"Contrarian" Science: Making COVID Vaccines in China and Russia

• In Event: 20481 - Section on Sociology of Development Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 4. States and Governance

Abstract

Sociologists of innovation and development have spent far more time asking why some systems can’t innovate like the West than why they can in their own ways. Using the cases of at least partially successful COVID-19 vaccine making in China and Russia, based on fieldwork in both countries, this article rethinks the currently dominant literature on medical and pharmaceutical advancement, which emphasizes genuine innovation based on better access to resources and adherence to widely accepted standards and practices; and finds that China and Russia for the first time in history ended the western domination on the global vaccine market because of their “contrarian” strategies in opting out of the canonical innovation model represented by the North Atlantic. China, hesitant to innovate, enforced a policy favoring traditional vaccines and prioritized compliance with international standards and protocols. In contrast, Russian actors went “free-for-all” and experimented with unconventional and even controversial ideas and solutions without following the established rules and norms. As one of the first systematic accounts of COVID-19 vaccine development in China and Russia, this article employs a pragmatic framework grounded in social valuation theory to explore how stakeholders navigate competing demands during emergency innovation. It highlights how they exploit the gap between: (1) their willingness and ability to enhance the objective value of their vaccines, and (2) their efforts to legitimize their vaccines by adhering to widely accepted standards and practices. The study identifies four distinct pathways of medical and pharmaceutical advancement, shaped by stakeholders’ positioning along these two dimensions. By de-naturalizing the canonical innovation model—even in one of the most highly regulated and standardized sectors—this article, drawing on Chinese and Russian experiences, offers new insights into how vaccine developers, regulators, and policymakers operating under diverse constraints can prepare more adaptive, context-sensitive strategies for future pandemic responses.

Author

• Hsu Huang, Brown University