Neoliberal Optimism: Applying Market Techniques to Global Health

ABSTRACT

Global health and neoliberalism are becoming increasingly intertwined as organizations utilize markets and profit motives to solve the traditional problems of poverty and population health. I use field work conducted over 14 months in a global health technology company to explore how the promise of neoliberalism re-envisions humanitarian efforts. In this company’s vaccine refrigerator project, staff members expect their investors and their market to allow them to achieve scale and develop accountability to their users in developing countries. However, the translation of neoliberal techniques to the global health sphere falls short of the ideal, as profits are meager and purchasing power remains with donor organizations. The continued optimism in market principles amidst such a non-ideal market reveals the tenacious ideological commitment to neoliberalism in these global health projects.

KEYWORDS:

• Neoliberalism
• humanitarianism
• development
• global health
• markets

Acknowledgments

Thanks go to Vincanne Adams, Seth Holmes, Jodi Halpern, and Julia Walsh, for their guidance and revisions. Thanks also to Shika Card, Jane Dykema, Coco Auerswald, and my colleagues at the UC Berkeley–UCSF Joint Medical Program. This study was approved by the University of California, Berkeley Committee for Protection of Human Subjects (number 2013-06-5354).

Funding

This work was supported by the Thesis Grant at the UC Berkeley–UCSF Joint Medical Program.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Thesis Grant at the UC Berkeley–UCSF Joint Medical Program.

Notes on contributors

Yuyang Mei

Yuyang John Mei is a medical student at the UC Berkeley–UCSF Joint Medical Program. His research interests include community-based medicine, care and caregiving, and the politics of global health.