“A New Health Order as Part of the New Social Order”: The Strategic Response of the WHO to its Member States

Abstract

This article explores the range of responses available to international bureaucracies when confronted with demands made by their member states through the study of the World Health Organization (WHO) during the 1970s and 1980s. I show that the WHO bureaucracy successfully addressed the demands of developing countries for health policies compatible with a more equitable world economic order, but in a way that preserved the bureaucracy's own agenda and without upsetting the opposite coalition of wealthy countries. Drawing on insights from the sociology of organizations, this article shows that externally dependent international bureaucracies are able to preserve their autonomous agenda by strategically reframing countries’ demands before responding to them.

Citation

Chorev, N. (2012), "“A New Health Order as Part of the New Social Order”: The Strategic Response of the WHO to its Member States", Go, J. (Ed.) Political Power and Social Theory (Political Power and Social Theory, Vol. 23), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 65-100. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0198-8719(2012)0000023008