Health in foreign policy

Section Editor: Arne Ruckert, University of Ottawa, Canada
Deputy Section Editors: Raphael Lencucha, McGill University, Canada and Gorik Ooms, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, UK

Related to issues of global governance for health and globalization and health development, a new area of research and policy scholarship examines how health becomes identified as a priority issue within country’s foreign policy deliberations, how this in turns affects debates and decisions at a global scale, and how global agreements (such as norms, declarations, and conventions) affect a country’s domestic policy environment and decision-making. 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 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.​​​​​​​