Jul 22, 2010 | environment, Global Public Goods, Passage au crible (English)
By Clément Paule
Translation: Brad Pizzimenti
Passage au crible n°28
On July 15th 2010, the engineers of the petroleum company BP (formerly British Petroleum) would be able to contain the leak of the Macondo wellhead 1500 meters below the ocean surface. Three months after the explosion and subsequent sinking of the Deepwater Horizon platform, the spilling of oil into the Gulf of Mexico appeared to be temporarily contained. According to the estimates of the IEA (the International Energy Agency), between 2.3 and 3.5 barrels of oil – between 365 and 715 million liters – had escaped into the sea after the accident. In addition, BP – who used offshore infrastructure and managed the resulting crisis alongside American authorities – had spent more than 4 billion dollars to mitigate the crisis. However, the final bill would be more than 37 billion, according to Credit Suisse Group. Other financial challenges, the petrol group had been made the object of myriad critiques brought by its incapacity to quickly contain the disaster.
> Historical background
> Theoretical framework
> Analysis
> References
Historical background
Formed at the outset of the 20th century in Iran, the APOC (Anglo-Persian Oil Company) was established as one of the major actors of a young industry. Nevertheless, the company, rebranded BP in 1954, was confronted in the 1960s with nationalizations occurring under Middle Eastern governments. At that time, the firm internationalized in order to explore new oil deposits, in particular in Alaska and the North Sea. Twenty years later, it was operating in more than one hundred countries and employed more than 100.000 people. Under its name, it was one of six oil super majors alongside Exxon Mobil, Chevron Corporation, Royal Dutch Shell, ConocoPhillips, and Total. Appearing at the end of the 1990s these conglomerates resulted from concentration of the industry, following price volatilities. It is within this context that BP invested massively in the American market and purchased successively the companies Sohio (Standard Oil of Ohio) in 1987, then Amoco (formerly Standard Oil of Indiana) and Arco (Atlantic Richfield Company) between 1998 and 2000. In this instance, this establishment, decided by Lord Brown, is embedded in a strategy based on innovation and, CEO between 1995 and 2007. The energy giant was then distinguished by its taking of several and varied risks: notably, for example, the series of ambitious accords signed in Russia or the promotion of alternative energy.
Under this logic, the development of offshore drilling is central to the concerns of the super major as the most accessible oil deposits are controlled by national companies. As it turns out, a fifth of global petroleum reserves are found in the ocean depths. A pioneer of this extraction technique, BP remains the number one oil producer in the Gulf of Mexico. This orientation has withstood successive US administrations – including the Obama administration – which has reduced restrictions on domestic drilling. In this regard, American power has tried to limit energy dependence, in particular in facing OPEC (the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries). The group was able to utilize reserves like Tiber – where the only announcement caused the 4% increase in the worth of the company in 2009 – for opening a new energy era.
Nevertheless, we can see that this technique could cause accidents having led to oil spills in the Gulf of Mexico. Witnessed in 1979 was the destruction of the Ixtoc I wells run by the Mexican state oil firm Pemex (Petroleos Mexicanos). More generally, the installations of BP in the United States were not spared these hazards. We see in 2006 the spill in Prudhoe Bay in Alaska, as well as the explosion of a refinery in Texas the previous year, rousing the attention of authorities and of American public opinion.
Theoretical framework
1. Stigmatization of a deviant actor. Inspired by the symbolic interactionism of Howard Baker, certain notions permit the rendering of delegitimization encountered by the petroleum group after the accident. Concentrating the criticism, BP made the object of a stigmatized, ambivalent work as much the part of its peers as the Obama administration.
2. The image and reputation of a transnational firm. The subject here evokes the intrication between the perception of the super major and its economic performance. Opposite states that suffer less – according to Jonathan Mercer – “reputation factor”, private operators are not disposed to objective legitimacy. There are thus more sensitive than state actors to changes in their image that can affect their survival.
