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Abstract
This article examines how pandemic influenza has been framed as a security issue, threatening the functioning of both state and society, and the policy responses to this framing. Pandemic influenza has long been recognised as a threat to human health. Despite this, for much of the twentieth century it was not recognised as a security threat. In the decade surrounding the new millennium, however, the disease was successfully securitised with profound implications for public policy. This article addresses the construction of pandemic influenza as a threat. Drawing on the work of the Copenhagen School, it examines how it was successfully securitised at the turn of the millennium and with what consequences for public policy.
Acknowledgements
This research has been made possible through funding from the European Research Council under the European Community's Seventh Framework Programme – Ideas Grant 230489 GHG. All views expressed remain those of the authors.
Notes
1. This article draws on a range of elite interviews conducted in Geneva, London and Singapore between 2010 and 2011. For reasons of confidentiality, agreed upon with interview subjects, these are generally not cited in the text. We would also like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their comments on and suggestions for this article.
2. One implication of this is that the use of the word ‘security’ is not necessary in the speech act. Indeed, with pandemic influenza, the operational term appears to have been ‘threat’.
3. In this context, it is interesting to examine David Campbell's work on the ‘visual economy’ of HIV/AIDS (Campbell Citation2008).
4. The issue of partial securitisation is discussed at length in McInnes and Rushton, Citation2012.