Between Politics and Technocrats – The EU and Global Health Security

Drawing on securitization theory and politicization more broadly, this paper traces the emergence of a new European health security regime and its implications for the EU as an actor in global governance. More specifically, which struggles and logics have been key in this social process and which perspectives were marginalized? The idea of constant state of alert to generic “health threats”, typically focusing on pandemics and bio-terrorism, has been widely promoted by the US Government through the Global Health Security Agenda. However, the politics of health security has been criticized for a bias towards protecting the West and for privileging emergency measures over underlying conditions such as unsustainable practices in food sector or poor health systems in developing countries. The classic question – security for whom and from what – thus becomes pertinent for the EU as an external actor. Through an integrated analysis of both bureaucratic practices and securitization at political level, the paper casts light on the social processes through which a European health security regime has been established. The paper contributes empirically with a new regional perspective, but also theoretically by casting light on different logics at bureaucratic level which have played a role alongside discourse at political level.