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Target Zero: Why States Choose To Eradicate Infectious Diseases And How They Succeed, Gifty Abraham

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Realism has remained the dominant paradigm within international relations for most of the modern era, emphasizing the competitive nature of the international arena and the unlikeliness of states to within it to cooperate. The attempts and further still, successes, by states to eradicate infectious diseases--which remain among the most cooperative enterprises--present a number of challenges to realism's assumptions, particularly with respect to the unlikely world historical-times during which the eradication campaigns took place. As such, a two-part puzzle arises. First, why would states, which are natural competitors, cooperate to eradicate infectious diseases given structural and situational incentives not to do …