Smallpox Eradication and the Practice of Global Governance

The global campaign to eradicate smallpox, launched in the mid-1960s and concluded successfully in 1980, is remembered as a singular triumph in the history of medicine, the only major human infectious disease ever eradicated. But the smallpox campaign was not solely, nor even primarily, a medical event. Rather, its conception and implementation involved synchronized political will across the East-West and North-South divides in the postwar world; the delineation and mobilization of international institutions; the global interaction of a diverse set of actors on many levels; and the negotiation of innumerable local encounters—political and cultural no less than medical—across much of the world. In other words, the smallpox eradication campaign can be seen as a major case study in the practicalities of global governance.

This paper argues that locating the history of the campaign within its broader political, ideological, cultural, and institutional contexts can help us explore the puzzle of global collaboration among a diverse array of actors in the midst of Cold War and postcolonial conflict. Tracing the contours of the smallpox campaign, from the meetings in Washington and Geneva to contestations in Lagos and New Delhi to the encounters in the schools of Ouagadougou and the villages of Uttar Pradesh, can elucidate the workings of global governance not simply as a set of ideas, norms, or theoretical structures but as a mosaic of networks, encounters, and practices on the ground.