Analysis
In the first place, it is suitable to recall disappointments of BP in the face of disaster. We mention the reverse subjected by its experts over the technical plan, with ineffective solutions and outmoded emergency plans. As well, the top kill procedure failed to stop the leak on 26 May; the organizational practices of the group appear, therefore, ineffective. These ineffective practices are combined with setbacks of unskilled communication. Tony Hayward, CEO of BP notably provoked several scandals related to minimization of the environmental impact of the incident. In fact, the company wasn’t able to put in place a crisis technology that was socially acceptable. That is what created a dissonance with an entrepreneurial image composed fundamentally of expertise and superior technology. And yet, this symbolic failure produced an economic and financial impact that caused the breakdown of the firm’s stock value. In fact, this was elevated by about 170 billion dollars in April 2010, according to the Forbes Global 2000 list where BP occupied 10th place. At the end of June, the result was divided in two, and the international rating agency, Fitch Ratings, had then downgraded the energy giant anticipating the accumulation of immense costs.
Moreover, the incapacity of BP to have an authoritative discourse over the handling of the crisis drew the development of sociotechnical controversies characterized by great uncertainty. Citing the increase of the estimations of the volume of the leak, initially 1000 barrels a day, reached today the figure of 60.000. Outside of this consideration, the competence of the petroleum company is disparaged equally by its competitors as by the American government. These final stakeholders are implicated in diverse degrees in the bleak handling and subsequent consequences of successive failures. In this environment, the market value of Exxon Mobil and of Total declined 15% because of the discrediting of BP. The tactics of stigmatization and of demarcation to highlight the deficiencies of a firm presented as adventurous and negligent of risks. We mention in this sense the hearing of 15 June before the American Congress, directors of ConnocoPhillips and Royal Dutch Shell who described an isolated incident attributable solely to the errors of BP. As for the American authorities, they have adopted a posture of moral entrepreneurs; the oil slick could become a political test 5 years after Katrina. Finally, the administration of the catastrophe came to be a game of survival of the company itself. Anyway, let us remember that the brutal fall of the company’s share price put BP under the menace of a hostile takeover bid in the face of bankruptcy. The group could certainly lean heavily on its consolidated resources in 2009 with 17 billion dollars of net gain. But it is also constrained to strategies of extraversion, soliciting Goldman Sachs for financial aid in the form of sovereign wealth funds – Qatari or Libyan – in light of a strategic association. Notwithstanding that, the impact of its position became permanently limited in the measure where the other super majors stretched to evade a hostile takeover described by the CEO of Total as an unethical operation. This ambivalent position can explain the fear shattering the already unstable economic order. It appears even more to raise common reaction against all tendencies of external regulation begun by the moratorium instituted by the Obama administration on all offshore drilling. This evokes again the question of regulation – pragmatic or normative – susceptible to define and sanction the deviance of private actors on the world stage.
References
Becker Howard, Outsiders. Sociologie de la déviance, (1963), trad. Métailié, Paris, 1985.
Crooks Ed, “BP – Anatomy of a Disaster – Part I, Cover Story” The financial Times, July 3 2010
Dobry Michel, Sociologie des crises politiques, La dynamique des mobilisations multisectorielles, 3e éd. Paris, Presses de la FNSP, 2009.
Mercer Jonathan, Reputation in International Politics, Ithaca, Cornell University Press 1996
Jul 3, 2010 | Cold War, Constructivism, Passage au crible (English)
By Daniel Bourmaud
Translation: Brad Pizzimenti
Passage au crible n°27
Pixabay
The tension observed on the Korean peninsula since the beginning of 2010 has seen a brutal resurgence with the sinking of a South Korean warship resulting in 46 deaths on the 26th of March 2010. In this case, Seoul accused Pyongyang of having deliberately torpedoed its warship, the Cheonan. The result has been economic and commercial sanctions brandished by the South Korean president, to which North Korea responded in breaking all relations with its southern neighbor, carrying out new military maneuvers, and reinforcing its nuclear arsenal since the end of June.
