GEG WP 2012/68 Motives Behind National and Regional Approaches to Health and Foreign Policy

Full Title: Motives Behind National and Regional Approaches to Health and Foreign Policy

Authors: Devi Sridhar and Kate Smolina

Type: GEG Working Paper 2012/68

Abstract

In recent years, health has risen as a strategic foreign policy and diplomatic concern across the world, becoming an important part of both formal and informal international relations. In this paper, we attempt to identify the motives behind national and regional approaches to health and foreign policy. We argue that even though the main drivers of the move towards linking health and foreign policy are traditional security concerns, some states also show signs of altruistic behaviour that extends beyond foreign policy interests. We suggest that this is likely due to strategic engagement by health advocates who have used the window of opportunity provided by recent infectious disease outbreaks to mainstream health into formal and informal strategies. As such, apparently altruistic acts towards global public health arise as positive externalities integrated into new policies that largely deal with other issues. We conclude that while national self-interest is likely to remain the main driving force behind foreign policy engagement in global public health, the strategic use of policy mechanisms by health advocates helps ensure that more altruistic behaviours are incorporated into government. These are small steps towards ensuring health and foreign policy engage in ways which are mutually beneficial.

Keywords: global public health, foreign policy, international relations, policy mechanisms, security

Author Bios

Devi Sridhar is a Senior Lecturer in Global Health Policy at the University of Edinburgh and a Senior Research Fellow at the Blavatnik School of Government at Oxford University. She currently leads the global governance workpackage of the EU FP7 project Go4Health (Setting health-related development goals beyond 2015) and is PI of the project 'Research Priorities to Reduce Global Child Mortality: Integrating Governance and Epidemiology'.

Kate Smolina recently completed her DPhil in Public Health at the Department of Public Health, University of Oxford. Kate’s work explaining the determinants of the decline in mortality from  acute myocardial infarction in England has been published in the BMJ. Kate is an associate editor of the Global Health Governance journal and a research collaborator at the Chatham House. Kate holds a BSc (Honours) in Bio-Medical Science from the University of Guelph, Canada and has previous policy work experience with the Cabinet Office in Ontario and the Public Health Agency of Canada. She can be contacted at: kate.smolina@spc.ox.ac.uk