The Copernican Revolution: The Changing Nature of the Relationship Between Foreign Policy and Health

Abstract

This chapter reflects on some basic questions about the relationship between health and foreign policy. The focus is on how our understanding of these issues has evolved. Conceptions of foreign policy in the period between the two World Wars were very different from current thinking. The same can be said of health: the biological conception of health that prevailed at the beginning of the twentieth century is far removed from the modern view, with its focus on the social determinants of health. The purpose of this chapter is to show that the insertion of health in foreign policy, as an independent non-subordinated object of negotiation produces a radical shift that has to be taken into account. This constitutes a change in perspective in the way of thinking about foreign policy. The change in perspective may be called a Copernican Revolution.