Dr David Reubi, Centre for Global Health Policy, Sussex University

‘On the Economisation of Global Public Health: A Genealogy of Tobacco Taxes in International Health and Development’

Convening Space, Institute of Development Studies
all welcome

Over the last twenty years, economic rationalities have become increasingly influential in global public health. The usual story found in the literature generally reduces the economisation of international health to the increasing predominance of neo-liberal doctrines advocating privatisation, deregulation and liberalisation and bemoans their detrimental effect on health.

While not disputing the importance and often damaging impact of neo-liberalism on international health, this presentation will aim to show that there is another side to the economisation of global health. To do so, it will examine the genealogy of one economic strategy – taxation – which has become central to current international initiatives to curb smoking in the Global South.

By examining the role of health economics, the problematisation of tobacco in developing countries and the work of the World Bank, this genealogy will show that: not all economic rationalities at work in global health partake in the neo-liberal project; not all economic policies now ubiquitous in international health are market-oriented; and the relation between economics and global health is not necessarily unidirectional and detrimental to the latter.

By doing so, the article contributes to the critique of the inflationary use of neo-liberalism as explanation for change and calls for other stories about the economisation of global health to be told.