Understanding the Politics of Pandemic Emergencies in the time of COVID-19

This book reviews the political significance of COVID-19 in the context of earlier pandemic encounters in order to understand the ways in which it challenges the existing individual health, domestic order, international health governance actors and, more fundamentally, the circulation-based modus operandi of the present world order.

"Mika Aaltola has made a highly important contribution to the understanding of how pandemics impact geopolitics. He shows how the COVID-19 pandemic has done so in ways similar to previous and probably future pandemics." Mark N. Katz, Professor, George Mason University Schar School of Policy and Government, USA; Chairperson, Scientific Advisory Council, Finnish Institute of International Affairs. "Thinking back to 2012 about the impact of major pandemics on global politics was a visionary act. Revisited in the light of COVID-19, this book vindicates all the research hypotheses put forward by the author ten years ago. Concise and brilliant!" Christian Lequesne, Sciences Po, Paris, France.

Autorentext

Mika Aaltola is Director of the Finnish Institute of International Affairs, Finland; Full Professor of International Relations and European Studies at Tallinn University, Estonia; and docent of International Relations at the University of Tampere, Finland.

Inhalt

1. Introduction 2. Pandemic Dramas: Containment Efforts and 'Nearest is Dearest' Compassions 3. Understanding Grand Vortexes: The Classical Model for Politics and Plagues 4. Global Mobility-Based Order: The Disruptions of SARS and COVID-19 5. The Geopolitics of SARS and COVID-19 6. Covid-19 as a Catalyzer of Growing Anxiety, Political Distancing and Global Decoupling 7. Dynamics of an Epidemic of International and of National Origin: Cases of Haiti Cholera and the Mad Cow Disease 8. Beyond Pandemic Security