 Comparative institutional response to economic policy managed competition and governmentalitySocial Science & Medicine, 2001, vol. 52, issue 8, 1151-1166 Abstract: This article provides a comparative conceptual framework for understanding why so many governments found economic policies based on managed competition attractive and yet dangerous to implement. The framework conceptualizes governments as a kind of organizational complex and thus governments as an international population of organizations, each embedded in a state that tries to harness and direct behaviour through what Foucault called "governmentality". This nascent concept is made more robust here and joined with Fligstein's historical research on the response of leading organizations when fundamental change threatens a population of organizations, by embracing a new conception of control that allows them to re-establish their control and pre-eminence. Fligstein studied corporations, but his model can be fruitfully extended to governments. Economic sociology has not to date been able to do much comparative research on institutional responses to economic policy; but this set of case studies and conceptual framework provide such an opportunity. Keywords: Comparative; Health; economics; Medical; sociology; Health; care; policy; Economic; sociology; Foucault (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:socmed:v:52:y:2001:i:8:p:1151-1166 Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from Access Statistics for this article Social Science & Medicine is currently edited by Ichiro (I.) Kawachi and S.V. (S.V.) Subramanian More articles in Social Science & Medicine from Elsevier |
Is your work missing from RePEc? Here is how to contribute.
Questions or problems? Check the EconPapers FAQ or send mail to .
EconPapers is hosted by the
School of Business at Örebro University.