Industry associations, health innovation systems and politics of development: the cases of India and South Africa

Papaioannou Theo (), Watkins Andrew, Kale Dinar and Mugwagwa Julius
Additional contact information
Mugwagwa Julius: The Open University, Development Policy and Practice, Milton Keynes, UK

Business and Politics, 2015, vol. 17, issue 2, 253-289

Abstract: Over the last 20 years, developing countries have witnessed the increased role of non-governmental actors such as health industry associations and umbrella organizations in the diffusion and governance of health innovation. Utilizing extensive interviews with actors in the Indian and South African health industries, this paper argues that, in a context of emerging pluralism – i.e., a dynamic context of bargaining between competing (public and private) interests and values – these associations constitute public actors that play dual roles in the politics of innovation and development. Specifically, not only do they engage downstream by diffusing knowledge to their respective health innovation systems in order to achieve common objectives, they also engage upstream with their governments to co-develop policies and regulations. This dual role of health industry associations and umbrella organizations makes them less neutral politically but more effective institutionally, and their innovative and political role should be seriously taken into account in the healthcare sector.

Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1515/bap-2014-0023 (text/html)
For access to full text, subscription to the journal or payment for the individual article is required.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bpj:buspol:v:17:y:2015:i:2:p:253-289:n:3

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.cambridg ... usiness-and-politics

DOI: 10.1515/bap-2014-0023

Access Statistics for this article

Business and Politics is currently edited by Vinod K. Aggarwal

More articles in Business and Politics from De Gruyter
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Peter Golla ().