The Glocal HIV/AIDS Epidemic and the Need for an Extended Theory of Power in International Relations

Authors

Annika Hughes

Abstract

This paper argues for an extended theory of power in International Relations (IR), using the example of the glocal HIV/AIDS epidemic. It will argue that world power relations depend not only on military, economic, social and cultural power, but also on the power of the human body itself. This argument builds on the author’s own theory of glocalised world power, which combines a Foucaultian with a structurationist approach to argue for the existence of four-faced power relationships across the following twelve interdependent sites of power: 1) time; 2) space; 3) knowledge and aesthetics; 4) morality and emotion; 5) identities; 6) the body; 7) welfare; 8) culture/cultural life; 9) civic associations; 10) the economy; 11) the organisation of violence and coercive relations; and 12) regulatory and legal institutions. Due to the interdependency of all of these sites, it is argued that HIV/AIDS not only has a detrimental effect on the power of the human body, but also on the power of human agency in all of the other sites, thereby constituting an important but often ignored power relationship both within world politics as well as within the academic discipline of IR itself.

Recommended Citation

Hughes, Annika (2017) "The Glocal HIV/AIDS Epidemic and the Need for an Extended Theory of Power in International Relations," International Dialogue: Vol. 7, Article 3.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.32873/uno.dc.ID.7.1.1137
Available at: https://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/id-journal/vol7/iss1/3