International Institutions and China's Health Policy

Abstract

This article examines the role of international institutional actors in China's health policy process. Particular attention is paid to three major international institutional actors: the World Bank, the World Health Organization, and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. Through process tracing and comparative case studies, the article looks at how international institutions contribute to policy change in China and seeks to explain different outcomes in the relationship between international institutions and China's health policies. It finds that despite the opaque and exclusive authoritarian structure in China, international institutions play a significant role in the country's domestic health governance. By investing their resources and capabilities selectively and strategically, international institutions can change the preferences of government policy makers, move latent public health issues to the government's agenda, and affect the timing of government action and the content of policy design. Furthermore, the study suggests that different outcomes in the relationship between China's health policies and global health governance can be explained through the seriousness of the externalities China faces.

International Influences on Policymaking in China: Network Authoritarianism from Jiang Zemin to Hu Jintao

“…88 I thank one of the external reviewers for this point. For a discussion see Huang 2015. 89 Pearson 1999Kent 1999Kent , 2013Johnston 2008;Huang 2015.…”

“…For a discussion see Huang 2015. 89 Pearson 1999Kent 1999Kent , 2013Johnston 2008;Huang 2015. This work has been more interested in China's compliance with global governance norms than policy influences.…”

“…This work has been more interested in China's compliance with global governance norms than policy influences. 90 Huang (2015) has shown the influence of the WHO, World Bank and Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria on public health policies in China, arguing that these organizations are very strongly influential where for China the "negative externalities" are "significant." He notes that otherwiseas this article showsdomestic politics may play a major role, but does not elaborate on those politics.…”

“…91Harold Jacobsen and Michel Oksenberg (1990, 143–44, cited by Huang 2015), for example, have argued that China's participation in international economic institutions helped disseminate Ricardian economic concepts.…”

Synergistic mechanism of basic medical insurance and public health policy under major public crisis

“…The specific impact path is through policy The process of maintenance, policy continuity, policy superposition and policy substitution is achieved. [15] In the process of change, the "value consensus level" will become the internal dynamic of public health policy, and the "government status preference" will directly affect the type and value orientation of public health policy.…”