“Vaccine nationalism” as a great power competition: analysis from the standpoint of the securitization theory

Introduction. State leaders and heads of international organizations argue that COVID-19 is a global security threat that requires international responses. However, to date, there is no stable international cooperation regime in the field of counteracting the virus, primarily at the level of vaccine development. Moreover, countries are competing in this area, considering primacy in the creation of a COVID-19vaccine not only as a step towards the fight against the virus, but as a tool to strengthen their international positions and increase international prestige and “soft power”. Methods and materials. The authors investigate the problem from the standpoint of the securitization theory, according to which national and international security threats are formed by political actors as speech acts and discursive practices. Analisys. From the standpoint of this theory, despite the fact that the COVID-19 pandemic is securitized at the national level in many countries, at the global level, this securitization discourse about COID-19 discourse is embedded in a broader macrosecuritization framework, which assumes that the dominant threats are associated with the confrontation of great powers. Results. The consequence of this is the legitimization of the policy of “vaccine nationalism” and the lack of international cooperation in the field of vaccine production.