Sunrise Industries are colloquially known as burgeoning sectors or businesses that are currently in their infancies but show promise of rapid growth. Examples include space tourism, cyber-physical systems, and online encyclopediae. However, hospitals and doctors are not around only since yesterday, and at first it might seem surprising to see healthcare as the new sunrise industry, where it has been an essential part of every functioning economy for centuries and is mandated to care about people’s welfare and therefore provide stability. Nonetheless, healthcare is one of the highest growth industries in the entire world and projected to reach a global spending of $10.059 trillion by 2022.[1] On the 27th of November, Frankfurt School students were able to acquire first hand insights into the topic through a speech by Stephan Sturm, CEO of Fresenius SE & Co KGaA and member of Frankfurt School’s Board of Trustees, during an event organised by our student initiative FS Economy & Politics (EcoPol).
EcoPol member Patrick Becker and Frankfurt School President Nils Stieglitz welcomed Sturm and highlighted how the healthcare industry evolved to a booming industry whilst demographics are changing and the population is getting older. Based on the EcoPol event and Stephan Sturm’s interactive presentation, I am going to outline some of the major developments and future trends of the ever-growing healthcare industry.
Apart from higher per capita spending on health as well as greater costs of care and treatment, two factors are particularly important when considering the sources of future growth.
The papers in this issue of the Bulletin reflect increasing interest in, and concern about, the relationship between health and foreign policy. Such intensified attention signals awareness of a transformation in this relationship that is leaving its imprint on the protection and promotion of health nationally and internationally. This transformation remains incompletely understood and raises difficult questions about how the making and implementation of foreign policy will deal with health in the future. These questions suggest that WHO and its members are experiencing a transition in the global politics of public health, a transition perhaps more profound than the one signalled by the establishment of WHO in 1946. The revolution in the relationship between health and foreign policy represents the nascent formation of a new global social contract for health.
Existing literature analysing foreign policy and health often observes that health has long been a foreign policy issue, but one of little importance in the hierarchy of foreign policy objectives. This reality does not support principles informing WHO’s establishment, such as the principle that “[t]he health of all peoples is fundamental to the attainment of peace and security and is dependent upon the fullest co-operation of individuals and States”.1 For most of WHO’s existence, countries did not behave in their relations with each other as if the health of all peoples was critical to national or international peace and security. Health has not been at the heart of foreign policy theory or practice, and perhaps not even at the margins.
The emergence of health as an important foreign policy issue in the last decade has revealed some consequences of the historical separation of health from foreign policy. In particular, health policy communities have not been well versed in the harsh realities of foreign policy, especially the cold calculations that officials are expected to make in constructing, protecting and promoting national interests. As explored by scholars of politics and international relations, foreign policy dynamics flow from the condition of anarchy in which countries interact. The lack of any recognized common, superior authority means that countries are ultimately responsible for their own sovereignty, security and survival. Diplomats and scholars differ on the dangers and opportunities that international politics create for countries; these differences produce diverse attitudes about the potentialities of foreign policy behaviour. Regardless of these varied perspectives, however, the anarchical nature of international relations forces countries to set political priorities in contingent, uncertain and often dangerous circumstances.
The eminent political scientist Stanley Hoffmann captured the tension in foreign policy-making when he argued that “[w]hoever studies contemporary international relations cannot but hear, behind the clash of interests and ideologies, a kind of permanent dialogue between Rousseau and Kant”.2 When it came to international politics, Rousseau was a deeply pessimistic realist, who could see little more than competition, conflict and enmity in intercourse between countries. By contrast, Kant saw the potential for perpetual peace, achievable through revolutionary transformations of domestic and transnational politics. As Hoffman argued, the diplomat listens to the dialogue between Rousseau and Kant, and realizes that “he must play the game of international competition, from which he can escape only exceptionally, and at the same time he ought not to lose sight of Kant’s ideal. He ought not to give up the hope of a future world community, but he cannot act as if it already existed.”
