Research

My main areas of research are the diplomacy of HIV/AIDS and African politics.

My PhD dissertation focused on the former and sought to explain the dynamics of politicization of the notion of vulnerable or key populations in the global response to HIV/AIDS. My aim was to bridge IR theory and global health diplomacy to show that global health is a fruitful source of theoretical insights for IR and can help us make sense of developments within global governance writ large.

Through this work I made three separate contributions. First, I came up with a framework to ascertain norm existence in order to demonstrate that there is a norm of the global AIDS response, as it had never been theorized in this way before.

Second, I made the case that the global AIDS norm is what I term incomplete. IR theory now generally understands norms as contested throughout their trajectories, but our understanding of contestation and its consequences is theoretically limited by most approaches’ reliance on the steps of the trajectory of the norm as a defining framework and their understanding of the phenomenon as a series of distinct cycles. As a result, the impacts of contestation are generally measured in terms of norm status, overlooking other possible outcomes.

I argue that another approach is necessary to make sense of the entire range of possibilities of norm contestation. Using the case of the HIV/AIDS norm, I showed that it is possible for a norm to succeed and be influential while one of its key aspects remains contested, thus keeping part of its meaning unstable. This phenomenon is what I termed norm incompleteness. In the case of the HIV/AIDS response norm, the matter of the populations most affected was initially elided or limited to a focus on politically acceptable victims (women and children) in order to gather support for the response. This has succeeded in getting many on board, but it has also left the matter unresolved and allowed it to remain a constantly debated point, preventing the adoption of a consensus.

Third, I argued that this incompleteness allows the norm to become a site of political and ideological confrontation for states, thus undermining its efficacy even as it appears widely supported and complied with. The ongoing debate makes it easier for actors to argue compliance and thus reap the associated benefits while promoting a version of the norm that most aligns with their interests. In the case of HIV, most states repeatedly state that they support the response as responsible international actors, but they fight increasingly visibly about who should be included in international funding and why. With the rise of a global conservative movement using the United Nations as a terrain for ideological fights, the global response to HIV/AIDS has become a battleground for competing ideational and foreign policy projects that in turn perpetuate the debate.

The fact that an incomplete norm is easier to politicize and instrumentalize makes them particularly vulnerable at a time of international fragmentation. I believe that other international norms fall within that category besides the AIDS response norm, and that this gives us a key indication as to what the global governance landscape is likely to look like in the coming years. Rather than discarding norms altogether as belonging to the previous order, states will appropriate them as foreign policy tools and therefore weaken their reach and bend their intended purposes.

I conducted 8 months of archival research and elite interviews with 68 activists, diplomats, and policy makers in France, the US, and Russia to build three country case studies outlining how these dynamics played out. It allowed me to show that each of these states have leveraged the incompleteness of the norm to use it as a foreign policy tool in their own distinct way.

My post-doctoral work builds on these theoretical insights to make sense of the current state of the response. Amid massive shifts in international funding and intensifying global culture wars, the topic is more salient than ever. I aim to accomplish two goals in the near future: chart the probably course of the global response going forward, and trace the growing role of African states in shaping it.

This allows me to draw from my second area of expertise, which I have continued to develop throughout my time at McGill. Most recently, I have been working on a 3-year research project with Prof. Daniel Douek on the impacts of the assassination of political leaders at independence on the trajectory of post-colonial states. I have mainly been responsible for archival research in 12 sites across the UK, France, and Switzerland, as well as managing the undergrad research team. I aim to draw on these findings to publish pieces that will complement the monograph to be published by Prof. Douek based on our work.

My research is rooted in my experience working in health financing at the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. I aim for my findings to support evidence-based health policies that are most responsive to the needs of vulnerable populations, especially in the current environment of decreased funding worldwide.

My approach to African politics is shaped by a decolonial perspective and an awareness of the pitfalls of my own positionality as a Western researcher. I nevertheless hope to contribute to raising the profile of the continent in international relations and shading light on colonial practices that still have a deep impact on contemporary governance.