The Control of Contagion: Ideas, Institutions and Disease in China and India

• In Event: The Politics of Public Goods in India: New Debates and Evidence

Abstract

Historically and today, infectious diseases have struck fear in the hearts of humans. This is because of their consequences - infectious diseases have been the single largest cause of human mortality and morbidity and inflicted enormous social, political and economic upheaval. But also because of their mode of transmission - passing and disseminating, often rapidly, via virtually invisible pathogens across even tightly policed borders. Global interconnectedness and the post 9/11 security climate have intersected to intensify perceptions of vulnerability to, and consequently our fear of infectious diseases in distant places, both naturally occurring, as in the case of Ebola in West Africa and Zika in Brazil, as well as acts of bioterrorism. Yet while disease does not respect political boundaries, borders have historically and continue today, even with equal access to health technologies, to determine an individual’s vulnerability to an infectious disease. Why have polities with similar epidemiological, socioeconomic and demographic conditions been characterized by strikingly different levels of the control of contagion? In this paper, I draw on comparative historical analyses of subnational and national units across China and India to argue against dominant explanations about the development of, and access to health technologies to instead emphasize why interventions for the provision of health technologies are accepted in some cases but rejected in others. I fuse insights from the disciplines of comparative politics and sociology, with those from social psychology and science and technology studies, to argue that historically the popular uptake of health technologies and consequently, the control of contagion have hinged critically on whether the new technology is embedded in a culturally specific motivational frame that is authoritatively communicated by a local institution.

Author

• Prerna Singh, Brown University