My next research project traces the international rise of the antiviral drug Tamiflu as one of the preeminant medical countermeasures available for mitigating the impact of human flu pandemics. Although Tamiflu has recently received much attention in the media, the story of its global rise as a pandemic preparedness medication is not only fascinating in itself, but can also tell us a lot about the international politics and global political economy of health security. The project begins with an overview of the emergence of neurominidase inhibitors as a new form of medical countermeasure initially developed by Gilead Sciences in Foster City, California. It then traces the role of former U.S. Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, in bringing the drug to a wider international audience - first at the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. and then also beyond the United States. It examines the political debates that surrounded its introduction as a routine seasonal flu medication in Japan, where drug has already been used for many years. The project is particularly interested in the role Tamiflu has played in international pandemic preparedness plans against both bird flu (H5N1) and swine flu (H1N1).
2. Security and Global Health: Toward the Medicalization of Insecurity
I am currently finishing a book on global health and security for Polity Press's new Dimensions of Security series. The book advaces an alternative conceptualization of the health-security nexus increasingly advocated by scholars and policy-makers. Rather than understanding this conjuncture as the 'securitization' of health, the book argues instead that this dynamic is best understood as the 'medicalization' of insecurity. Analyzing four case studies in 'health-security', the book traces how security is becoming partially re-defined as a medical problem that requires growing involvement of the medical and public health professions. These case studies are: pandemic security threats (SARS, avian flu), human security and health, the threat of bio-terrorism, and the 'wars' on lifestyle diseases such as smoking, alcoholism and obesity.
3. Virus Alert? HIV/AIDS and International Security
This research project on AIDS and security explores the implications of HIV/AIDS for different conceptions of security (human security, national security, international security), as well as for securitization theory, risk-based theories of security, and for biopolitical approaches to security. This research form the basis of my new book Virus Alert: Security, Governmentality and the AIDS Pandemic.
4. The International Political Thought of Nietzsche
This project, based on my doctoral research, explores the contribution of Nietzsche's ideas to debates about the nature of nationalism, the origins of the state, and the European idea. My book Europe: A Nietzschean Perspective examined the implications of European secularisation (the 'death of God') for ongoing debates about the meaning of the European idea. Taking inspiration from Nietzsche's idea of the 'good Europeans', it suggested a path for Europeanisation that does not consist of simply replicating the logic of nationalism on a European scale.