Developing National AIDs Responses

• In Event: 183 - Regular Session. International Organizations and World Polity

Abstract

A massive network of global and local institutions direct foreign aid in the fight against the global spread of HIV/AIDS, yet we know little about how the primary point of national contact - the National AIDS Commission – is established. Similarly, the propagation and proliferation of multisectoral AIDS strategies are taken for granted without empirical work that examines these global processes. Using related theory on the spread of institutional forms, I examine the causes and variations in the formation of National AIDS Commissions as well as the spread of multisectoral AIDS strategies. I argue that the broadening of development to include health produces an alternative diffusion pathway based on theorized heterogeneity in the world polity. Using event-history analyses of primary national and global data, I test the influences of key political, health, economic, and world society variables against my argument. The results demonstrate a diffusion process that departs from established accounts of global diffusion: models spread quickest to peripheral nations and are then adopted globally. Moreover, the advent of UNAIDS and its subsequent activities are highly influential for the type of strategies and institutional forms that countries pursue. These results suggest not only that National AIDS Commissions are formed to address high rates of HIV but also that particular types of global connections matter more for less-developed countries. Future research should examine the specific strategies countries pursue, and more broadly, it should explore additional health institutions to determine if health has an embedded functional aspect that is absent of other institutions.

Author

• Nolan Phillips, University of California-Irvine