This collection has been compiled by Review of International Studies Editorial Board Member Professor Sophie Harman (Queen Mary University of London).

The Review of International Studies (RIS) has long been a committed publisher of cutting edge work on global health politics. Thomas’ 1989 article on the relationship between International Relations (IR) and health, highlighting the lack of engagement the discipline had with global health, sets the trend for a recurrent bugbear of many global health scholars working in the field. The notion that IR has failed to take global health seriously is not replicated in the pages of RIS. As this collection shows, the journal has been at the forefront of publishing leading research on the right to health, global health security, philanthropy, the increased role of Big Pharma in global politics, and the cautionary intertwining of health, militaries, and the security sector. 

In 2014 RIS demonstrated the importance of global health politics, by publishing one of the first Special Issues on Global Health in IR. The impact of the Special Issue is exemplified by two of my selected papers from Roemer-Mahler and Howell: the warnings emanating from both of these papers on the growing role of the pharmaceutical sector in developing countries, and concern about securitisation theory and its implications for health, are perhaps even more relevant today in the aftermath of the COVID-19 crisis, and who shapes the future of global health security. Global health politics is not all health security, and Hayden’s reflection on recognition of the right to health is a timely reminder, that health is something we continue to fight for in society. 

Other papers reflect some of the canonical authors in the field of global health, who should be essential starting points for anyone knew to the subject – Riggirozzi, Rushton, Davies, and McInnes – as well as new voices such as Gibson-Fall advancing our understanding of the complex role militaries have in everyday, rather than emergency, provision of healthcare. The line from Thomas’ paper to Gibson-Fall’s exemplifies how far the study of global health politics has come, and the role of RIS in taking an early interest in this important subject.

The articles below are available free of charge until the end of August 2023.