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Numerous studies describe the genetic make-up of populations living outside Europe and North America. Many of these tackle human genetic variation with the explicit aim of identifying gene variants of medical significance for the populations studied. However, the chapter points to rather different motivations, showing how recent studies documenting the genetic constitution of non-Western populations have grown out of, and serve the purposes of, efforts to identify genetic factors which influence the health of populations in Europe and North America. Analysing the past thirty-five years of medical research literature, the chapter shows how, in this context, efforts to identify genetic variants of possible significance for disease aetiology have shifted to include large-scale association studies in populations rather than families. It discusses how research with local concerns must nonetheless take into account the global distribution of genes and genotypes, thus making studies of the genetic causes of disease, wherever conducted, increasingly global in their purview. The chapter also argues that this recent knowledge of human population genomics has developed in a way which reinscribes ideas of racial difference into biomedical understanding of human populations, and creates tools for excluding supposedly non-Western populations from research oriented towards the concerns of Western institutions.

This title presents a radical reconception of the place of knowledge in policy making in Europe. Knowledge is embodied in people, inscribed in documents and instruments, and enacted in specific circumstances. Empirical case studies of health and education policies in different contexts are gathered that demonstrate the essential interdependence of these different forms of knowledge. In doing so, they illustrate the ways in which knowledge is mobilized and resisted, drawing attention to key problems in the processing and transformation of knowledge in policy work.

The approval, from 1986, of a series of recombinant hepatitis B vaccines was a landmark both in the growth of biotechnology and in the development of the vaccine innovation system. In this paper, we show how the early development of the hepatitis B vaccines was shaped by a political and economic context that newly favoured commercialisation of academic research, including the appropriation and management of intellectual property; we elucidate the contingent interests and motivations that led new biotechnology companies and established pharmaceutical businesses to invest in developing recombinant vaccines specifically against hepatitis B; and we show how these and other factors combined to make those vaccines an unexpected commercial success. Broadening the scope of our analysis to include not just North America and Europe but also low- and middle-income countries, we show how the development of the hepatitis B vaccines facilitated the emergence of a two-tier innovation system structured by tensions between the demands for commercial profitability on the one hand, and the expectation of public health benefit for low- and middle-income countries on the other.

AbstractPublic and stakeholder consultation is increasingly important in the policy process, both in the UK and elsewhere. Social scientists have considered consultation primarily in terms of how it relates to decision‐making – either as a means of involving a wider constituency of actors in the decision‐making process, or as a means of legitimizing the decisions taken by policymakers. This article shows that consultation can also serve a rather different role in relation to policy: as, in effect, the first stage in policy implementation. Based on direct observation of a stakeholder consultation on Scottish mental health policy that took place during late 2007 and early 2008, it draws on elements of social movement theory to show how that consultation served as a means of enrolling, orienting and mobilizing stakeholders to implement a largely pre‐existing set of policy aims.

This important collection presents a radical reconception of the place of knowledge in contemporary policymaking in Europe, based not on assumptions about evidence, expertise or experience but on the different forms that knowledge takes. Knowledge is embodied in people, inscribed in documents and instruments, and enacted in specific circumstances. Empirical case studies of health and education policy in different national and international contexts demonstrate the essential interdependence of different forms and phases of knowledge. They illustrate the ways in which knowledge is mobilised and resisted, and draw attention to key problems in the processing and transformation of knowledge in policy work. This novel theoretical framework offers real benefits for policymakers, academics in public policy, public administration, management studies, sociology, education, public health and social work, and those with a practical interest in education and health and related fields of public policy