School of Historical and Philosophical Studies - Theses
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ItemCurrent conflict humanitarianism, and the risks for people in need of food( 2006)Since 2001, both conflict and interventionist response have hastened through changes begun during the 1990s. This thesis disaggregates the interactions of humanitarian relief with rights-based development, liberal reform, and the war on terror to support the hypothesis: the current configuration and trends of conflict humanitarianism constitute a high-risk strategy for people in need of food. Limited, life-saving relief has been subsumed into expansive and unproven interventionist aims. Limited conflict humanitarian competencies were twofold, saving accessible lives and advocating for the restrained and lawful conduct of conflict. During the 1990s, the mainstream of conflict humanitarianism sought a pragmatic efficacy and change strategy to progress from conflict response to conflict resolution, and then to conflict solution. In practice, this attaches humanitarianism to the prevailing orthodoxies of liberalism (including economic reform and market democratization) and rights-based development. As a result of this linkage, people in need of food face additional risk as the altered discourse re-defines their need, makes decisions divorced from need, and addresses needs through programmatic strategies weakly linked to putative solutions. Humanitarian institutional effectiveness is further attenuated by the partial reform of its management and contractual operations, while humanitarianism's sub-contracted implementing role does not reward vigorous advocacy. Humanitarianism is evolving within the policy framework of securitization. Securitization defines Southern instability as a direct threat to Northern security; a perspective with earlier roots but hastened by the war on terror. Securitized relief or development responds secondarily to local needs, and primarily to Northern fears. Analogy is made to the past emphasis on global capital as the justifier of intervention. This is not simply an historical analogy, for the global economy is an explicit part of that which is now to be secured. The second part of the thesis substantiates the argument with a case study of recent practice in Afghanistan. Beginning with crucial choices made during the 2001 invasion, the case study centers on the design and priorities of relief during the Bonn transition of 2001-5. By focusing on assistance provided to several communities in need - returning refugees, vulnerable urban populations, demobilized soldiers - the case study illustrates choices consistent with the argument in chapter two. After enquiring how Afghans are likely to experience assistance, the case study describes the nature of the reforming economy in which Afghans seek to meet their own needs. That enquiry illustrates the heightened risks implicit in liberal, securitized policy choices, and the devolution of risk onto vulnerable communities. The case study concludes with statistics and commentary which suggest that Afghanistan's emergency was - in discourse - closed too quickly. The concluding discussion asks what of humanitarianism's rationale endures in the present humanitarian marketplace. It proposes a fault line between ambitious and principled humanitarian actors.