Skip to main content
Log in

Power to the Partners?: The politics of public-private health partnerships

  • Thematic Section
  • Published:
Development Aims and scope

Abstract

Ken Buse and Andrew Harmer review the political dimensions of global public–private health partnerships through the ‘three faces of power’ lens. They attempt to answer the questions: who has power; how is power exercised; and on what basis? Evidence, although scant, suggests that a northern elite wields power through its domination of governing bodies and also through a discourse which inhibits critical analysis of partnership while imbuing partnership with legitimacy and authority.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Figure 1

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. The initiative on public-private partnerships for health (IPPPH), from which the data for Figure 1 is taken, has detailed information on 90 health partnerships (www.ippph.org).

References

  • Borzel T. and T. Risse (2003) ‘Public-Private Partnerships: Effective and legitimate tools of international governance?’, in E.Grande and W.Pauly (eds.) Reconstituting Political Authority: Complex sovereignty and the foundations of global governance, Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bruhl T. (2001) ‘The Privatisation of Governance Systems: On the legitimacy of environmental policy’, paper presented at ‘Global Environment and the Nation State’, at Berlin, 7–8 December, 2001.

  • Buse K. (2003) ‘Governing Partnership – A Comparative Analysis of the Organizational and Managerial Arrangements of 18 Global Public–Private Health Partnerships & A Compendium of PPP Organizational Profiles’. Geneva: Initiative on Public–Private Partnerships for Health.

  • Buse K. (2004) ‘Governing Public–Private Infectious Disease Partnerships’, Brown Journal of World Affairs 10(2): 225–242.

    Google Scholar 

  • Buse K. and G. Walt (2000a) ‘Global public–private health partnerships: Part II – what are the issues for global governance?’, Bulletin of the World Health Organization, 2000) 78(5): 699–709.

    Google Scholar 

  • Buse K. and G. Walt (2000b) ‘Global public–private partnerships: Part I – a new development in health?’, Bulletin of the World Health Organization, 2000) 78(4): 549–561.

    Google Scholar 

  • Buse K. and A. Waxman (2001) ‘Public–Private Health Partnerships: A strategy for WHO’, Bulletin of the World Health Organization 79(8): 748–754.

    Google Scholar 

  • Buse K. and R. Ouseph (2002) Reaping reward – reducing risks. Public-private health partnerships: A comparative analysis of the policies and guidelines governing the interaction of WHO, UNAIDS, UNFPA, UNICEF and the World Bank with the commercial sector Geneva: The Initiative on Public–Private Partnerships for Health. unpublished.

  • Caines K. et al. (2003) Independent Evaluation of the Global Stop TB Partnership, London: IHSD.

    Google Scholar 

  • Feachem R., C. Medlin, D. Daniels, D. Dunlop, H. Mshinda and J. Petko et al. (2002) Achieving impact: Roll back malaria in the next phase Final report of the external evaluation of Roll Back Malaria Geneva: WHO.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hacking I. (1999) The Social Construction of What?, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hastings A. (1999) ‘Analysing Power Relations in Partnerships: Is there a role for discourse analysis?’, Urban Studies 36(1): 9–106.

    Google Scholar 

  • Heywood A. (1999) Political Theory: An introduction second edition. New York: Macmillan.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Kettler H., K. White and S. Jordan (2003) Valuing Industry Contributions to Public–Private Partnerships for Health Development, Geneva: IPPPH.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kickbusch I. and K. Buse (2000) ‘Global influences and global responses: International health at the turn of the 21st century’, in MH Merson, RE Black, AJ Mills (eds.) International Public Health, Gaithersberg: Aspen.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kickbusch I. (2003) ‘Global Health Governance: Some theoretical considerations on the new political space’, in K. Lee (ed.) Health Impacts of Globalization: Towards global governance, Palgrave.

    Google Scholar 

  • M.S.F. (2001) Fatal Imbalance: The crisis in R&D for drugs for neglected diseases, Geneva: Medecins Sans Frontieres.

  • Richter J. (2003) ‘We the Peoples’ or ‘We the Corporations’? Critical reflections on UN-business ‘partnerships’, Geneva: IBFAN.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stone C. (1980) ‘Systemic Power in Community Decision Making: A restatement of stratification theory’, The American Political Science Review 74(4): 978–990.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Utting P. (2001) UN – Business Partnerships: Whose Agenda Counts? Paper presented at a conference organized by the North–South Coalition, ‘Partnerships for Development or Privatization of the Multilateral System?.

  • Walt G. (1994) Health Policy: An introduction to process and power, London: Zed Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Widdus R. (2003) ‘Public-private partnerships for health require thoughtful evaluation’, Bulletin of the World Health Organization, 2003) 81(4): 235.

    Google Scholar 

  • World Bank (2001) Partnerships with the Private Sector: Assessment and approval, Washington DC: World Bank.

Download references

Authors

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Buse, K., Harmer, A. Power to the Partners?: The politics of public-private health partnerships. Development 47, 49–56 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.development.1100029

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.development.1100029

Keywords

Navigation