This research was funded under the joint ESRC-DFID funding scheme, contract RES-167-25-0167.

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Fears for the future: the incommensurability of securitisation and in/securities among southern African youth

............................................................................................................................................ 2 List of Tables and Figures .................................................................................................................. 4 Chapter One: Introduction and Thesis Outline .................................................................................... 5 1.

The Ethics and Governance of Dual-Use Synthetic Biology within the United States and the United Kingdom (2003 - 2012)

This article explores the potential for new biotechnologically enabled weapons to compete with nuclear weapons in the context of strategic stability, assesses how such new technologies may affect a...

CRISPR and new genetic-engineering techniques: emerging challenges to strategic stability and nonproliferation

The global spread of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is an existential threat to humanity, one that has generated a macrosecuritizing response by states and international organizations. Since the turn of the century, China has been a source of numerous infectious disease outbreaks. It is also the origin of the MCR-1 gene that confers resistance to colistin, a ‘last line’ antibiotic deployed against multidrug resistant infections. With the largest population and its status as a major supplier of produce, evaluating Chinese responses to AMR is critical to understanding the efficacy of the global response. Combining both knowledge of Chinese politics and health security, this paper analyses how Chinese actors have responded to the threat in the public and animal health sectors as well as the domestic and international implications of these responses. Based on interviews with key Chinese and international officials, scientists, and public health specialists as well as farmers and consumers, we argue that the securitization of AMR in China is currently more concerned with domestic policy and resource competition than with addressing the existential health threat. Without a greater alignment of AMR strategies within China, macrosecuritizing efforts to address the threat globally cannot succeed.

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The Macrosecuritization of Antimicrobial Resistance in China

The purpose of this study was to explore the securitization of communicable disease in the case of the Ebola outbreak in West Africa 2014. Applying the Copenhagen School’s theory of securitization, this thesis conducted a discourse analysis of speech acts occurring at different levels of the global community in relation to the outbreak. The focus lay on two major events, namely the UN Security Council meeting on 18 September 2014 and the UN high-level meeting on Ebola a week later. Investigating to what extent the securitizing discourse apparent in Resolution 2177 which identified Ebola as a “threat to international peace and security” was uphold and justified by the speakers at these events, this study determined that Ebola virus disease has been “successfully” securitized on all levels of global governance. Despite the incredible amount of human suffering which the Ebola outbreak provoked in West Africa, the discourse employed by global governance identified the referent object nearly exclusively at the state-level. Further research is suggested in the concluding parts of this thesis that can build upon the findings of this study.

Securitizing Communicable Disease: A case study of discursive threat-construction during the 2014 Ebola epidemic

The threat posed by infectious diseases has been increasingly framed as a security issue. The UN Security Council's Resolution 1308, which designated HIV/AIDS as a threat to international security, evidenced the securitization process. Using securitization theory as a theoretical tool, this article explores the securitization of infectious diseases in the World Health Organization (WHO). While WHO has tended to securitize infectious diseases since 2000, it has encountered a dilemma in the process because of the inherent asymmetry of interest between developed and developing countries. The act of securitization in WHO currently remains mostly a rhetorical device, since WHO's norms emblematic of securitization have not been backed by operational measures for verification or enforcement due to these asymmetric interests.

Jiyong Jin

Papers

Infectious Diseases and Securitization: WHO's Dilemma