Abstract

OLIVEIRA, Francisco Roque de. Sporadic pandemics and perennial States: Geopolitics and multilateral cooperation in the context of COVID-19. Finisterra [online]. 2020, n.115, pp.223-227.  Epub Dec 31, 2020. ISSN 0430-5027.  https://doi.org/10.18055/finis20346.

The current pandemic crisis of COVID-19 provides a set of elements for an analysis from the perspective of geopolitics that refer to several constrains, the most salient of which concerns the recurring tension between national and supranational legitimacy in the context of contemporary international relations. We chose to examine this situation by confronting the ongoing episode with the lesson from the two previous sporadic pandemics of the 21st century, SARS (2003) and H1N1 (2009-2010) outbreaks. At the same time, we focus on the dispute played out by China and the USA over these years with the World Health Organization, the multilateral agency whose cooperation logic serves as a pretext for a dispute between the power of States and the internationalist purposes proper to the institutional architecture of the United Nations.

Keywords : Pandemics; COVID-19; multilateral cooperation; China; United States of America.

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