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Book Launch "Monitoring Pandemic Preparedness" by Carolin Mezes

The Collaborative Research Center "Dynamics of Security" invites you to the virtual book launch of Carolin Mezes' monograph "Monitoring Pandemic Preparedness. Global Health's Security's Politics of Accountability, Development, and Infrastructure"

Veranstaltungsdaten

About the book 

How well are countries prepared for pandemics, and how can so-called "pandemic preparedness" be measured? In her book, Carolin Mezes examines how preparedness monitoring became a key component of global health security governance - and how the COVID-19 pandemic revealed the failure of this practice. Through document analysis and an ethnographic case study of Joint External Evaluations, Mezes’ work adds nuance to the common critique that preparedness monitoring is merely a superficial administrative exercise. Her exploration of the media technologies behind preparedness monitoring reveals how this practice is entangled in diverse objectives: producing objective knowledge, serving as a soft law accountability practice, and shaping infrastructural development. Her study sheds light on the infrastructure policy and modernist approach of this development initiative from a power-critical perspective.

The book launch will be held in German.