Virus Alert: Security, Governmentality, and the AIDS Pandemic

Stefan Elbe

Published by Columbia University Press 2009

Virus Alert

Security, Governmentality, and the AIDS Pandemic

Stefan Elbe

https://doi.org/10.7312/elbe14868

Overview
Contents

About this book

Bound up with the human cost of HIV/AIDS is the critical issue of its impact on national and international security, yet attempts to assess the pandemic's complex risk fail to recognize the political dangers of construing the disease as a security threat. The securitization of HIV/AIDS not only affects the discussion of the disease in international policy debates, but also transforms the very nature and function of security within global politics.

In his analysis of the security implications of HIV/AIDS, Stefan Elbe addresses three concerns: the empirical evidence that justifies framing HIV/AIDS as a security issue, the meaning of the term "security" when used in relation to the disease, and the political consequences of responding to the AIDS pandemic in the language of security. His book exposes the dangers that accompany efforts to manage the global spread of HIV/AIDS through the policy frameworks of national security, human security, and risk management. Beyond developing strategies for mitigating these dangers, Elbe's research reveals that, in construing the AIDS pandemic as a threat, policymakers and international institutions also implicitly seek to integrate current security practices within a particular rationalization of political rule. Elbe identifies this transformation as the "governmentalization" of security and, by drawing on the recently translated work of Michel Foucault, develops a framework for analyzing its key elements and consequences.

Author / Editor information

Stefan Elbe is reader (associate professor) in the Department of International Relations at the University of Sussex, where he teaches security studies. Previously, he held positions at the London School of Economics, the International Institute for Strategic Studies, the University of Essex, and the University of Warwick.

Reviews

Jonas Hagmann:
An elegant, intellectually stimulating contribution that provides a timely, empirically grounded, and indeed most welcome critical analysis of recent associations of HIV with security.

A provocative and controversial book on the subject of HIV/AIDS and national security... Highly Recommended.

Virus Alert offers a fine security analysis of the implications of HIV and AIDS.

an important case study.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Acknowledgments Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	xi
1. Viruses, Health, and International Security Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
2. A Noble Lie? Examining the Evidence on AIDS and Security Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	27
3. Security in the Era of Governmentality: AIDS and the Rise of Health Security Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	59
4. National Security: Sovereignty, Medicine, and the Securitization of AIDS Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	86
5. Human Security: Discipline, Healthy Bodies, and the Global Curing Machine Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	108
6. Risk and Security: Government, Military Risk Groups, and Population Triage Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	131
7. The Power of AIDS: Responding to the Governmentalization of Security Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	157
References Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	177
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	201

Language: English
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Main content: 224
Illustrations
- Other: 3 tables

eBook

Published: July 21, 2009
ISBN: 9780231520058