Understanding the Politics of Pandemics

Brought to you by Hopkins at Home

How do we assign responsibility or blame for a pandemic? Who is deserving or undeserving of government assistance during a public health crisis? Who do we trust to provide us with information about the risks associated with coronavirus? There is no single ‘right’ answer to these questions. Instead, it is through the political process that we assign responsibility, decide who is deserving, or who we trust. This lecture will explore several ways the work of Political Science addresses these questions in ways that can provide insight into the current Covid-19 crisis and the struggle over a government response.

Adam Sheingate is a Professor of Political Science at Johns Hopkins University. Sheingate teaches courses on American politics and institutions at the graduate and undergraduate level, including a popular seminar on the politics of food. Prior to joining the Johns Hopkins faculty in 2000, Sheingate was a Prize Research Fellow in Politics at Nuffield College, Oxford. He is also a past-recipient of a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Scholar Award in Health Policy Research at the University of California-Berkeley, and he served as the Mary Ball Washington Professor in American History at University College Dublin. His most recent book is Building a Business of Politics: The Rise of Political Consulting and the Transformation of American Democracy.