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SARS in Canada and China: Two Approaches to Emergency Health Policy
Author(s) -
LAWSON JAMES,
XU FENG
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
governance
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.46
H-Index - 76
eISSN - 1468-0491
pISSN - 0952-1895
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-0491.2007.00354.x
Subject(s) - china , resistance (ecology) , public health , state (computer science) , political science , scale (ratio) , emergency response , power (physics) , economic growth , public administration , geography , medicine , medical emergency , economics , nursing , ecology , cartography , algorithm , computer science , law , biology , physics , quantum mechanics
China and Canada addressed the transnational 2003 SARS outbreak within a common, multilevel network of public‐health expertise. The two countries deployed distinct public‐health strategies, and faced distinct levels of resistance. This article addresses this comparison. During this epidemic “state of exception,” both countries adopted emergency policy instruments and overall policy styles. However, Chinese emergency boundary policing corresponded better to everyday experience than did hospital‐based screening in Canada, and China's policing targeted collectivities where Canada emphasized individual case tracking. While Canadian efforts were smaller in scale and faced infrastructural deficiencies, prior campaigns to address endemic health problems formed a basis for compliant popular subject positions. Power/resistance relations and their cultivation during endemic conditions must become the center of analyzing effective approaches to emergency planning.