The Duck of Minerva

Global Health Governance Syllabi Open Thread

Global Health

by Josh Busby

24 September 2016, 2138 EDT

So, I noted in a post a few weeks ago during APSA that I thought the discipline doesn’t pay enough attention to global environmental politics. Part of this is a function of training. I didn’t have a global environmental politics course to take during graduate school, but I teach one now. I posted a few syllabi in the post and comments thread.

I think the same thing is true of global health. Politics abound with global health whether it be the Ebola virus, Zika, pharmaceutical prices, the on-going HIV/AIDS crisis, the rise of non-communicable disease, the challenges of health systems strengthening. And this stuff is important!

There was no global health politics or governance course in my department in graduate school. Everything I know about the subject is self-taught. Several years ago, I started teaching a five week course on global health and another five week course on the environment. Soon, that became a 15 week course on global health and environmental governance. The syllabus is here.

Last year, I created a 15 week course on global health governance, which is anchored in public goods theory and arguments about cooperation and international organizations. The syllabus is here.

I’m going to post in the comments thread other syllabi I find from other people teaching global health because even though there is increasing interest in this space in the discipline, it’s still on the margins of the discipline.

The ISA Global Health Studies section is an important development).  I don’t know too much about the Health Politics section of APSA but the Science, Technology & Environmental Politics section has recognized my health work in the past.

Feel free to post links to syllabi in the comments section below.

Joshua Busby is a Professor in the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas-Austin. From 2021-2023, he served as a Senior Advisor for Climate at the U.S. Department of Defense. His most recent book is States and Nature: The Effects of Climate Change on Security (Cambridge, 2023). He is also the author of Moral Movements and Foreign Policy (Cambridge, 2010) and the co-author, with Ethan Kapstein, of AIDS Drugs for All: Social Movements and Market Transformations (Cambridge, 2013). His main research interests include transnational advocacy and social movements, international security and climate change, global public health and HIV/ AIDS, energy and environmental policy, and U.S. foreign policy.

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