BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//132.216.98.100//NONSGML kigkonsult.se iCalcreator 2.20.4// BEGIN:VEVENT UID:20251007T040548EDT-8194XucRFW@132.216.98.100 DTSTAMP:20251007T080548Z DESCRIPTION:ɬÀï·¬ Global Health Programs is delighted to partner with the ɬÀï·¬ Institute for Health and Social Policy to present this special semi nar by Ted Schrecker\, Professor of Global Health Politics at Durham Unive rsity.\n\nAbstract\n\nGlobal health researchers routinely investigate the activities of states\, for example as providers of health services domesti cally and development assistance internationally\, and are often funded by them through granting agencies. Global health practitioners routinely int eract with state agencies\, and may well work for them\, either as employe es or through grant-funded projects. A further layer of complexity involve s the influence of state actions and policies on health outcomes by way of channels such as trade and investment agreements and domestic and externa l security interventions. Yet the social science of global health includes little theorizing\, or even critical reflection\, on the nature and role of the state - despite the frequency of references\, in discussions of glo bal governance and health\, to the supposedly ‘post-Westphalian’ character of the global health policy environment.\n\nWhatever one’s view of their rather ambitious claim to have developed ‘a conceptual framework for inter preting recorded human history’\, Douglass North and John Wallis remind us that in much of the world the state itself is contested terrain\, charact erized by ongoing contests among elites over access to the means of violen ce. Even outside such contexts political choices are increasingly dominate d or constrained by wealth\, whether through direct corruption (a topic po litely avoided in many circles)\; by the isolation of personal and corpora te wealth through capital flight to offshore financial centres (an indispe nsable facilitator of corruption)\; or by the ‘exit option’ that capital e njoys with respect to outsourcing or offshoring of production. These are a mong the contributors to rising inequalities within national borders\, eve n under conditions of formal democracy\, and have important ‘on the ground ’ implications for such widely agreed objectives as progress towards unive rsal health coverage.\n\nThe operations of formal democracy are in turn un der attack not only by concentrations of wealth but also from the recent d rift to neoliberal authoritarianism in Russia and the United States\, and aggressive cyber-interventionism by the former. (The US\, of course\, has a long history of interfering with elections outside its borders using low er-tech measures.) Finally\, there is the paradox of rapid progress on at least some health indicators in showcase jurisdictions such as Bangladesh and Rwanda that are repressive and retrograde in terms of the integrity of political processes and the accountability of governments. Each of these trends on its own is not new\, but together they portend a qualitative cha nge in the global political landscape\, and quite possibly the end of both the realities and the illusions of progress sustained in the second half of the twentieth century – hence\, the title of this paper. I conclude wit h a few tentative observations\, relevant far beyond the global health fie ld\, about prospects for survival outside the world we have lost\, and the chances for recovering portions of it.\n\nA light lunch will be served.\n \ngabriellamonica.kranz [at] mcgill.ca (subject: RSVP%3A%20Ted%20Schrecker %20Seminar) (RSVP)\n\n \n DTSTART:20170328T163000Z DTEND:20170328T180000Z LOCATION:Conference Room\, Charles Meredith House\, CA\, QC\, Montreal\, H3 A 1A3\, 1130 avenue des Pins Ouest SUMMARY:Joint IHSP-GHP Seminar: The state and global health: Reflections fo r a post-democratic world URL:/globalhealth/channels/event/joint-ihsp-ghp-semina r-state-and-global-health-reflections-post-democratic-world-265651 END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR