From Epidemic to Endemic: Leadership Decision-Making and Policy Adaptation in Response to Chronic Health Epidemics
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Authors
Griffin, Jeffrey A.
Issue Date
2022
Type
Dissertation
Language
Keywords
decision-making , language , leadership , South Africa , Uganda
Alternative Title
Abstract
What are the mechanisms and processes that influence or inform a political leader’s decision-making process in response to chronic health epidemics? This project explores to what extent, when, and how political leaders communicate and alter their political rhetoric strategies to chronic epidemics as a loss aversion strategy to ensure or prolong their political survival. These questions are informed by insights gathered by exploring the leadership responses to HIV/AIDS in Uganda and South Africa respectively under the presidencies of Yoweri Museveni and Thabo Mbeki. In Uganda, the project demonstrates how Museveni’s perception of HIV/AIDS as a short-term existential threat to state survival resulted in the development of a comprehensive policy response to HIV/AIDS in Uganda. The analysis further demonstrates how, over time, Museveni used the success of these HIV/AIDS policies as a policy success narrative to bolster images of international legitimacy to ensure a consistent donor base within the broader international community. In South Africa under the leadership of Thabo Mbeki, the project demonstrates how Mbeki perceived the HIV/AIDS crisis as a long-term byproduct of endemic poverty and underdevelopment rather than as a short-term, high-risk existential threat to his political survival. The project demonstrates how, over time, the Mbeki administration employed an AIDS denialism political narrative as a loss mitigation strategy to deflect from other perceived policy failures and prolong his political survival. As a whole, the project disentangles specific linguistic risk aversion processes and strategies which provide a better understanding of how leaders manage the political and policy landscape altered by health epidemics. Lastly, the project demonstrates the utility of the individual-level of analysis in international relations by examining a leader’s linguistic patterns and political rhetoric over time. Scholars of international relations may increase their knowledge and understanding of decision-making processes that impact all domestic and international policy decisions by using such techniques. Furthermore, by employing computational linguistic analysis tools to analyze language and political rhetoric on compiled corpora (datasets) of leadership speeches, policy documents, releases, briefs and other archives, researchers may also explore these trends over time providing more exciting novel insight into the cognitive processes of political leaders.