Pandemopolitics. How a public health problem become a geopolitical and geoeconomic issue

ABSTRACT

This study examines how the delay and blocking of studies on the origin of the virus and, at the same time, the effects they have caused or, as the case may be, reactivated have led several Western states to associate the virus with China (“Chinese virus”), demonstrating that the new international reality has taken the form of geopolitical and geoeconomic tensions. The article also argues that the way in which the states involved have chosen to position themselves in relation to the pandemic, the effects that SARS-CoV-2 has on the population, as well as the reactivation of older geopolitical and geoeconomic aspects define the emergence of a new type of international politics: pandemopolitics. The main argument in favor of pandemopolitics is that without this global public health problem, geopolitical and geoeconomic games would not have had such a strong impact on humanity, and their magnitude is due exclusively to pandemopolitics.

KEYWORDS:

• Pandemopolitics
• pandemic
• SARS-CoV-2
• geopolitics
• geoeconomics

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.