1,721,049 research outputs found
Bailouts, austerity and the erosion of health coverage in Southern Europe and Ireland
No full textBailouts, austerity and the erosion of health coverage in Southern Europe and Irelan
Intersecting crises: migration, the economy and the right to health in Europe
No full textIntersecting crises: migration, the economy and the right to health in Europ
Economic crisis, austerity and the Greek public health system
No full textEconomic crisis, austerity and the Greek public health syste
Legitimacy challenges to the liberal world order: Evidence from United Nations speeches, 1970–2018
Full text linkAbstract: The liberal international economic order has been facing high-profile legitimacy challenges in recent years. This article puts these challenges in historical context through a systematic analysis of rhetorical challenges towards both the order per se and specific global economic institutions. Drawing on Albert Hirschman’s classic typology of exit, voice and loyalty, we coded leaders’ speeches in the General Debate at the UN General Assembly between 1970 and 2018 as articulating intentions to abandon elements of the order, challenges or calls for reform, unequivocal support, or factual mentions of cooperation. Surprisingly, we find that explicit criticisms towards the liberal order are at an all-time low and that exit threats remain rare. An analysis of the historical evolution of criticisms to global economic institutions reveals a move away from the Cold War insider-outsider conflict towards insider contestation. For example, we find that as countries’ economies become more open, their leaders expressed more support for global economic institutions during the Cold War but less support since. Finally, we demonstrate consistency between the public policy positions leaders announce in UNGA General Debate speeches and their government positions on consequential reform debates on debt relief
Replication Data for: Austerity redux: The post-pandemic wave of budget cuts and the future of global public health
No full textThe convergence of health, economic and social crises over the past 1.5 years has posed profound questions over the direction of travel for the world after Covid-19. The narrative emerging out of major international organizations like the International Monetary Fund stresses avoiding a ‘divergent recovery,’ whereby some countries steam ahead with high growth rates underpinned by robust government interventions and others fall further behind. In this account, crisis aftermath should not witness budget cuts, but investment in employment and human capital formation. So, is austerity a thing of the past? In this article, we review available evidence, focusing on public spending projections by the IMF and the precise content of IMF lending arrangements. Overall, we find that the abandonment of austerity argument is partially true right now, and questionable in the medium-term. Our analysis of public expenditure projections reveals that by 2023, 83 out of 189 countries will face contractions in government spending compared to their 2010s average, thereby exposing a cumulative total of 2.3 billion people to the socio-economic consequences of budget cuts. Most of the contracting countries will be middle-income, while public spending in low-income countries is expected to stagnate at low levels. Further, the IMF's lending arrangements reveal the return of extensive austerity measures and structural reforms, reminiscent of the organization’s past policy advice. Drawing on these findings, we elaborate on how this will likely impact global public health
Markets everywhere: the Washington Consensus and the sociology of global institutional change
No full textThe dominance of free markets around the world is the defining feature of contemporary globalization. This current state of affairs is historically linked to the Washington Consensus, a coordinated campaign for the global diffusion of market-oriented policies that started more than 30 years ago. In this article, we review scholarship from multiple fields to assess the origins, evolution, and current status of the Washington Consensus: Where did it come from, how did it become dominant, and what happened to it? After laying out historical background, we present three alternative perspectives on the Washington Consensus: its organizational dimension, its ideational aspects, and its relationship to a historical moment of American dominance in world affairs. We then consider current debates on what has happened to the Washington Consensus. Finally, we lay out three directions for future sociological research on global institutional change, before making our concluding observations
Globalizing green industrial policy through technology transfers
No full textUnless the green technological transition underway in Global North countries is globalized, it will fail to reach its developmental potential. To realize the ambitions of green industrial policies in the Global North, technology transfers to the Global South are a necessary supplement to climate finance initiatives
Power asymmetries in global governance for health: a conceptual framework for analyzing the political-economic determinants of health inequities
No full textBackground - Recent scholarship has increasingly identified global power asymmetries as the root cause of health inequities. This article examines how such asymmetries manifest in global governance for health, and how this impacts health outcomes. Results - We focus on the political-economic determinants of global health inequities, and how these determinants operate at different levels of social action (micro, meso, and macro) through distinct but interacting mechanisms. To clarify how these mechanisms operate, we develop an integrative framework for examining the links between global neoliberalism—the currently dominant policy paradigm premised on advancing the reach of markets and promoting ever-growing international economic integration—and global health inequities, and show how these mechanisms have macro–macro, macro–meso–macro, and macro–micro–macro manifestations. Conclusions - Our approach enables the design of theoretically-nuanced empirical strategies to document the multiple ways in which the political economy entrenches or, alternatively, might ameliorate global health inequities
The making of neoliberal globalization: norm substitution and the politics of clandestine institutional change
No full textSince the 1980s, neoliberal policies have been diffused around the world by international institutions established to support a very different world order. This article examines the repurposing of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to become the world’s leading promoter of free markets. Social scientists commonly point to two modes of global-level institutional change: formal and fundamental transformations, like renegotiated treaties, or informal and incremental changes of a modest nature. The case of the IMF fits neither of these molds: it underwent a major transformation but without change in its formal foundations. Relying on archival material and interviews, the authors show that fundamental-yet-informal change was effected through a process of norm substitution—the alteration of everyday assumptions about the appropriateness of a set of activities. This transformation was led by the United States and rested on three pillars: mobilization of resources and allies, normalization of new practices, and symbolic work to stabilize the new modus operandi. This account denaturalizes neoliberal globalization and illuminates the clandestine politics behind its rise
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