Between conflict and cooperation: global-national interfaces and the fight against HIV/AIDS in Brazil and South Africa

This paper endeavours to analyse the relationship between Global Health Governance and national health politics in the case of HIV/AIDS. The paper compares Brazil and South Africa as two cases in which the relationship between national politics and GHG has been structured in contrasting ways, ranging from conflict to cooperation. Different reciprocal influences are analysed through the interface concept. A differentiation is made between four kinds of interfaces: resource-transfer, organisational, legal, and discursive. The main finding is that despite a huge variety of global actors operating in the field of HIV/AIDS, national politics and actor constellations account for most of the contrasts between Brazil and South Africa in respect to their fight against HIV/AIDS. In contrast to Brazil, South Africa's HIV/AIDS policy has for a long time been dominated by one central political actor. Until 2003, the central ANC-government was able to push through its strict refusal to provide antiretroviral drugs in the public health system