Date of Publication
2019 12:00 AM
Security Theme
Health
Keywords
Health Security, global health and development, global security
Description
Linking health and security has become a mainstream approach to health policy issues over the past two decades. So much so that the discourse of global Health has become close to synonymous with global health, their meanings being considered almost interchangeable. While the debates surrounding the health–security nexus vary in levels of analysis from the global to the national to the individual, this article argues that the consideration of health as a security issue, and the ensuing path dependencies, have shifted in three ways. First, the concept has been broadened to the extent that a multitude of health issues (and others) are constructed as threats to Health. Second, securitizing health has moved beyond a rhetorical device to include the direct involvement of the security sector. Third, the performance of Health has become a security threat in itself. These considerations, the article argues, alter the remit of the global Health narrative; the global health community needs to recognize this shift and adapt its use of security-focused policies accordingly.
The oversecuritization of global health: changing the terms of debate
Linking health and security has become a mainstream approach to health policy issues over the past two decades. So much so that the discourse of global Health has become close to synonymous with global health, their meanings being considered almost interchangeable. While the debates surrounding the health–security nexus vary in levels of analysis from the global to the national to the individual, this article argues that the consideration of health as a security issue, and the ensuing path dependencies, have shifted in three ways. First, the concept has been broadened to the extent that a multitude of health issues (and others) are constructed as threats to Health. Second, securitizing health has moved beyond a rhetorical device to include the direct involvement of the security sector. Third, the performance of Health has become a security threat in itself. These considerations, the article argues, alter the remit of the global Health narrative; the global health community needs to recognize this shift and adapt its use of security-focused policies accordingly.
Comments
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.