SSRC

SSRC Sponsored Research

April 2008

In July 2000, the UN passed Resolution 1308, which proposed that HIV/AIDS was a direct threat to security and stability. Through OLS and logit/multinomial regression analyses, this paper aims to investigate whether there is a unilateral correlation between HIV to state fragility as measured by corruption, political rights, civil liberty and the presence of conflict. It argues that the relationship, if any, between HIV/AIDS and state fragility is weak and tenuous, with very few statistically significant results. The original argument is thought to have arisen primarily as policymakers have blurred the boundaries between the concept of !human security" and !national security". It concludes by suggesting that the over-generalisation and exaggeration of security and fragility issues, especially since 9/11, has led to unnecessary alarmist views in the global arena, and that neither national nor international security is likely to be perturbed by HIV/AIDS alone.