The New Geopolitics of Disease

Between Global Health and Global Security

Bibliographic Data

ID3948128
AuthorsAlan Ingram (0000-0003-4447-1237, University College London, corresponding author)
Year2005
Volume10
Issue3
Pages522-545
Publication date2005-10-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueGeopolitics (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1465-0045 • E-ISSN: 1557-3028
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/14650040591003516
OpenAlexW2079872002
LanguageEN
Citations received66

This article describes the emergence of a new geopolitics of disease following the end of the Cold War and offers a framework for thinking about it. Three main questions are asked. First, why is disease now a geopolitical issue? Second, how has this new geopolitics emerged? And third, what are the implications of the emergence of disease as a geopolitical issue for the meaning and practice of global health? It is argued that disease is now seen as a geopolitical issue in terms of four main dimensions: destabilisation, sovereignty, the instrumentalisation of health, and geopolitical economy. Second, this new geopolitics has emerged in the context of larger debates about globalisation, development and security, and has emanated primarily from Northern institutions. Third, drawing on critical approaches to security, it is suggested that while the securitisation of health offers certain benefits, it also carries risks. The article identifies a number of critical tensions in the new geopolitics of disease as a way of negotiating these risks and anchoring the concept of global health security in a larger vision of health in an era of globalisation

Economic growth · Economics · Geography · Geopolitics · Globalization · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Sovereignty · Global Public Health Policies and Epidemiology · Global Security and Public Health · Health and Conflict Studies · Law