Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
refer to the quality of the response and innovation in terms of the number of lives
saved and improved and the broader ecological, social, economic, and political-
security values enhanced.
the third level of system transformation assesses the causal connections according
to three criteria. The first is the new vulnerability, in which non-state and non-
human actors create in unconscious, unintended, untargeted, uncontrolled fashion
the physical health challenges that rapidly and readily flow across state borders
around the world to overwhelm the inherited governance responses and kill or harm
many there (Kirton 1993). this 'neo-vulnerability' is different from the inherited,
largely westphalian structure in which states and their national governments largely
cause or control disease within or at their borders and rely on sovereignty-respecting
international diplomacy, agreements, or institutions for whatever international
coordination is required to cope. the old vulnerability arose in a still state-centric
world of bioweapons and biowarfare: states sent controlled threats against their
adversaries in ways that the latter's unilateral change in national policy could not
protect against and where such failure bred new international institutions to cope
(Keohane and nye 1977). neo-vulnerability, in contrast, arises in an era of intense
globalisation where many threats from many unconscious, uncaring sources attack
and overwhelm the standard repertoire of national and intergovernmental policy
responses and call for multiple sources and forms of innovation within multilevel
governance instead. Here the size, speed, and spread of the new vulnerability is
hypothesised to catalyse multi-actor innovation when the initial response from
westphalian governance fails.
The second criterion is innovativeness. It refers first to the speed with which
an innovation effectively solves the challenge when the previous westphalian
governance repertoire has not. It also refers to the spread of the innovation in a
broader process of borrowing and adaptation that saves lives in other places,
assaulted by other diseases, in coming years. Here the novel, appropriate, and
effective innovation created in response to a particular health challenge becomes
institutionalised, adopted by other actors for other purposes, and ultimately inspires
a culture of innovation overall (Homer-Dixon 2001).
the third criterion is the new sovereignty. It arises as actors beyond nation-states
and their intergovernmental institutions emerge as appropriate and effective centres
of innovation and thus become legitimately embedded as authoritative institutions of
global health governance. In the realm of ideas, health governance passes from being
a matter of national security for imperialism, war, or counter-terrorism, or a matter of
economic advantage in a relative capability competition or a matter of redistribution
to develop countries than can help or harm; it becomes a right and a responsibility to
protect human lives and the global ecosystem on which all life depends. In the realm
of institutions, those actors that can appropriately, effectively, and legitimately work
with others to produce such values create the fluid networks that are the health
sovereigns of the new age. this new sovereignty transcends the new, 'open source'
anarchy that the entry of so many more diverse players into global health politics,
diplomacy, and governance has brought (Fidler 2007, 2008).
