Back to Annual Meeting Page		American Public Health Association 133rd Annual Meeting & Exposition December 10-14, 2005 Philadelphia, PA

Abstract #116435

Hae-Joo Chung, MSc, Department of Health Policy and Management, School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins Universtiy, 624 N. Broadway Rm 708, Baltimore, MD 21205, 443 527 6298, hachung@jhsph.edu

Political democracy, along with economic development, has been a longstanding theme in comparative health policy analysis. For most development theorists, the democratization of a developing country was assumed to have salutary effects on population health. In this presentation, I will examine and challenge this assumption. During the last couple of decades, many countries in Latin America, Asia, Africa and the former Soviet republics faced an era of "democracy". For some countries, this meant the transition from an authoritarian capitalist regime to a democratic capitalist regime, while for others it meant a transition from a communist to a capitalist regime. These transitions occurred during the crisis of the Keynsian consensus and the establishment of the new world order of neo-liberal financial expansion. This historical context had an important impact on the health policies of these newly democratized countries. The evidence available indicates the democratization by itself was not sufficient for better population health, especially when 'freedom' and 'democracy' become the political correlates of 'neo-liberal globalization' and 'privatization of health care'. What seems necesssary for improving national health is for true political alternatives to neoliberalism to gain power and implement egalitarian social and health policies.

Learning Objectives: At the conclusion of the session, the participant (learner) in this session will be able to

• understand the interplay of democratization and neoliberal reform in semi-peripheral capitalist regimes in the last couple of decades
• identify the difference between the democratic neo-liberal reform and socialist reform and their impact on the population health status

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

I wish to disclose that I have NO financial interests or other relationship with the manufactures of commercial products, suppliers of commercial services or commercial supporters.