Paper short abstract:

Over the past few years, pandemic influenza has become a crucial category at the heart of an emerging form of biopolitical intervention. This form of intervention increasingly relies on the official pronouncement of a “public health emergency of international concern” under the rule of public health law as defined by the World Health Organization. According to the WHO, pandemic influenza constitutes a “public health emergency of international concern” and thus represents a serious threat to human health that requires a coordinated international response. In the context of the most recent outbreak of infectious disease caused by the global spread of the swine flu virus, pandemic influenza has increasingly become a disputed and contested category in public debates. These debates, however, have almost exclusively focused on the question whether the most recent outbreak of infectious disease in 2009 represented a real pandemic or not and whether conflicts of interest may have influenced key decisions made by public health officials at the World Health Organization. The aim of this paper is to turn the perspective around. The paper asks not what the WHO can tell us about pandemic influenza, but what pandemic influenza can tell us about the WHO. The focus, in other words, is not on what the category means, but on what it does.

Paper long abstract:

Over the past few years, pandemic influenza has become a crucial category at the heart of an emerging form of biopolitical intervention. This form of intervention increasingly relies on the official pronouncement of a "public health emergency of international concern" under the rule of public health law as defined by the World Health Organization. According to the WHO, pandemic influenza constitutes a "public health emergency of international concern" and thus represents a serious threat to human health that requires a coordinated international response. In the context of the most recent outbreak of infectious disease caused by the global spread of the swine flu virus, pandemic influenza has increasingly become a disputed and contested category in public debates. These debates, however, have almost exclusively focused on the question whether the most recent outbreak of infectious disease in 2009 represented a real pandemic or not and whether conflicts of interest may have influenced key decisions made by public health officials at the World Health Organization. The aim of this paper is to turn the perspective around. The paper asks not what the WHO can tell us about pandemic influenza, but what pandemic influenza can tell us about the WHO. The focus, in other words, is not on what the category means, but on what it does.