of Stakeholder Influence on the Political Declaration on Non-Communicable Diseases

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Johanna Ralston
Keyword(s):  
Global Health ◽  
Private Sector ◽  
Communicable Diseases ◽  
Noncommunicable Diseases ◽  
The Political ◽  
Global Health Governance ◽  
Health Governance ◽  
Non Communicable Diseases ◽  
Stakeholder Influence ◽  
High Level

In recognition of the global burden of noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), the past decade has seen three U.N. High Level Meetings on NCDs. Yet progress in terms of political or financial commitments has been very slow. At the 2018 meeting, a political declaration was approved but featured language that had been watered down in terms of commitments. In "Competing Frames of Global Health Governance: An Analysis of Stakeholder Influence on the Political Declaration on Non-communicable Diseases," Suzuki et al analyze the documents that were submitted by Member States, NGOs and the private sector during the consultation period and conclude that the private sector and several high-income countries appeared to oppose regulatory frameworks for products associated with NCDs , that wealthier countries resisted financing commitments, and that general power asymmetries affected the final document. This comment supports their findings and provides additional considerations for why the NCD response has yet to produce significant commitments.

Globalisation and the Politics of Global Health

2018 ◽  
pp. 36-58
Author(s):  
Matthew Sparke
Keyword(s):  
Global Health ◽  
Economic Integration ◽  
Structural Violence ◽  
Market Forces ◽  
Global Health Governance ◽  
Global Public Health ◽  
Health Governance ◽  
Health Security ◽  
Health Politics ◽  
Political Economic

This chapter examines how the politics of global health have been shaped by globalisation. This means evaluating its effects on both the material level of political-economic integration and on the ideational level of political-cultural discourse. The former is conventionally tied through a focus on trade and travel to global public health security, and the latter is often associated with global humanitarian care. Going beyond this dualistic divide, however, this chapter argues that globalisation has spun a connective thread running through both regimes. This connective thread is the pro-market neo-liberal governance that sutures globalisation’s integrative and ideational dynamics with powerful binding implications for health. Due to these ties that bind, processes of neo-liberalisation deeply influence global health, creating global health vulnerabilities and problems through structural violence while also shaping and steering the delivery of global health responses. Global health governance remains influenced by other international and postcolonial health regimes that continue to inspire alternatives to the global expansion of neo-liberal norms. However, the same market forces that have made globalisation a synonym for processes of neo-liberalisation have also now become the dominant transnational influence shaping the ‘global’ in global health politics.

scholarly journals The rise of companies from emerging markets in global health governance: Opportunities and challenges

2014 ◽  
Vol 40 (5) ◽  
pp. 897-918 ◽  
Author(s):  
ANNE ROEMER-MAHLER
Keyword(s):  
Global Health ◽  
Emerging Markets ◽  
Low Cost ◽  
The Political ◽  
Pharmaceutical Companies ◽  
Global Health Governance ◽  
Pharmaceutical Treatment ◽  
Health Governance ◽  
Treatment And Prevention ◽  
Global Health Policy

AbstractThe article analyses the involvement of pharmaceutical companies from emerging markets in global health governance. It finds that they play a central role as low-cost suppliers of medicines and vaccines and, increasingly, new technologies. In so doing, pharmaceutical companies from emerging markets have facilitated the implementation of a key goal of global health policy: widening access to pharmaceutical treatment and prevention. Yet, looking closer at the political economy underlying their involvement, the article exposes a tension between this policy goal and the political economy of pharmaceutical development and production. By declaring access to pharmaceuticals a goal of global health policy, governments and global health partnerships have made themselves dependent on pharmaceutical companies to supply them. Moreover, to provide pharmaceutical treatment and prevention at the global level, they depend on companies to supply medicines and vaccines at extremely low prices. Yet, the development and production of pharmaceuticals is organised around commercial incentives that are at odds with the prices required. The increasing involvement of low-cost suppliers from emerging markets mitigates this tension in the short run. In the long run, this tension endangers the sustainability of global access policies and may even undermine some of the successes already achieved.

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