ABSTRACT
In April 2000, the Clinton administration formally declared AIDS to be a major threat to the national security of the United States. This was the first time a disease was viewed in terms of having security implications such as being able to “topple foreign governments, touch off ethnic wars and undo decades of work in building free-market democracies abroad” (The Washington Post, 2000). In addition, President Clinton designated the National Security Council to be the main agency for drafting policy solutions to fight the threat, the first time this agency would handle an epidemic. Finally, the requested funding from Congress for the AIDS issue was doubled compared to previous years and was now set at $254 million (Ibid.). Through these actions, AIDS was transferred from the sphere of health politics to the national security agenda, receiving great attention from the media and other actors. The implications of the disease were no longer the concern of individuals or healthcare organizations; now AIDS was viewed as something that could endanger the very foundation of the United States. In other words, Clinton performed a securitizing move, that is, he constructed HIV/AIDS as a threat to national security.
