among the many reasons that may limit the adoption of promising reform ideas, policy capacity is the least recognized. the concept itself is not widely understood. although policy capacity is concerned with the gathering of information and the formulation of options for public action in the initial phases of policy consultation and development, it also touches on all stages of the policy proces...

In a recent article, Gorik Ooms has drawn attention to the normative underpinnings of the politics of global health. We claim that Ooms is indirectly submitting to a liberal conception of politics by framing the politics of global health as a question of individual morality. Drawing on the theoretical works of Chantal Mouffe, we introduce a conflictual concept of the political as an alternative...

shiffman has argued that some actors have a great deal of power in global health, and that more reflection is needed on whether such forms of power are legitimate. global health is a new and evolving field that builds upon the historical fields of public and international health, but is more multi-disciplinary and inter-disciplinary in nature. this article argues that the distribution of power ...

martin powell makes the point that the death of the national health service (nhs) is constantly asserted without criteria. this article suggests that the nhs is many things, which makes criteria unstable. the alignment of interests in the structure of the nhs enables both overheated rhetoric and political strength, and that pluralization of provision might actually undermine that alignment over...

In this comment, I build on Shiffman’s call for the global health community to more deeply investigate structural and productive power. I highlight two challenges we must grapple with as social scientists carrying out the types of investigation that Shiffman proposes: the politics of  challenging the powerful; and the need to investigate types of expertise that have traditionally been thought o...

a commonly desired ultimate foundation or ground is full unity, community, or consensus, which is often, if not typically, figured as lost or perhaps lacking, usually because of the intrusive presence of others seen as outsiders or polluters of the city or the body politic. One may, however, insist that such unity, community, or consensus is absent and that the sociopolitical problem is how to ...

Let us start with an example of health policy analysis in action. Within that category of countries loosely known as ‘the West’, quite basic differences exist in attitudes to health policy and also actual health policy. Comparing the US with mainland Europe and indeed Canada, for example, one perceives a difference in attitude on the part of the majority towards collectivism and individualism i...

The formulation of global health policy is political; and all institutions operating in the global health landscape are political. This is because policies and institutions inevitably represent certain values, reflect particular ideologies, and preferentially serve some interests over others. This may be expressed explicitly and consciously; or implicitly and unconsciously. But it’s important t...