Global Pol of Disease and Biosecurity (954M1)
Global Politics of Disease and Biosecurity
Module 954M1
Module details for 2009/10.
30 credits
FHEQ Level 7 (Masters)
Module Outline
The importance of global diseases has traditionally been overlooked in the discipline of International Relations. Today, however, globalisation processes are fanning the emergence of a host of pervasive diseases ¿ ranging from infectious diseases such as HIV/AIDS tgrough to lifestyle diseases including cancer and obesity ¿ that states, international insitutions and non-governmental organisations are urgently trying to come to grips with. The AIDS pandemic alone continues to kill three times more people every day than died as a result of the terrorist attacks of September 11th 2001.
This course begins to theorise the ways in which diseases and globalisation and becoming increasingly linked, and analyses the various economic, political, social, legal and security challenges that diseases pose for contemporary world politics. The course then evaluates the competing mainstream and critical approaches to global governance, paying particular attention to how they concepualise health issues. Important questions addressed by the course include :
How can global diseases be effectively governed in an international system divided into sovereign states? What are the political processes and economic interests driving the global of disease? What, finally, are the complex ethical issues involved in responsing to global health crises?
Learning Outcomes
By the end of the course, a successful student should be able to:
1. Identify the ways in which contemporary global health problems are linked to processes of globalisation;
2. Identify the economic, political, social, legal and security challenges that contemporary diseases such as HIV/AIDS, TB, Malaria and SARS pose;
3. Understand the competing mainstream and critical theories of global governance and how they apply to the aforementioned contemporary health issues;
4. Formulate academically informed opinions about the governance of contemporary global health issues.
| Type | Timing | Weighting |
|---|---|---|
| Short Term Paper (5000 words) | Summer Term Week 1 Mon 16:00 | 100.00% |
Timing
Submission deadlines may vary for different types of assignment/groups of students.
Weighting
Coursework components (if listed) total 100% of the overall coursework weighting value.
| Term | Method | Duration | Week pattern |
|---|---|---|---|
| Spring Term | Seminar | 2 hours | 011111111100 |
How to read the week pattern
The numbers indicate the weeks of the term and how many events take place each week.
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