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In this brief paper, I argue that the coronavirus pandemic is functioning like an ethnomethodological 'breaching experiment'. In short, it is putting a gigantic spanner in the works of neoliberal governance, in the process exposing the widening cracks and fissures of what I have called the 'fractured society'. I begin by recalling Garfinkel's notion of the breaching experiment and by listing the principal attributes of the fractured society. I then explore the response to the coronavirus in the UK, from the government's initial commitment to 'herd immunity' to its present policy of 'muddling through'. The bulk of the remainder of this contribution addresses precisely how this global health crisis shines a harsh and unforgiving searchlight on the strategies and policies pursued by governments in the UK since 2010, and most especially after the passing of the Health and Social Care Act of 2012. In the closing paragraphs, I examine possible scenarios for a post-fractured society, making particular use of Fraser's concepts on 'reactionary' versus 'progressive populism', and conclude with a comment on sociology and engagement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The large number of international medical graduates (IMGs) working in Australia, and many other countries around the world, has received significant attention from the media, governments and academia. These institutions utilise a number of classificatory schemes in order to categorise IMGs. Such classification is often stigmatising, yet goes largely unquestioned. In this paper I show that the 'official naming' of IMGs in Australia, as well as the naming of IMGs by staff in hospitals, is historically, politically and socially produced. Following Bourdieu's call to also study how the classified classify, the paper goes on to examine ways in which IMGs name and categorise each other, drawing on ethnographic research. I argue that IMGs use classification themselves, strategically, in order to modify their marginalised position within the 'social space' of the hospital. The article questions taken-for-granted assumptions about classified groups such as IMGs and leaves an opening for change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Women are at special risk for HIV/AIDS infection and disease progression due to an inter-related set of biopolitical factors. Biological factors that contribute to women's special vulnerability include hormonal, developmental, and immunological characteristics. Social and political factors such as poverty, gendered power relationships, and violence interact with biological factors to create an HIV risk profile among women. The approach of this paper is to review literatures that describe components of women's risks for HIV in order to create an integrated model of vulnerability. We present a syndemic model that calls attention to the importance of understanding the pathways of adverse interaction among interacting diseases and the social and political environments of sufferers. This paper synthesises known risk factors and analyses them through the lens of syndemics theory in order to demonstrate the biopolitical vulnerability of women to HIV. Applying a syndemic approach offers important implications for prevention and treatment of HIV among women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Poor health and disease and the nature of interventions to ameliorate them typically generate opportunities and costs. What diseases are prevalent, which interventions are favoured and what factors fuel the nature of health interventions are recurrent concerns for political economists. This paper examines the prevailing viewpoints about what health policy works and what does not. Drawing on evidence from developing countries, it shows that there are many deficiencies in the prevailing orthodoxy which emphasises state, market, and civil society solutions. The paper suggests that health policy debate must be refrained around poverty and social inequality, constructs which are often subordinated to attaining grand ideological goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on a qualitative study of the onset of acquired hearing impairment. The focus of attention is why a person seeks treatment. The Danish welfare state serves the population 'in need' such as those with an audiological need and gives them guidance on becoming hearing aid wearers in order to rehabilitate them back to 'normalcy'. However, within audiological research, noncompliance has attracted much attention as investigations have shown that more than 20 percent of hearing aids are very seldom, if ever, in use and 19 percent are used only occasionally. As shown in the paper the form a problem takes is in large part a product of micro-political struggles. Hence, at the onset 'need' is often embedded in social pressure from significant others. The paper examines these two discursive frameworks and their constitution of (hearing) problems and concludes that norms of disease are complex and epistemologically contested and can help explain why noncompliance is dominant when it comes to hearing rehabilitation for hearing impaired adults. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

New medicines represent exciting possibilities to individual patients for improved futures through reduced morbidity, as well as the potential for disappointment where promised outcomes are not forthcoming. For healthcare systems these technologies can enable enhanced effectiveness as well as spiralling costs, depending on value-for-money offered. Amidst uncertainty over efficacy and pricing, institutions such as the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence have been set up to regulate the cost-effectiveness of new products. The increased transparency of this new regulation, combined with inescapable uncertainties, leads to the heightened politicisation of decision-making and an insidious subjectivity beneath a veneer of rational-bureaucracy. This paper develops a theoretical framework for understanding the influence of hope within such contexts. Conceptualised here as ideological, affective and prone to lapsing into trust, hope is considered to shape the lifeworld-background of regulatory decisions and mask uncertainty around effectiveness. These processes challenge regulator legitimacy and effectiveness within polycentric regimes, through the distortion of communication and the manipulation of blame. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors describe the incremental approach to the marketisation of the English National Health Service (NHS) since the introduction of an 'internal market' in 1990 until the 2010 White Paper, 'Equity and Excellence: Liberating the NHS', and the subsequent Health and Social Care Bill published in January 2011. The introduction of a competitive market for a universal, tax-financed health system requires fundamental changes in regulation in order that market bureaucracy can be substituted for direct management. The components of reform are insufficiently captured by the framework of hierarchies and networks in new public management theories of decentralisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we explore the ways in which corporations have become powerful actors in the political and economic landscapes, and the role the state has played in this development. Focusing on the pharmaceutical industry, we find that revolving door practices have been a key instrument in furthering the growth of corporate power, leading us to a reconsideration of the concepts of class struggle and the role of the state in the maintenance of the dominant class' privileges. We conclude that our findings lend support to Harvey's theory of neoliberalism as a specific project to restore power to the dominant class, and also to Marx's conception of state power subordinated to capitalist economic power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public--private partnerships (P3s) with the for-profit private sector are increasingly used in Canada to deliver public infrastructure and support services within the health care sector (e.g., hospitals, clinics, community health centres). This paper examines the emergence and legacy of P3s in the Canadian health care sector, classifying them as a form of neoliberal accumulation by dispossession and discussing their inability to live up to proponents' promises. Economic and social costs are examined, and examples are drawn from operational P3 hospitals in Canada. The article also briefly examines how P3s have been affected by the recent global financial crisis, arguing that despite serious problems with the private finance component of these projects, ultimately the policy is poised to weather the storm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite recent critiques of contemporary obesity discourses that link 'modern Western lifestyles' to an 'obesity epidemic', the population's weight remains a central concern of current dietary guidelines. Food choices that are considered beneficial to maintaining a certain weight are understood to play a key role in one's health. This concern reflects medico-moral assumptions about the properties of food and what people should eat. However, the impact of obesity discourses on different individuals and social groups is rarely considered, although there is some evidence that people do generate, reflect and resist the norms and standards set for them, including those that relate to food/weight. In this paper, we will examine the perspectives on fatness and food choice amongst Black and White women and men living in Vancouver and Halifax, Canada. With this examination, we will challenge conventional assumptions about the singular 'modern Western lifestyle' that leads to obesity concerns by teasing out some of the social, cultural and political contexts within which people conceptualise issues regarding weight and make their food choices. By examining the experiences of both women and men we will also provide important insights into the gendered ways in which people engage with obesity discourses and the injunction to 'eat healthily' as a form of weight management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]