ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on governance in global mental health policy-making, taking as its starting point that current dominant conceptions of mental health have always been global, have always been about governance, and have always been tied to racialization. Focusing on the connections between governance of madness, racialized and colonial governance, and global governance, it shows how the seemingly new governance of global mental health is linked to long established global governance of madness through the psy-disciplines. Global health governance is usually understood as complex and multifaceted, and involving multiple ‘factors, forces, and actors’. Typologies of governing (national, international and global) are seen as intertwined, with global governance seen as distinct because it involves (or talks to) non-state actors, such as non-governmental organizations and multinational corporations. Metrics are key tools in constructing and making visible the global scale of mental health, and thus in justifying the need for the global governance of mental health.
