TITLE:
The WHO Directions on COVID-19 and Brazilian Health Public Policies: An Analysis from the Political Sociology of Public Action
AUTHORS:
Mauricio Loboda Fronzaglia, Clayton Vinícius de Araujo Pegoraro
KEYWORDS:
Health Policies, Brazil, COVID-19, WHO, International Health Regulations
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Political Science,
Vol.12 No.2,
April
24,
2022
ABSTRACT: The paper first describes a brief history of the World Health
Organization and its public actions during the last decades. Then, it describes
its organizational structure and its roles in global health governance. It also
emphasizes some global WHO actions in this field. The objective is to show the WHO
actions as part of the referential analysis of public policies, according to Jobert and Muller (1987). We then present the referential theory and describe how it helps us
understand international organizations’ influence in maintaining or changing
specific paradigms in public policy. Afterward, we provide a brief history of
Brazil’s actions during the SARS H1N1 pandemic to illustrate how the WHO
guidelines and the International Health Regulations have served as a paradigm
for Brazilian public policy in this area. Then, we demonstrate that by not
following the WHO recommendations to combat the pandemic, the Brazilian
government generates a conflict of references expressed both in the clash
between the central government and the Ministry of Health and in a federative
clash opposing national and regional governments.