> Historical background
> Theoretical framework
> Analysis
> References
Historical background
This tension is part of a long history spanning more than a half-century. The Korean War had officialized the split between the two territories situated on either side of the 38th parallel. After three years of fighting between 1950 and 1953 – the most deadly of the 20th century with the exception of the two world wars – the conflict ended with the signature not of a peace treaty but an armistice, singed in Pan-Munjon.
After being labeled essential for the status quo during the Cold War, inter-Korean relations have entered a new phase with their admission to the United Nations in 1991, and the conclusion of a non-aggression pact. This marked the beginning of an era of rapprochement, of the sunshine policy – symbolized notably by the implementation of liaison offices, an economic aid program for the north from the south, and meetings between separated families – whose crowning achievement is the opening of the special economic zone in Kaesong. Nevertheless, the decision of President Bush to register, in 2002, North Korea in the Axis of Evil served to reinforce its siege mentality. Its original acceptance of multiparty talks within the framework of the group of six – United States, China, the two Koreas, Japan, and Russia – and the return of the nuclear menace illustrated by the end of the NPT (Non-Proliferation Treaty), had thereafter changed to an isolationist strategy.
Theoretical framework
The constructivist theory appears particularly appropriate for capturing the political and social dynamics, because, according to Alexander Wendt, the identity of actors constitutes a powerfully explicative variable. A psychological approach to the political permits, as well, a better apprehension of the manners in which a conflict is interwoven and informs the representations that actors have of their own interests.
Two configurations permit restoring the complexity of these processes. Firstly, low self-esteem may be experienced as a humiliation, which must be shed by a counter action. But the protagonist may also, as Philippe Braud writes “make use of certain attacks on its dignity”. To assume the posture of the victim and “allow for actions of legitimate defense that are, in reality, belligerent”.
Analysis
With a westernized reordering of roles, Pyongyang incarnates marvelously the villain. In effect, the western countries see in North Korea the quintessential duplicity. Its procrastinations and delay tactics are felt as brutally as its explicit claim to the right to the ultimate weapon, the nuclear bomb. This behavioral orientation has a blind spot however: in masking the vision that North Korea makes itself and thereby the way it designs its behavior towards others.
An identity threatened and wounded North Korea‘s pride of identity has roots in the ancient and glorious history of Kokouryo (277 BCE – 676 CE) that extended into China with Pyongyang as its capital. Today, once again, it claims the heritage of this state that unified Korea from the 10th to the 14th centuries. As a source of pride, this glorious state was threatened in the XIXth century by western states, Japanese colonization from 1905 to 1945 and as well by the imperial domination of the United States through the Korean War.
To qualify this country as the “last Stalinist state on the planet” comforts it in its siege mentality. Safeguards with respect to North Korea have never proven useful, but their absence turns out to be counterproductive. In calling it a delinquent state, the United States, which appeals to, in reality, moral categories, afflicts an even greater blow than its presence in South Korea. The need of Pyongyang to no longer be on this list, seen as slanderous, aims at escaping resulting sanctions but also to regain a lost pride.
An identity used. For the North Korean leadership, a posture of victimization is evidenced as a powerful instrument of mobilization and consolidation. In this spade, the recurrence of physical violence comes as a response to a symbolic violence that is felt by victims.
Such an analysis certainly departs from common approaches. It may also appear as a provocation, such that the North Korean regime appears to take on the properties of a dangerous power with a character as dictatorial as fantastic, as well as containing systematized coercion. Finally, the identity dimension remains in fine determinate. We better understand why Andrei Lankov – one of the most informed specialists on the Korean question – begins to advocate not just sanctions, that is to say, force, but the slow task of changing North Korean opinion.
References
Braud Philippe, L’Émotion en politique, Paris, Presses de Sciences Po, 1996.
Braud Philippe, « La Violence symbolique dans les relations internationales », Association Française de Science Politique, Congrès de Toulouse, Table ronde 6, 2007.
Lankov Andrei, “Changing North Korea, An information Campaign can Beat the Regime”, Foreign Affairs, 88 (6), Nov.-Dec. 2009, pp. 95-105.
Lindemann Thomas, Sauver la face, sauver la paix. Sociologie constructiviste des crises internationales, Paris, L’Harmattan, 2010. Coll. Chaos International.
