IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/ajecsc/v74y2015i4p704-742.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Gates Foundation, Ebola, and Global Health Imperialism

Author

Listed:
  • Jacob Levich

Abstract

type="main"> Powerful institutions of Western capital, notably the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, viewed the African Ebola outbreak of 2014–2015 as an opportunity to advance an ambitious global agenda. Building on recent public health literature proposing “global health governance” (GHG) as the preferred model for international healthcare, Bill Gates publicly called for the creation of a worldwide, militarized, supranational authority capable of responding decisively to outbreaks of infectious disease—an authority governed by Western powers and targeting the underdeveloped world. This article examines the media-generated panic surrounding Ebola alongside the response and underlying motives of foundations, governments, and other institutions. It describes the evolution and goals of GHG, in particular its opposition to traditional notions of Westphalian sovereignty. It proposes a different concept—“global health imperialism”—as a more useful framework for understanding the current conditions and likely future of international healthcare.

Suggested Citation

  • Jacob Levich, 2015. "The Gates Foundation, Ebola, and Global Health Imperialism," American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 74(4), pages 704-742, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:ajecsc:v:74:y:2015:i:4:p:704-742
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1111/ajes.12110
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Michael Stevenson & Andrew Cooper, 2009. "Overcoming Constraints of State Sovereignty: global health governance in Asia," Third World Quarterly, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 30(7), pages 1379-1394.
    2. Brown, E.R., 1976. "Public health in imperialism: early Rockefeller programs at home and abroad," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 66(9), pages 897-903.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Bridget O'Laughlin & Bridget O'Laughlin, 2016. "Forum 2016," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 47(4), pages 686-711, July.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Kin Chi Lau & Tsui Sit, 2020. "The Need for Recovering the Subjugated Knowledge of Traditional Chinese Medicine," Development, Palgrave Macmillan;Society for International Deveopment, vol. 63(2), pages 249-256, December.
    2. Kimberly M. Thompson, 2017. "Modeling and Managing the Risks of Measles and Rubella: A Global Perspective Part II," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 37(6), pages 1041-1051, June.
    3. Shreejita Biswas, 2021. "The Coronavirus Pandemic and Global Governance: The Domestic Diffusion of Health Norms in Global Health Security Crises," Jadavpur Journal of International Relations, , vol. 25(2), pages 208-234, December.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:ajecsc:v:74:y:2015:i:4:p:704-742. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0002-9246 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.