EU Health Diplomacy during the Covid-19 Outbreak

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 member of political science department at yasouj university

2 M.A in Political Science, Yazd University

3 Ph.D. candidate in political science, Yasouj University

10.22080/jpir.2024.23739.1293

Abstract

European countries coined the concept of health diplomacy in the 19th century and became the leaders of other countries in this regard. Over the past century, these countries have taken a series of measures to strengthen global health diplomacy in the light of the World Health Organization. At the beginning of 2020, the members of the union, like the rest of the world, experienced a widespread outbreak of Covid-19 within their countries. This article raises the question, given the extensive history of European countries in health diplomacy, what has been the performance of EU health diplomacy during the Covid-19 outbreak? The hypothesis of the research was based on the proposition that "European Union's health diplomacy has been effective and successful in dealing with Covid-19". A qualitative method with emphasis on the analytical-explanatory method was used to evaluate the hypothesis. The data were also collected by the library method. The findings show that the EU, contrary to expectations, did not succeed in global health diplomacy. They did not achieve significant success in any of the dimensions of post-covid health diplomacy, i.e. mask diplomacy and vaccine diplomacy. Instead of turning Covid-19 into an opportunity to strengthen its international presence and take over the leadership of the world, the EU fell into nationalism and regionalism. Also, the coronavirus pandemic showed that the propositions made by liberalists regarding the cooperation of governments and interdependence can be doubted in critical conditions and in the center of publication of these theories i.e. Europe.

Keywords

Journal of Politics and International Relations
Volume 6, Issue 11
February 2024
Pages 75-94

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