1st Edition
The Routledge Handbook of the Political Economy of Health and Healthcare
This handbook provides a comprehensive and critical overview of the gamut of contemporary issues around health and healthcare from a political economy perspective. Its contributions present a unique challenge to prevailing economic accounts of health and healthcare, which narrowly focus on individual behaviour and market processes. Instead, the capacity of the human body to reach its full potential and the ability of society to prevent disease and cure illness are demonstrated to be shaped by a broader array of political economic processes. The material conditions in which societies produce, distribute, exchange, consume, and reproduce – and the operation of power relations therein – influence all elements of human health: from food consumption and workplace safety, to inequality, healthcare and housing, and even the biophysical conditions in which humans live.
This volume explores these concerns across five sections. First, it introduces and critically engages with a variety of established and cutting-edge theoretical perspectives in political economy to conceptualise health and healthcare – from neoclassical and behavioural economics, to Marxist and feminist approaches. The next two sections extend these insights to evaluate the neoliberalisation of health and healthcare over the past 40 years, highlighting their individualisation and commodification by the capitalist state and powerful corporations. The fourth section examines the diverse manifestation of these dynamics across a range of geographical contexts. The volume concludes with a section devoted to outlining more progressive health and healthcare arrangements, which transcend the limitations of both neoliberalism and capitalism.
This volume will be an indispensable reference work for students and scholars of political economy, health policy and politics, health economics, health geography, the sociology of health, and other health-related disciplines.
1. Revitalizing the political economy of health and healthcare in a context of crisis
David Primrose and Rodney Loeppky
PART I Theorizing health and healthcare
2. Mainstream health economics and the COVID-19 pandemic
John B. Davis, Geoffrey M. Hodgson, Gerry McCartney and Robert McMaster
3. The economics of conventions
Philippe Batifoulier and Nicolas Da Silva
4. Understanding Marx on health: Towards a class-based approach
Raju Das
5. Feminist political economy, health and care
Tamara Daly
6. Post-Keynesian economics and healthcare
Steven Pressman
7. New materialisms and the (critical) micropolitical economy of health
Nick J. Fox
8. A lop-sided reflation: The limited contribution of behavioral economics to the political economy of obesity
David Primrose
PART II Contemporary political-economic dimensions of health
9. A critical political economy of health inequities
Arnel Borras
10. Issues of social reproduction and the political economy of health
Sarah Redikopp
11. Health and the corporate agri-food system
Jennifer Lacy-Nichols and Gyorgy Scrinis
12. Neoliberalism and health in global context: The role of international organizations
Timon Forster, Thomas H. Stubbs and Alexander E. Kentikelenis
13. Neoliberalism and mental health
Jana Fey
14. Occupational health and safety in the global garment industry
Patrick Neveling
15. Political economy and social epidemiology in the context of the HIV epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa
Kevin Deane
16. Digital health and capitalism
Olivia Banner
17. The political economy of health and place: From the Great Compression to COVID-19
Clare Bambra
PART III Contemporary political-economic dimensions of healthcare
18. Commodified healthcare, profits, priorities and the disregard for life under capitalism
Isaac Christiansen
19. The financialization of long-term care in Canada: The case of Ontario
Jackie Brown
20. The anatomy of Big Pharma
Marc-André Gagnon
21. Automating the welfare state: The case of disability benefits and services
Georgia van Toorn
22. Understanding the health-politics nexus in the shadow of populism: Towards a political science of, and for, health
Volkan Yilmaz
23. Trade and investment: The re-ordering of healthcare and public health policy?
Deborah Gleeson and Belinda Townsend
24. Universal health coverage: A case-study of the political economy of global health
David G. Legge
PART IV Geographical varieties of health and healthcare
25. The critical political economy of Latin America’s healthcare systems: A century of struggles
Laura Nervi and Anne-Emanuelle Birn
26. The political economy of healthcare policy in Africa in the age of COVID-19
Jean-Germain Gros
27. Transformation of healthcare in China: The pre-and post-Maoist eras
Rama V. Baru and Madhurima Nundy
28. The political economy of health and healthcare in India
Shailender Kumar Hooda
29. The political economy of the postsocialist mortality crisis
Gabor Scheiring and Lawrence King
30. Healthcare in Australia: Contesting marketized provision
Ben Spies-Butcher
31. The political economy of the National Health Service in the United Kingdom
Jonathan Filippon
32. Health and healthcare in the United States
Rodney Loeppky
33. The new health politics of austerity in Europe
Scott L. Greer and Margitta Mätzke
PART V Alternative paths toward health and healthcare
34. Social welfare and alternative forms of health provision: The UK experience and radical new frontiers
Chris Thomas
35. The need for comprehensive primary healthcare
Toby Freeman and Fran Baum
36. The political economy of healthcare as commons: Exploring the commons health system and Indigenous peoples
Young Soon Wong
37. Diverse economies of care-full healthcare: Banking and sharing human milk
Lindsay Naylor
38. The political economy of health and degrowth
Jean-Louis Aillon and Mauro Bonaiuti
39. Cuban medical internationalism: A radical alternative approach to medical ‘aid’
John M. Kirk
40. The transition to post-capitalist health and healthcare
Howard Waitzkin
Index
Biography
David Primrose is in the Menzies Centre for Health Policy and Economics, University of Sydney, Australia.
Rodney Loeppky is in the Department of Political Science, York University, Canada.
Robin Chang is in the Department of Political Science, York University, Canada.
‘A smorgasbord of insights into the world of healthcare, it is a celebration of the very best of political economy with its capacity to make sense of economic and social issues with immediate relevance for the health and well-being of humans.’
Fran Collyer, Professor of Sociology, University of Wollongong, and President RC08 International Sociological Association
‘This book, containing a commendably broad array of chapters by international experts, takes stock of these main strands of research and the insights they offer. Right up-to-date, it looks at the key political economic lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic. Looking to the future, it identifies what changes to political economic arrangements would be conducive to creating healthy societies. It is an eye-opener and a must-read.’
Frank Stilwell, Emeritus Professor of Political Economy, University of Sydney
‘This handbook is a vital contribution to our understanding of an impressive range of topics and critical perspectives. It diagnoses urgent shortcomings in the current system and offers constructive approaches for reducing health harms.’
Susan K. Sell, Professor of Regulation and Global Governance, Australian National University, and Emeritus Professor of Political Science and International Affairs, George Washington University
‘The Routledge Handbook of the Political Economy of Health and Healthcare makes a superb contribution to the necessary and inevitable literature of what went wrong with the institutions responsible for the COVID-19 crisis.’
Robert Chernomas, Professor of Economics, University of Manitoba
