A Multidisciplinary Approach to Pandemics

Pandemics have quickly become one of the most important subjects of the twenty-first century. This edited volume provides a comparative analysis of the ways in which pandemics are theorized and studied across several disciplines. A Multidisciplinary Approach to Pandemics has two objectives: first, to explore the growing diversity of theories and paradigms developed to study pandemics; and second, to initiate a multidisciplinary dialogue about the ontological, epistemological, paradigmatic, and normative aspects of studying pandemics across disciplines. The study of pandemics is not new. Yet despite the volume of research interest in a host of academic fields, scholars rarely talk across the disciplines. This study seeks to fill that gap by attempting to bridge disciplinary canyons. Eager to encourage this arena of conversation, this book brings together in a single volume essays by political scientists, environmental scholars, legal scholars, clinical pharmacists, economists, scholars of urban planning, scholars in health and medicine schools, and researchers in business and management.

Philippe Bourbeau is the Director of the Graduate School of International Studies, Chairholder of the Canada Research Chair in Immigration and Security, and Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University Laval, Canada. His work adopts a multidisciplinary approach to international issues. His books include On Resilience. Genealogy, Logics, and World Politics (Cambridge University Press, 2018), Security: Dialogue across Disciplines (Cambridge University Press, 2015), and The Securitization of Migration (Routledge, 2013). Jean-Michel Marcoux is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Law and Legal Studies at Carleton University. He holds a Ph.D. in Law (University of Victoria), an M.A. in International Studies (Institut québécois des hautes études internationales), and a B.A. in Public Affairs and International Relations (University Laval). Prior to joining Carleton University, he completed a postdoctoral fellowship at McGill University's Faculty of Law. Interested in international economic law and international relations theory, he is the author of International Investment Law and Globalization: Foreign Investment, Responsibilities, and Intergovernmental Organizations (Routledge, 2018). Brooke A. Ackerly is Professor of Political Science at Vanderbilt University. In her research, teaching, and collaborations, she clarifies without simplifying the most pressing problems of global justice, including human rights and climate change. Her theoretical work utilizes empirical research on activism and the lived experience of those affected by injustice (Grounded Normative Theory). She is the author of Political Theory and Feminist Social Criticism (2000), Universal Human Rights in a World of Difference (2008), Doing Feminist Research with Jacqui True (2010, 2019), and Just Responsibility: A Human Rights Theory of Global Justice (2018).

- Introduction: Pandemics, Multidisciplinarity and Global Ethics - 1: Kathryn H. Jacobsen: An Epidemiological Perspective on Historic and Emerging Pandemics - 2: Dominic D. P. Johnson: What Viruses Want: Evolutionary Insights for the COVID-19 Pandemic and Lessons for the Next One - 3: Jack A. Goldstone: Will COVID-19 Bring Down Governments? Will it Bring Rebellions and Revolutions? - 4: Matthieu J. Guitton: Bioterrorism and Pandemics - 5: Christopher Bickerton: Europe and the Pandemic - 6: Jean-Frédéric Morin, Sikina Jinnah, Amandine Orsini: Pandemics and Environmental Crises: Similar Problems; Different Governance Systems - 7: Michael Hooper: Pandemics and the City: COVID-19 and the Future of Urban Density and Densification - 8: Charles-Emmanuel Côté, Richard Ouellet, Jean-Michel Marcoux: Pandemics and the Use of Exceptions in International Economics Law: One Step Forward, Two Steps Back? - 9: Julia Smith: COVID-19: Exposing the Gender Gaps in Global Health - 10: Robert Muggah: The COVID-19 Pandemic and the Shifting Opportunity Structure of Organized Crime - 11: Christophe Roux Dufort, Mary-Lieta Clément: The Pandemic Crisis: A Tragic Perspective - 12: Sara E. Davies: International and Global Cooperation in Response to COVID-19: The Past, the Present, and the Future - 13: Luc Bergeron, Martin Darveau: How COVID-19 is Shaking Up Pharmacy - 14: Markus Herrmann, Maripier Isabelle: COVID-19 and the Economics of Population Health: Analyzing Direct and Indirect Effects - 15: Geneviève Parent: COVID-19: A Wake-Up Call for Sustainable Food Systems - 16: Andrea K. Bjorklund: Force Majeure in International Law During a Pandemic: Lessons from the COVID-19 Crisis