Pharmaceutical Autonomy: Technology, Alliances, and Norms
States and Citizens: Accommodation, Facilitation and Resistance to Globalization
ISBN: 978-1-78560-181-1, eISBN: 978-1-78560-180-4
Publication date: 11 November 2015
Abstract
Purpose
Understanding of the factors that contribute to policies diverging from neoliberal norms and accounting for situations when social movement activists prevail over the interests of more powerful opponents requires an analytical framework specifying the dimensions of interest. The case of Brazil’s pharmaceutical policies, especially those dealing with HIV/AIDS, is considered.
Methodology/approach
To understand the space and limits for progressive agency amidst contemporary globalization, previous articulations of dependent development and global capitalism require conceptual space with insights from social movement theory and normative framing.
Findings
Control over technology, political alliances, and normative appeals have changed since the concept of dependent development to today’s contemporary neoliberal globalization for understanding cases of progressive agency. Technology is based more on intangible knowledge, activism across the state-society boundary is more likely, and human rights has become the dominant idiom for naming and shaming more powerful opponents.
Research limitations/implications
The analytic framework developed informs our understanding of pharmaceutical autonomy – the ability of a country to provide for the prescription drug needs of its population – in the case of Brazil. Further research of other situations requires the application of the framework to determine its merits.
Originality/value
A focus on technology, alliances, and norms provides a useful starting point for exploring situations of development autonomy that prevails over the interests of corporate power.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
Acknowledgments
The Mellon Fellowship in Latin American Sociology sponsored field research included in this manuscript. I also want to thank Bryan Roberts, Cynthia Buckley, Larry Griffin, Daniel Ritter, Ted Brimeyer, Heidi Altman, Joanna Schreiber, Jinrong Li, Trina Smitth, and anonymous reviewers from Current Perspectives on Social Theory for their comments on previous drafts.
Citation
Flynn, M.B. (2015), "Pharmaceutical Autonomy: Technology, Alliances, and Norms", States and Citizens: Accommodation, Facilitation and Resistance to Globalization (Current Perspectives in Social Theory, Vol. 34), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 41-64. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0278-120420150000034003
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2015 Emerald Group Publishing Limited