Social movements and market transformations: Lessons from HIV/AIDS and climate change

When AIDS activists launched their campaign for developing world access to antiretroviral therapy in the late 1990s, this treatment cost on average $10,000 per patient per year. More than a decade later, drug prices for “first line” therapies hovered around $100 per patient per year, and nearly 13 million people in low- and middle-income countries were receiving these life-extending medications. By contrast, climate activists during the same time period labored without much success in establishing mechanisms to put a price on carbon. We identify the global market structures most conducive for social movement-led market transformations. We argue that advocacy collective action is more likely to be successful when the global market structure involves (i) a small number of product markets, (ii) globally integrated product markets, (iii) a relatively concentrated industry with few producers or buyers, and (iv) a source of rents produced through social construction rather than natural or technological barriers to entry.