Wendt Alexander, Social Theory of International Politics, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1999.
Jun 23, 2010 | Globalization, Passage au crible (English), Transportation
By Yves Poirmeur
Translation: Melissa Okabe
Passage au crible n°26
On April 14, 2010, the Eyjafjallajökull Icelandic volcano burst into eruption. A cloud of abrasive ashes posed a threat to the functioning of airline jet engines, as it slowly formed and descended little by little over Europe. To remove all risk of accidents, British and Irish aviation authorities, followed by the Norwegian, Swedish, Belgian, Dutch, Luxembourgian, German, and French authorities, interrupted the airline traffic over all or part of their territory. During the week of paralysis, 100000 flights were cancelled, stranding 8 million passengers as well as airline freight. The world economy will have suffered costs of 5 billion dollars, 2.6 million affecting Europe, and notably costing 260 million dollars for France alone. Concerning the airline companies, they will have lost 188 million dollars. Concerning the tour operators and the tourist agencies, their losses will have risen respectively to 31 and 40 million dollars.
> Historical background
> Theoretical framework
> Analysis
> References
Historical background
Is precaution or prevention essential? The danger of volcanic ash clouds to aircrafts is well known. This knowledge is based on two cases of tremendous aircraft failure in passing through the ash clouds discharged over Indonesia by Mount Gallunggung (British Airways plane in 1982) and Alaska’s Mount Redoubt volcano (The 1989 KLM plane with 500 passengers on board where luckily the engines were able to restart), along with the damages suffered by about twenty other devices, of which the cost of repairing was numbered in millions of dollars, as the norms of aviation security exclude any risk-taking. Following the direction produced by the Volcanic Ash Advisory Center in conjunction with the meteorological services (in Europe, the VAAC (Volcanic Ash Advisory Center) in London, and the Volcanic Ash Advisory Center in Toulouse), airlines must by-pass the ash clouds and must be diverted toward another airport when their destination airport has become inaccessible. For the first time, this rule was applied to one of the most dense zones of airline circulation in the world – the London-Heathrow airport receives 1300 flights daily, the Roissy Charles de Gaulle airport welcomes 83 thousand passengers per year – showing evidence of the globalization of the precautionary and prevention principles and also its limits. The resulting crisis, also stands as an assessment of the increasing contradictions between the economic trans-nationalization and the political fragmentation of the world.
Theoretical framework
1. Globalization of the precautionary/ preventative principle. Rather than the precautionary principle commonly called upon in event of a crisis, in reality, it is instead the prevention principle which was in fact applied. In effect, the precautionary principle applies itself to hypotheses in which the actualization of a serious and irreversible danger – although uncertain in the state of scientific knowledge – can intervene. This principle demands the putting in place of the risk evaluation procedures and the adoption of provisionary and proportionality measures, in order to prepare for the actualization of damages. In this circumstance, the risks were confirmed by previous events, such as accidents due to lack of accuracy, high costs for repairing, or damages subjected on the apparatus in entering into such clouds. The interruption of air traffic, decided upon by the authorities therefore reveal prevention, but it also concerns the avoidance of engaging in a course of real danger for the passengers.
2. Economic Transnationalization and Political Fragmentation. This crisis was not only the result of a natural phenomenon. It was also encouraged by the political rupture of air traffic control. In the same manner, the crisis was also amplified by the economic logistics of corporations in the airline sector and even more by the internationalization of trade, which in unifying the world, also causes the economy to be extremely dependent on the smooth functioning of transport and communication systems.
