5.12-5 ！Health, foreign policy and security.pdfVIP

Review of International Studies (2006), 32, 5–23 Copyright British International Studies Association doi:10.1017/S0260210506006905 Health, security and foreign policy COLIN McINNES AND KELLEY LEE* Abstract. Over the past decade, health has become an increasingly important international issue and one which has engaged the attention of the foreign and security policy community. This article examines the emerging relationship between foreign and security policy, and global public health. It argues that the agenda has been dominated by two issues – the spread of selected infectious diseases (including HIV/AIDS) and bio-terror. It argues that this is a narrow framing of the agenda which could be broadened to include a wider range of issues. We offer two examples: health and internal instability, including the role of health in failing states and in post-conflict reconstruction; and illicit activities. We also argue that the relationship between global public health, and foreign and security policy has prioritised the concerns of the latter over the former – how selected health issues may create risks for (inter)national security or economic growth. Moreover the interests of the West are prominent on this agenda, focusing (largely though not exclusively) on how health risks in the developing world might impact upon the West. It is less concerned with the promotion of global public health. Health has risen markedly on the international agenda over the past decade. Key to this increased prominence have been two issues: the emergence and spread of infectious diseases such as HIV/AIDS, SARS and new drug-resistant strains of TB; and the risk from biological weapons, especially bio-terrorism.1 There is of course nothing new about health as an international issue: infectious diseases have never recognised state boundaries and sy