A disaster diplomacy perspective of acute public health events

Abstract

Conceptions of acute public health events typically assume that they are tackled exclusively or principally through technical and medical solutions. Yet health and politics are inexorably linked. To better understand this link, this paper adopts a disaster diplomacy perspective for analysing and assessing the impacts of acute public health events on diplomatic outcomes. Two gaps in understanding disaster-health-politics connections are addressed: (i) how health interventions can impact diplomatic endeavours, especially for (ii) acute public health events. Three diverse case studies are interpreted from a disaster diplomacy perspective: Cuba's medical diplomacy, China and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), and polio vaccination. Disaster diplomacy permits deeper investigation and analysis of connections amongst health, disaster, and diplomatic activities by viewing efforts on acute public health events as being political through disaster risk reduction (beforehand) and disaster response (during and afterwards). Understanding improves how health interventions affect diplomacy and on disaster diplomacy's limitations.

Global health diplomacy—reconstructing power and governance

“…40 Many international relations and global health scholars have discussed health diplomacy through the lens of soft power, 41 , 42 , 43 , 44 , 45 smart power, 46 , 47 , 48 or disaster diplomacy. 49 These scholars point to the efforts of global health diplomacy in improving relations between countries and contributing to peace and security. Public health advocates might argue that health should not be used for political purposes, but in an interdependent world, few initiatives serve a purely humanitarian objective.…”

„Mindent eláraszt, ami az útjába kerül” – a 2004-es indiai-óceáni földrengés és szökőár katasztrófadiplomáciai elemzése

“…-Kelman, I. 2018;Whittaker, C. et al 2018) szempont szerint elemzik a tudományág egy részterületét. Ami a katasztrófadiplomáciai módszertant illeti, az egységes keret kidolgozására csupán néhány kísérlet történt (Comfort, L. 2000;Kelman, I.…”

Politically connected companies are less likely to shutdown due to COVID‐19 restrictions

“…Research shows that the existence of these types of politically connected club goods directly affects disaster response in high‐corruption states (Atkinson, Hicken & Ravanilla 2014; Anbarci, Escaleras & Register 2005; Escaleras, Anbarci & Register 2007; Whittaker et al. 2018; Ambraseys & Bilham 2011). Since politically connected firms can evade enforcement of government standards, corrupt governments are associated with high earthquake fatalities due to widespread substandard construction practices.…”