Health in foreign policy

Section Editor: Arne Ruckert, University of Ottawa, Canada
Deputy Section Editors: Raphael Lencucha, McGill University, Canada

A new area of research, sometimes described as ‘global health diplomacy,’ examines how health becomes a priority within a country’s foreign policy deliberations, how this prioritization then affects debates and decisions at a global scale, and finally how global agreements (such as norms, declarations, and conventions), both inside and outside the realm of health, affect a country’s domestic policy environment and decision-making processes with ramifications for health. At its core is how intergovernmental negotiations shape international and national decision making on health issues, how formal and informal health diplomacy is carried out and by whom, and how such actions have demonstrable health (and policy) impacts. Papers submitted under this topic will explore governments’ health and foreign policy positions, processes of intergovernmental negotiations, coherence (or incoherence) between differing foreign policy goals, and how different global health actors work to place health higher as both a domestic and foreign policy priority.