Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
levels of endogenous capacity to respond to disease outbreaks (Price-Smith 2008).
ethnocentric visions of global health that exclusively advocate self-help, to the
exclusion of building capacity in the developing world, are myopic. this suggests
that while realism is a useful lens through which to view the challenge posed by
contagion, liberal institutional recommendations and the acceleration of international
cooperation are the means by which to maintain surveillance and containment of
pathogens effectively on a global scale.
4
the emergence of the SarS pathogen in china and later in canada demonstrates
that both developing and highly developed G8 countries remain vulnerable to
emerging and re-emerging pathogens. the emergence of bSe in the United Kingdom
in the mid 1990s, its subsequent spread throughout the european community, and
its extension to Japan, canada, and the U.S. form a vivid illustration that developed
countries are not immune to the deleterious effects of novel epidemic disease agents.
Due to the processes of microbial evolution, pathogens will continue to evolve
rapidly and colonise ecological niches within all human societies.
Theoretical Ramifications
the central problem is that existing theories of international relations do not deal well
with the problem of the global proliferation of pathogens. ernst Haas (1964) advocated
a functionalist paradigm, stipulating that incremental progress in cooperation
between states on technical issues would produce radiating effects to generate proto-
regimes. the economist Joseph Schumpeter (2005) argued that catalytic events and
processes could generate 'creative destruction' wherein dysfunctional institutions
were dissolved and replaced with more effective successors. In a Schumpeterian
sense epidemics have generated profound disruptions, but have often acted as
catalysts of change as well, generating transformation in the belief structures of
policy makers, in the economic and social structures of affected polities, in the
relations between society and the state, and, ultimately, among sovereign states. In
fact, in light of the historical evolution of public health regimes, it becomes apparent
Pe theory essentially holds that the progress of human societies (and institutions) is
in fact non-linear, and that the evolution of a given society depends heavily upon its
reaction to exogenous shocks that destabilise the pre-existing order, undercutting the
than functionalist paradigms because it accounts for the reactionary and non-linear
spurts of human social ingenuity that modify structures of governance at both the
inter-state and intra-state levels.
7
the SarS epidemic of 2003 provides additional evidence to support Pe theory
in the domain of political science. the outbreak of SarS in china in late 2002 and
its spread throughout the Pacific Rim in the first half of 2003, is a good example of
an exogenous shock. Specifically it destroyed the mythology (prevalent at the time)
that infectious disease was primarily a concern for the developing countries of the
