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 ...

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...

Global health research is essentially a normative undertaking: we use it to propose policies that ought to be implemented. To arrive at a normative conclusion in a logical way requires at least one normative premise, one that cannot be derived from empirical evidence alone. But there is no widely accepted normative premise for global health, and the actors with the power to set policies may use...

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...

Jeremy Shiffman’s editorial appropriately calls on making all forms of power more apparent and accountable, notably productive power derived from expertise and claims to moral authority. This commentary argues that relationships based on productive power can be especially difficult to reveal in global health policy because of embedded notions about the nature of power and politics. Yet, it is e...

politics play a central part in determining health and development outcomes as gorik ooms highlights in his recent commentary. as health becomes more global and more politicized the need grows to better understand the inherently political processes at all levels of governance, such as ideological positions, ideas, value judgments, and power. i agree that global health research should strengthen...

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...

The global health agenda has been dominating the current global health policy debate. Furthermore, it has compelled countries to embrace strategies for tackling health inequalities in a wide range of public health areas. The article by Robert and colleagues highlights that although globalization has increased opportunities to share and spread ideas, there is still great asymmetry of power accor...

global health research is essentially a normative undertaking: we use it to propose policies that ought to be implemented. to arrive at a normative conclusion in a logical way requires at least one normative premise, one that cannot be derived from empirical evidence alone. but there is no widely accepted normative premise for global health, and the actors with the power to set policies may use...