57. Health Emergencies and Reconfigurations of Governance
Michael Rabi, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Posted: February 28, 2022 Accepted Languages: English/Inglés/Inglês
Scholars of Science and Technology Studies of disaster have documented how “catastrophic” or “disastrous” incidents affect and are affected by governance, expertise, and technologies in different ways within various social and cultural contexts. As governmental actors are responding to, and learning lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic to prepare for the future, policies are being revised, technologies recalibrated and modified, new relationships are formed, and existing relationships are transformed. Thus, dynamics of governance, especially in global health governance, are being reconfigured in unprecedented ways.
To what extent and how do efforts to prepare and respond to health emergencies, as well as attempts to recover from them, affect and reconfigure contemporary governance? How are practices and technologies, such as the imaginary enactment of uncertain futures, digital surveillance, and risk calculation tools, being redesigned, modified, and repurposed? In what ways have existing forms of expertise evolved and migrated? How is blame for inadequate preparedness and response to health emergencies allocated? What social and political mechanisms are at play in calls and efforts to reform governance systems and governmental organizations following health emergencies?
This panel invites papers that address, critically analyze, and reflect upon shifts in governance, as well as aspirations and unfulfilled promises for change in the light of health emergencies, including (but not limited to) the current COVID-19 pandemic. Panelists may examine reconfigurations in governance through a range of subjects and perspectives, for instance: national policies, institutional histories, expert practices, and technologies of governance in the international system.
