This Article Full Text (PDF) References Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via Web of Science (2) Citing Articles via Google Scholar Citing Articles via Scopus Google Scholar Articles by Olesen, T. Search for Related Content Social Bookmarking                         What's this?

‘In the Court of Public Opinion’

Transnational Problem Construction in the HIV/AIDS Medicine Access Campaign, 1998–2001

University of Aarhus

This article analyses the HIV/AIDS medicine access campaign from 1998 to 2001. The campaign began when 39 of the world's largest pharmaceutical companies initiated a court case against South Africa for violating the companies’ patent rights. The campaign played an important role in making the issue resonate in the public spheres of many countries around the world and thereby contributed to the pharmaceutical companies’ eventual decision to withdraw the case. The main objective of the article is to provide insight into the way campaign activists sought to make the issue of HIV/AIDS medicine access of concern and intelligible to audiences not directly affected by it. Paying attention to such questions is crucial in order to reach a better understanding of current processes of globalization. The article shows how campaign discourses combined emotional and strategic elements and sought to bridge distance by connecting the universal and the particular. At the same time, it is argued that resonance was not only an outcome of the campaign's discursive activities. It was significantly aided by the fact that key campaign organizations possessed considerable economic and skill resources, and by the presence of allies such as states and international institutions.

Key Words: civil society • globalization • HIV/AIDS • medicine access • transnational campaigns

International Sociology, Vol. 21, No. 1, 5-30 (2006)
DOI: 10.1177/0268580906059288


CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter    What's this?

This article has been cited by other articles:

				M. A. Barreto, S. Manzano, R. Ramirez, and K. Rim Mobilization, Participation, and Solidaridad: Latino Participation in the 2006 Immigration Protest Rallies Urban Affairs Review, May 1, 2009; 44(5): 736 - 764. [Abstract] [PDF]