Vaccines and Vaccinations: The Comparative Political Economy of Inoculation

• In Event: Pandemic Politics, Vaccine Polities: Comparing Outbreaks, Eras, and Geographies

Abstract

There has been an unprecedented global effort to develop an effective vaccine against the COVID-19. Also, never before has the World Health Organization made such an enormous coordination effort to bringing nations together, regardless of their income level, to ensure the procurement and equitable distribution of vaccines. Although vaccines became licensed and available to the public, there has been an unbalanced immunization delivery across countries. Even countries that were able to secure pre-commercial agreements with vaccine developers are struggling to roll out rapid vaccinations. That is the case of the US and most European countries. On the other hand, countries that lagged behind such as Brazil, as soon as vaccines were authorized in 2021, were able to catch up with Russia and India that had begun their vaccination programs almost a month before. Success stories are Israel and Bahrain. How do we account for such variation in COVID-19 vaccination policies? We propose a research agenda that focus on the politics vaccines (how countries secure doses and the types of vaccines available for them) and vaccination (the political economy of allocation, territorial politics, and institutional legacies).

Authors

• Elize Massard da Fonseca, Fundação Getulio Vargas

• Holly Jarman, University of Michigan

• Scott L. Greer, University of Michigan

• Elisabeth King, New York University