Review of Peter Baldwin's Disease and Democracy: The Industrialized World Faces AIDS

Abstract:     
In Hurricane Katrina's wake, Peter Baldwin's Disease and Democracy strikes a resonant chord. Baldwin analyses differing approaches to the AIDS epidemic among industrialized countries. He argues that the divergence in AIDS strategies in the US, Britain, Sweden, Germany, and France is path dependent. Baldwin's use of historical institutionalism is helpful in highlighting history's contingencies and the persistence of precedents and path dependency. But while he emphasizes a conflict between individual liberty and the collective good, his framework neglects more fundamental norms of justice, fairness, redistribution, and human behavior. A more comprehensive analysis of AIDS would have placed greater emphasis on normative institutionalism, the rigorous analysis of the role of institutional norms and values in directing and constraining individual choice. Understanding a culture's respect for human dignity and agency is essential to any analysis of HIV and AIDS. This article argues that the moral templates and values of organizations, interest groups, political parties and individuals prompt them to take certain positions and advocate key agendas, which in turn shape societal decision-making. A normative framework is critical for understanding differing approaches to the AIDS epidemic across the globe.

Keywords: Hurricane Katrina, Peter Baldwin, justice, norms, HIV/AIDS, global health

JEL Classifications: H51, H53, I18, I28, I31

Accepted Paper Series