ABSTRACT
The international political sociology of health, medicine and the bio-sciences is an exciting and growing field – one which offers a massive opportunity for students and scholars alike. As this chapter will illustrate, an international political sociology opens up new opportunities for the study of health in global politics by focusing our attention on the operation of medicine and its allied sciences. Approaches in international political sociology to global health can draw from the extensive sociological, anthropological and historical research on medicine, while furthering study of the global dimensions of health and medical practices. They also draw on and contribute to the interdisciplinary field of science and technology studies (STS). STS has a strong vein of research in the politics of medicine and medical technologies on which to draw in thinking through the global dimensions of these politics. Based on an intellectual engagement with these interdisciplinary fields, an approach dedicated to an international political sociology of health and medicine opens up new questions about the multiplicity of ways that medicine and the bio-sciences shape international relations, and the ways that international relations shapes medicine and the bio-sciences.