Analysis
In this matter, many concurrent elements together close in on the principles of caution and prevention: on one hand, there is the uncertainty of the exact location of the cloud displaced by the wind, on the other hand, the insufficiency of scientific knowledge concerning the entryway of the concentration of ashes by which the security of the airlines would be threatened; finally, the absence of efficient instruments able to measure these concentrations in the different aerial zones. To limit the economic consequences of the closing of airline traffic, it was necessary to analyze the cartographic risks available by using the meteorologists’ mathematic model. However this hardly gives information on the density of the cloud. In this instance, it is in a simply empirical fashion – sent by trial planes in the different aviation pathways – that the severity and the variability of risk was tested by the airline companies, in conjunction with the regulatory authority. The suggestions by the ministers of European transport have finally distinguished three zones of risk in function of the concentration of ashes in the air: 1) in the high risk zone, the traffic was banned, 2) in the medium risk zone, traffic could be authorized by each state, 3) in the low risk zone, traffic remained opened. In such a configuration of actors, void of certain interest – to start by the airline companies and regulators – to risk the sight of plane damage or even a simple incident, considers the generalized mistrust by the air transport which it would have provoked. However the review of security recommendations, intervening without a new technical system of the evaluation of risks being put in place, reveals the weakness of the demand of prudence in a sector of activity, essential to the functioning of societies and economic interdependence.
Many factors contributed to aggravating the crisis and complicating its resolution. First off, the “Modes of Regulation” of the European Airspace appear largely irrational. In effect, instead of being carved into functional zones, it was divided into national zones determined by state borders, which all the more so complicate the airline circulation in this dense traffic zone, and in doing so multiplies the constriction of narrow sections in this area. Moreover, in place of being entrusted to an exclusive European supervisor as to optimize the airline traffic, the control is carried out by national organizations which juxtapose the European regulator, Eurocontrol. Secondly the economic models adopted by the airline companies and the airport societies heighten the consequences of all closure, even partial closure, of the airspace. Organized in networks centralizing the airline traffic in a few hubs by which they optimize the filling of their planes, the large companies find themselves very affected by any blocking of these platforms. Concerning the low cost businesses, those which the profitability/ return rest on the continual rotation of their planes starting from the small airports that they connect in, all risks of circuit interruption drives them to prefer the preventative annulations of all of their flights, rather than to suffer the financial consequences of guardianship for stranded passengers. Finally, division of labor and international specialization, along with the development of transnational flows – of merchandise, services, and tourists – rapidly increase the economic consequences of all unexpected stops of airline traffic in a dense traffic zone. Certainly, the more globalization intensifies, the more national regulation shows itself to be maladjusted, and more so, the pressures are therefore strong in strategic sectors securing the circulation of flow, to limit the application of the principle of prevention to those cases where it would be strictly necessary.
References
Gérald Bronner, Étienne Géhin, L’Inquiétant principe de précaution, Paris, PUF, 2010.
Marie-Anne Frison-Roche (Éd.), Les Risques de régulation, Paris, Presses de Sciences Po et Dalloz, 2005.
Philippe Kourilsky, Geneviève Viney, Le Principe de précaution : rapport au premier ministre, Odile Jacob, La Documentation française, 2000.
Daniel Gaïa, Pascal Nouvel, Sécurité et compagnies aériennes, Éditions du Puits Fleuri, 2006.
Institut Pierre Simon Laplace (Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin), LATMOS, « Suivi des émissions de cendres du volcan islandais Eyjafjöll » 20/04/2010. Site Internet easa.europa.eu.
Jun 12, 2010 | European Union, Passage au crible (English)
By André Cartapanis
Translation by: Davina Durgana
Passage au crible n°25
Since the onset of the Greek Financial Crisis, controversy has multiplied in Europe. A policy of financial solidarity must be implemented to the benefit of the misbehaving members of the European Union, under the form of a rescue plan to the order of 750 million Euros. This arrangement coupled with an adjustment policy of considerable size is taking place in Greece, but is influencing the entire Euro Zone. From this point forward, must we introduce the most Draconian budgetary rules to avoid repeating such a catastrophic scenario, or on the contrary, must we begin the dissolution of the Monetary Union?
