Moralizing Pandemic: How Was HIV/AIDS Prioritized in Foreign Aid in the United States?

Abstract

A dramatic foreign aid policy development in the US, the proclamation of the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), has been ascribed to the perception of a security threat. The securitizing scheme, however, has been debunked as a factoid not supported by empirical evidence. Despite the flaws of securitization as a causal theory, alternative explanations remain unexplored. This research seeks to address an alternative explanation, “moralization.” The article begins with a brief history of changes in the US response to the global AIDS crisis since the 1980s, followed by a description of securitization theory as an alleged explanation for the aid increase in the early 2000s. Next, this research problematizes the AIDS-security nexus and proceeds to show how a humanitarian approach to the epidemic invoked a moral obligation to respond urgently to the catastrophic epidemic. The moralizing rationalization entails the explication of perception changes among significant individuals within and outside of policy circles from the theoretical framework of agenda setting, namely the garbage can model. The research closes with the theoretical and empirical implications for the international relations discipline and foreign policy analysis, as well as for the current health crisis caused by COVID-19.