Global Neoliberalism and Aids Policy: International Responses to Sub-Saharan Africa’s Pandemic

Abstract

Like Bavington et al, Colleen O'Manique questions how knowledge has framed political responses in her examination of the African AIDS crisis. She argues that the Western response to the AIDS pandemic in Africa has been informed by biomedicine, epidemiology, and political economy. However, the biomedical and epidemiological approaches to the pandemic are, she argues, consistent and compatible with the ideological hegemony of neoliberalism. Her political economy account of the crisis raises the need to consider the impact of neoliberal reforms—such as privatization of social services and the devolution of responsibility for public health to the local level—on the spread of the disease.