> Historical background
> Theoretical framework
> Analysis
> References
Historical background
In 1999, the creation of the single currency (Euro) initially had the ambition to put an end to the repetitive crises that struck the European economy and impeded its growth. So long as the liberalization of capital controls had taken place in the heart of the European Union and the fixed exchange-rates governed the common European market, the multiplicity of monetary policies had become impossible, due to its tendency to provoke repetitive exchange rate crises. The creation of the Euro was intended to guarantee a greater degree of efficiency in monetary policy as far as the fight against inflation, thanks to the credibility of an independent Central European Bank (BCE). This institution was responsible for price stability, respecting the Pact of Stability and supporting growth in the domain of budgetary deficits and the public debt. In addition, the Euro was to give increasingly flexible margins in decreasing the restrictions on balance of payments and the distortions of exchange rates within the Euro Zone. This new currency was meant to equally reduce the sensitivity to fluctuations in exchange rates in relation to other currencies, the U.S. Dollar in particular. However, the difficulties of macroeconomic convergence were underestimated when the single currency had to enter the heart of an excessively heterogeneous European community. Due to this, the Economic and Monetary Union did not constitute an optimal monetary zone.
Theoretical framework
1. Optimal Monetary Zone: In order to properly function, a Monetary Union must theoretically meet a series of macroeconomic criteria- complete factor mobility; of wage labor in particular, budgetary federalism and nominal convergence, so that it can support asymmetrical shocks. Asymmetrical shocks refer to specific shocks affecting respectively each member of the Monetary Union, while all holding a single monetary policy, and rendering impossible intra-European adjustments to the exchange rate. Faced by worries of those with a strict respect for the criteria ex ante of joining an Optimal Monetary Zone, some have kept their focus on the risk of recurrence that could follow adherence to a Euro Zone on the characteristics of each member-state, facilitating as well, ex post, the macroeconomic functioning of the Zone.
The development of intra-European commerce and financial integration depends on monetary integration to drive an increased synchronization of cycles and a stabilizing of levels of consumption by depending on a strengthening of the intra-European allocation to the reserves. However, the situation presently appears to be too optimistic. To the contrary, the decade from 2000-2010 was characterized by a very clear differentiation of growth trajectories seen in many economies of the Euro Zone. In this way, the heterogeneity of the member-states was further augmented by the creation of the Euro.
2. Heterogeneity of the Euro Zone: The overall persistence of the distinct heterogeneities of the Euro Zone member-countries, such as; systems of growth more or less tied to State or consumer debt, fiscal distortions, differentiation of social systems and types of international specialization, do not represent an overall obstacle to the efficient functioning of the Economic and Monetary Union. The fact remains that wage labor differentiations or the differences regarding modes of specialization seem, to the contrary, likely to introduce increasing efficiency in the allocation of factors of production. However, that assumes that those differentiations do not accompany lasting macroeconomic imbalances – in growth, unemployment and debt – that render this configuration unsustainable. And yet, for the last ten years, the monetary policy of the Central European Bank and the domestic coordination of budgetary policies, imposed by the Pact of Stability, have been unable to respond to the specific trajectories of the economies of the Euro Zone. Furthermore, individual economies are not punished for the recurrent macroeconomic imbalances of the member-states. Finally, the Euro Zone was weakened by a mediocrity in global performance, in terms of growth and employment. Naturally, the global crisis aggravated such a process.
Analysis
Since the middle of 2000, the heterogeneity of the Euro Zone had manifested with strong and divergent exports, the effects of which, were apparent in the domestic markets of the European Union. This was evident in the evolution of wage labor differentiations and increases in rates of individual consumer debt as well as States’ debt. Coupled with preexisting heterogeneity, shocks of supply and demand accentuated internal distortions, with which, the adjustment policies could not be applied to the whole European Union. The rules and institutions of economic governance of the Euro Zone, have certainly adapted to cyclical shocks of weak magnitude on the Union. Consequently, these institutions cannot respond effectively to macroeconomic dynamics and divergent structures. Above all, this is evident when faced with the German policy of wage restriction.
With the Maastricht Treaty and the Treaty of Amsterdam, the European governments have stayed at the crossroads of monetary policy. They have come very far, in creating a single currency within an economic space that is almost exclusively dedicated to the objective of monetary stability, but they have not come far enough on the road to integration of economic policies of the member-countries of the Euro Zone.
