The fractious and disorganized governmental response to the coronavirus pandemic in the United States prompted many observers to ask why the country ‒ which had the knowledge, resources, and plans to deal with such an event ‒ was caught so unprepared when the crisis struck. In fact, this talk will argue, US officials had been planning for a pandemic for more than two decades, and many of these plans were implemented in the early stages of the pandemic. As authorities responded to the crisis, they relied on an already formulated set of concepts and tools that had been devised for managing a future emergency. These preexisting tools enabled officials to make sense of the event and to rapidly implement policies in response, but they also led to significant blind spots. What did these planning tools allow officials to see, and what did they hide from view? And, as we assess the failures in our response to the pandemic and attempt to prepare for “the next one,” to what extent should we take for granted the capacity of these tools to guide future interventions effectively?

Andrew Lakoff is Professor of Sociology and Anthropology at the University of Southern California, where he also directs the Center on Science, Technology, and Public Life. His research interests include biopolitics, risk society, the social studies of medicine, and the anthropology of knowledge. His most recent books are Unprepared: Global Health in a Time of Emergency (California, 2017), The Government of Emergency: Vital Systems, Expertise, and the Politics of Security (with Stephen J. Collier) (Princeton, 2021), and Planning for the Wrong Pandemic: Covid-19 and the Limits of Expert Knowledge (Polity, 2024).

The introduction of Andrew Lakoff’s book is available upon request, contact Rachel Yang: r.yang@sydney.edu.au