in this paper we emphasize the importance of questioning the global validity of significant concepts underpinning global health policy. this implies questioning the concept of global health as such and accepting that there is no global definition of the global. further, we draw attention to ‘quality’ and ‘empowerment’ as examples of world-forming concepts. these concepts are exemplary for the g...

Shiffman recently summarized lessons for network effectiveness from an impressive collection of case-studies. However, in common with most global health governance analysis in recent years, Shiffman underplays the important role of states in these global networks. As the body which decides and signs international agreements, often provides the resourcing, and is responsible for implementing ini...

Striking disparities in access to healthcare and in health outcomes are major characteristics of health across the globe. This inequitable state of global health and how it could be improved has become a highly popularized field of academic study. In a series of articles in this journal the roles of power and politics in global health have been addressed in considerable detail. Three points are...

a number of individuals and organizations have considerable influence over the selection of global health priorities and strategies. for some that influence derives from control over financial resources. for others it comes from expertise and claims to moral authority—what can be termed, respectively, epistemic and normative power. in contrast to financial power, we commonly take for granted th...

this article agrees with recent arguments suggesting that normative and epistemic power is rife within global health policy and provides further examples of such. however, in doing so, it is argued that it is equally important to recognize that global health is, and always will be, deeply political and that some form of power is not only necessary for the system to advance, but also to try and ...

Global health networks—webs of individuals and organizations linked by a shared concern for a particular condition—have proliferated over the past quarter century. In a recent editorial in this journal, I presented evidence that their effectiveness in addressing four challenges—problem definition, positioning, coalitionbuilding and governance—shapes their ability to influence policy. The editor...

Global health financing has increased dramatically in recent years, indicative of a rise in health as a foreign policy issue. Several governments have issued specific foreign policy statements on global health and a new term, global health diplomacy, has been coined to describe the processes by which state and non-state actors engage to position health issues more prominently in foreign policy ...