Microbes, Mad Cows and Militaries: Exploring the Links Between Health and Security

The 'securitization' of health has generated considerable debate. In public health, the debate focuses mainly on health effects. Although securitization may refocus attention and resources toward certain health issues, it may focus undue attention on a few issues or on the military aspects of issues to the detriment of a broad range of health issues and their human rights aspects. In international relations, the is the effect on security analysis and policy. While some welcome a broadening of the security agenda to include items such as health, others are concerned that analytical rigour and operational effectiveness are lost. This article argues that, normative concerns notwithstanding, securitizing is occurring as a result of perceived changes, associated with globalization, that are creating changes in the nature or degree of threats. But, in international relations, security is largely a social construction, as the Copenhagen School claims. Contemporary social struggles are ongoing around competitions to define security. The article argues that human security is a concept that has considerable relevance for understanding the nature of change that is producing new or intensified threats. It also offers conceptual space for analyzing what security is provided and for whom in the changing world order.