It is important to understand that the Monetary Union cannot limit itself to a basic technique that optimizes the use of economic policy instruments and reduces dysfunction originating from the instability of the exchange rate. For many – such as Jacques Delors –the Economic and Monetary Union represents a political project that is aiming toward an improvement in the economic and political integration of Europe. Yet, the crisis of the Euro Zone and the destabilizing effects of globalization will necessitate a new form of the Euro Zone. Therefore, it is urgent to construct a new model of the European Monetary Union.
References
Beetsma Roel, Massimo Giuliodori, « The Macroeconomic Costs and Benefits of the EMU and other Monetary Unions : An Overview of Recent Research », Journal of Economic Literature, 2010, (forthcoming).
Cartapanis André (Éd.), « Les enseignements d’une décennie d’euro », Numéro spécial de la Revue d’Économie Politique, 120(2), mars-avril 2010.
European Commission, « EMU@10: Successes and Challenges after 10 Years of Economic and Monetary Union », European Economy, (2), 2008.
Mackowiak Bartosz,Francesco Paolo Mongelli, Gilles Noblet, Frank Smets, (Ed.), The Euro at Ten- Lessons and Challenges, European Central Bank, Frankfurt, 2009.
May 26, 2010 | Global Public Health, North-South, Passage au crible (English)
By Clément Paule
Translation: Brad Pizzimenti
Passage au crible n°24
Instituted in May 2007 by the World Health Assembly, Malaria Awareness Day was celebrated on the 25th of April, 2010. This event united together the actors involved in the struggle against parasitic disease that infects more than 250 million people and kills a million every year. This scourge remains endemic in hundreds of countries, mainly in sub-Saharan Africa – where 85% of its mortality is concentrated – and in a number of regions in Asia and Latin America. Nevertheless, the latest statistics from the WHO (World Health Organisation) show a retreat of reported cases in 27 states, including Zambia, Rwanda, and Eritrea. Also, international funding for treatments has increased six fold since 2003 to reach 1.7 billion dollars in 2009. A situation so encouraging could not help but rekindle hope of eradicating this deadly zoonosis.
> Historical background
> Theoretical framework
> Analysis
> References
Historical background
The parasite at the origin of the disease – Plasmodium – and its mode of transmission – anopheles mosquitos– were discovered at the end of the 19th century. But the interstatal cooperation remained limited to a commission created in 1924 under the League of Nations. Throughout the first part of the 20th century, numerous initiatives led to the international plan against this parasitosis from the philanthropic sector. The Rockefeller Foundation, for example, put into place a program of specific research in the 1930s, contributing in such a way to the elimination of malarial vectors on the American continent and in Europe. In addition, malaria had disappeared from western countries after 1946, the date of the creation of the WHO, which took charge of global epidemics. From this perspective, the 8th World Health Assembly launched in 1955 the Program for the Eradication of Malaria upon the basis of two methods: chloroquine – the first synthetic antimalarial – and the pesticide DDT (dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane). However, the technological orientation and vertical movement has neglected local realities. Finally, the growing resistances developed by plasmodium and mosquitoes have heightened financial and organizational difficulties of the program that has come to be known as a flagrant failure and admonished publicly by the World Health Assembly in 1969.
From then on, the disease seemed to disappear from the international agenda until the 1990s, before which a series of initiatives had not permitted redeployment of antimalarial programs. Cited in this respect is the Conference of Amsterdam, organized by the WHO in 1992 where the elimination of parasitosis has been written into the MDGs (Millennium Development Goals). Furthermore, the declaration of Abuja in 2000 enlisted African heads of state to halve malaria-related mortality within 10 years. In parallel, a new system of cooperation was established, from which certain private actors – such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation – occupy a pivotal role. These conditions favored bridge building with transnational firms particularly pharmaceutical companies. Within this space, mixed alliances were formed as public-private partnerships including RBM (Roll Back Malaria), MMV (Medicines for Malaria Venture), as well as MVI (Malaria Vaccine Initiative), which were formed between 1997 and 1999. This evolution concerns equally the modes of finance – with the creation of The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria in January 2002 – whose volume has increased considerably. The combined efforts of the Gates Foundation, the Malaria Booster Program, the World Bank, and the PMI (United States President’s Malaria Initiative) are able to reach the objective of 5 billion dollars a year. Henceforth, the global plan of action against malaria – proposed by the RBM in 2008 – serves as a roadmap for the majority of interventions.
