Vaccine nationalism and COVID-19
Why we’re not all in this together, and why we must be
Marie-Joëlle Zahar / @JoelleZahar
Professor of political science, Université de Montréal
Marie-Joëlle Zahar is a professor of political science, director of the Research Network on Peace Operations at the Université de Montréal and a researcher at the Network for Strategic Analysis. A non-resident senior fellow with the New York-based International Peace Institute, she specializes in conflict resolution and peacebuilding. Zahar is also a senior mediation expert for the United Nations, where she served from 2014 to 2016 on the Standby Team of Senior Mediation Advisers.
Most Recent Posts
Zahar: Should Canada’s military support the intervention in Mali?
Even though our government may not want to put troops on the ground (or in the air) in Mali, we need to be involved in some way. Canada cannot continue to claim that state fragility is a threat to our basic values and foreign policy objectives and remain on the margins when a situation develops […]
Zahar: Syria is on the brink of civil war. Democracy is being undermined in Egypt. Is the Arab Spring over?
It is not. The Arab Spring was the beginning not the end point of the transition to democracy. Further, the road to democracy is not a straight path. Countries that have gone down this path are bound to experience upheavals. How deep these are and how they end will depend both on internal and external […]
Zahar: $5 billion later and 500,000 Haitians still live in tents. Why?
The situation in Haïti two years after the earthquake cannot be explained by simply looking at or blaming one actor. True, the international community has been better at emergency relief than reconstruction. True, the multiplication of international interveners has highlighted problems of coordination and the lack of a master plan. True also, the political situation […]
Zahar: If 9/11 defined the last decade, will the Arab Spring define the next?
It is way too early to make such a determination as events in the Arab world are still unfolding. However, if both were momentous events in their own right, there are important differences between 9/11 and the Arab Spring that are worth underlining. One can think about the nature of the event (terrorist attack vs. mass […]
Zahar: Should we view the Oslo attack as an arbitrary act or as a reflection of wider political and religious extremism?
Although the act itself seems to be the work of a single individual, it would be dangerous to deny that it does not reflect wider political and religious intolerance of Muslims in Europe. The perpetrator’s manifesto says as much. Recent controversy over Islamic symbols in European countries historically perceived as respectful of diversity also highlights […]
Zahar: Does last week’s creation of a Southern Sudanese state point to a secession as the solution to other African conflicts?
South Sudan’s independence highlights that secession remains an exception rather than the rule. There were a number of reasons for this conflict to have had such an outcome and they are very unlikely to obtain in other African cases. First, there is the history of the Sudan where, even prior to independence, the South had […]
Zahar: Can Lagarde and the IMF save the Euro?
Whether Christine Lagarde and the IMF can save the Euro is an open question. Lagarde has intimate knowledge of the European financial system but so did her disgraced predecessor. The lessons of the Euro crisis lie elsewhere. The problems of Greece, Spain and Portugal stem in part from lack of fiscal discipline and in part […]
Zahar: What issue should John Baird prioritize?
Our utmost priority should be to develop effective ways of accompanying the current transformations in the Arab world. Working through the IMF and the World Bank will not do. Canada is militarily involved in Libya; it is concerned about terrorism and extremism and it seeks a solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict that addresses the security […]