Dr Rhiannon Bandiera, Assistant Professor in Criminology in the School of Law and Criminology, has recently had her book Neoliberalism, State-Corporate Power and Regulatory Failure: The Harms of Prescription and Non-Prescription Medicine Regulation in Australia published by Routledge in the ‘Routledge Studies in Crime and Society’ series.
The book is about neoliberalism, how it shapes regulation, how it shapes the power of (indeed empowers) states and corporations and ultimately how it causes social harm, with a focus on prescription and non-prescription medicines and their regulation in Australia. It draws on the concept of hegemonic neoliberal governmentality to examine Australian medicine regulation and the harms resulting from its failure in areas such as medicine quality, safety and efficacy; direct-to-consumer advertising; and marketing directed at health professionals. The book traces these harms historically and over time through the colonial foundations and evolution of medicine regulation in Australia, exploring both its failure and the attempts at reforming it. The book also critiques risk-based and responsive regulation, theories underpinning the hybrid regulatory framework employed by Australia’s national drug regulatory authority, the Therapeutic Goods Administration. The book explains how and why neoliberalism is not regulatable and reinforces and sustains itself through empowering the state and corporations while disempowering the public and those representing its interests. It explains that reducing its harms is only achievable through broader, transformative change, rather than by reforming (and thereby continuing to work within) existing neoliberal capitalism.
Based on over a decade of research, the book ultimately argues that the social harms of Australian prescription and non-prescription medicine regulation stem from neoliberalism and its reinforcement of state and corporate power.
For further information about the book and to purchase, please visit https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/mono/10.4324/9781003285762/neoliberalism-state-corporate-power-regulatory-failure-rhiannon-bandiera
Dr Rhiannon Bandiera is a specialist in state-corporate crime/social harm, regulation, and their transnational dimensions. She publishes on a variety of topics, most recently on forms of state-corporate crime/social harm within supply chains. Her work has been published in the Journal of White-Collar and Corporate Crime and Crime, Law and Social Change, as well as The Palgrave Handbook of Modern Slavery.