Theoretical framework
1. Window of Opportunity (Policy Window). Laid out by John Kingdom, this concept returns the problem to the agenda of decision makers. In that capacity, World Malaria Day maintains concurrent international action aimed against the parasite.
2. “Technicalising” Instruments. The antimalarial strategies are facilitated by a technological orientation rationalizing its tools in the name of profitability and effectiveness. As such, this economic logic neglects social outcomes of these measures and risks establishing miracle solutions in the short term.
Analysis
The protests of 25 April 2010 involved first of all the intensification of a mobilization launched in the late 90s. As it turned out, the event took on a symbolic dimension, since the Decade of the Struggle Against Malaria – instituted by the resolution 55/284 in the General Assembly of the United Nations – has come to achieve. In addition to this consideration, a conference of financial backers will take place in October 2010 in New York to finally determine their obligations up to 2013. This day, for which scientific gatherings multiply in number, sporting events, and commemorations across the entire world – represent as a result a window of opportunity for actors combatting this disease. And yet, this third effort distinguished by the slogan Counting Malaria Out that evokes specifically the ideal of eradication rekindled by Bill Gates in 2007. This objective – pushed forward by the WHO since the fiasco of 1969 – marks a symbolic rupture with these past failures and appears to pose the basis for a consensus around renewing the effectiveness of new modes of action.
However, if the statistical reports appear encouraging, there are discordant voices denouncing an unjustified optimism. The parasite, as of now, will become resistant to artemisinin – the antimalarial at the forefront since the 1960s – as well as insecticides like the pyrethrins. On the other hand, recent research shows the presence of a pathogen within many monkeys that brings into question the closed system between mosquitoes and humans. The global campaign against malaria will be seen as finished in the mid-term. These added technical objections to critiques of international health policy have not involved local actors. From this perspective, the objective of eradication will be brought up, within a short timeframe, and will not presuppose any hard obligation. Once again, the Gates Foundation is accused of technological bias for the PEP, in supporting solutions judged profitable, such as general immunization. And yet, the scientific success based on the focus upon a malaria vaccine does not equally guarantee its social effectiveness, that is to say its effective usage by the population as a whole. In witnessing the example of H1N1 influenza, that caused us to qualify the idea by itself that the complexity of plasmodium will hinder research for more than twenty years.
To reduce the instruments of the fight against malaria to simple technical tools hides the ever-present divide between North and South. In effect, Malaria kills children and pregnant women in sub-Saharan Africa. Put simply, pharmaceutical companies cannot wait for return on investment while the costs tied up in innovation are always going up. However, certain initiatives have been made full use of, like the African Malaria Partnership of Glaxo Smith Kline – currently testing the RTS,S vaccine candidate – or the Impact Malaria project of Sanofi-Aventis. But if the public-private partnerships are permitted to mobilize a part of the private sector against the disease, this rapprochement is not without its ambiguities. The WHO has repeatedly condemned 37 pharmaceutical companies that persist in commercializing artemisinin monotherapies whose use causes the development of drug-resistant parasites. The victory against malaria from here forward appears that it will be played out as much in scientific advances as within the acknowledgement of the social dynamic of global public health.
References
“Malaria 2010: More Ambition and Accountability Please”, The Lancet, 375 (9724) 24 April 2010, p. 1407
Guilbaud Auriane, Le Paludisme. La lutte mondiale conte un parasite résistant, Paris, L’Harmattan, 2008. Coll. Chaos International
Kingdom John W., Agendas, Alternatives and Public Policies, 2e ed. New York, Harper Collins, 1995.
Shah Sonia, “Une autre approche contre le paludisme”, Le Monde diplomatique, (674), May 2010, p. 10
Website: World malaria day: http://www.worldmalariaday.org
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