Suchergebnisse

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 of as 'outside' global health. In doing so, I argue that moving forward with the agenda Shiffman sets out requires social scientists interested in the global politics of health to be reflexive about our own exercise of structural and productive power and the fact that researching global health politics is itself a political undertaking.

The concept of 'health security' has been increasingly apparent in recent years in both academic and policy discourses on transborder infectious disease threats. Yet it has been noted that there are a range of conceptualisations of 'health security' in circulation and that confusion over the concept is creating international tensions with some states (particularly from the Global South) fearing that 'health security' in reality means securing the West. This article examines these tensions but puts forward an alternative explanation for them. It begins by looking at the different 'health securities' that characterise the contemporary global health discourse, arguing that there is in fact a good deal more consensus than we are often led to believe. In particular there is a high level of agreement evident over what the major threats to 'health security' are and what should be done about them. These are a particular set of health risks which are primarily seen as major threats by Western developed nations, and contemporary global responses – often couched in the language of global health security – have a tendency to focus on containment rather than prevention. The article makes the case that to resolve the tensions around (global) health security there is the need for a more explicit recognition of the primary beneficiaries of the current system, and of who is bearing the costs. Only following such a recognition can meaningful debates be carried out about the appropriate prioritisation of global health security in relation to other global health governance priorities.

In recent years it has increasingly been claimed that health-sector initiatives have the potential to make a meaningful contribution to post-conflict peacebuilding. This article examines two types of such claims - that health can act as a 'bridge for peace', and that health-sector reconstruction can assist in rebuilding the social contract and reestablishing the legitimacy of the government - and how they played out in the case of Sierra Leone. In this case there was an opportunity for health-sector assistance to go beyond mere humanitarian relief and for it to play an active role in promoting peace and stability. It is argued that the best chance of success may lie in a successful blending of Health as a Bridge for Peace-type approaches and 'top-down' government-centred interventions as the country moves from the immediate post-war relief phase to the longer-term process of securing future peace and stability.