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Multilateralism, world order and Covid-19: current issues and future challenges for the WHO

ABSTRACT

This essay discusses the work of the World Health Organization (WHO) in the light of debates about the capitalist world order and multilateralism, and examines how pandemics (including Covid-19) are addressed in the dynamics of a heterogeneous inter-State system with wealth and power asymmetries and led by hegemonic powers. The working hypothesis is that the WHO’s changing credibility and the demands for its reform date from the late 20tn century and are related to global (general and health sector) governance, linked also to the transformations of multilateralism and the capitalist world order during the post-war and post-Cold War periods. Data from a literature review and documents were analysed on a critical approach to History and using the ‘world system’ concept. The undermining of the WHO and the scrutiny to which it has been subjected for decades were found to have resulted less from the controversies inherent to the organisation or any failings or ‘lack of capacity’ than from a dual, internal and external, dynamic. This process can be better understood in view of challenges posed both by the United Nations’ and the WHO’s institutional political options and by changes in the ‘new liberal world order’ associated with contemporary globalisation and the spread of nationalisms.

KEYWORDS
Pandemics; WHO; World order; Multilateralism; Covid-19

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