Democratic States, aid agencies and world society: What's the name of the game?

Global Society

Volumn 19, Issue 4, 2005, Pages 361-384

  Heins, Volker ^a,b  

^a Civil and Environmental Engineering   (Canada)

^b Institute for Social Research   (Germany)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

AID; DEMOCRACY; SOCIAL BEHAVIOR; WORLD SYSTEM;

EID: 25844450086     PISSN: 13600826     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/13600820500242449     Document Type: Article

References (82)

1. This article results from research conducted at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard University in 2003/04. The author would like to thank Michael Ignatieff, Sarah Kenyon Lischer, Michael Barnett, Paul O'Brien, Seyla Benhabib, Carola Weil and, in particular, two anonymous referees for their truly helpful comments. He also gratefully acknowledges a research grant from the Volkswagen Foundation. An earlier version of the article was presented at the annual meeting of the International Studies Association (ISA) in Montreal in March 2004.
2. Chris Brown, "Do Great Powers Have Great Responsibilities? Great Powers and Moral Agency", Global Society, Vol. 18, No. 1 (2004), pp. 5-19.
3. Carl Schmitt, Der Nomos der Erde im Völkerrecht des Jus Publicum Europaeum, 2nd edn (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1974), p. 72.
4. See Feinstein International Famine Center, The Future of Humanitarian Action: Implications of Iraq and Other Recent Crises, Report on an International Mapping Exercise, Tufts University (2004).
5. Fritz W. Scharpf, Games Real Actors Play: Actor-centered Institutionalism in Policy Research (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1997), ch. 4.
6. See Mark Duffield, Global Governance and the New Wars: The Merging of Development and Security (London: Zed Books, 2001), p. 82;
7. and, less convincing, David Rieff, A Bed for the Night: Humanitarianism in Crisis (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2002).
8. Hedley Bull, The Anarchical Society: A Study of Order in World Politics, 2nd edn (London: Macmillan, 1995), p. 21.
9. Ibid.
10. See Nicholas J. Wheeler, Saving Strangers: Humanitarian Intervention in International Society (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000).
11. See Aristide R. Zolberg et al., Escape from Violence: Conflict and the Refugee Crisis in the Developing World (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989).
12. Scharpf, op. cit., p. 74.
13. See, for example, Steven Davey and Jean-Luc Blondel, "The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movements Involvement in Public Advocacy Campaigns", International Review of the Red Cross, No. 833 (1999), pp. 149-157.
14. Scharpf, op. cit., p. 74.
15. It should be stressed again that the "Battle of the Sexes" analogy applies only to the relationship between states and the ICRC. The relationship between national Red Cross societies and their respective states was sometimes very different. See Jean-Claude Favez, The Red Cross and the Holocaust (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), p. 41.
16. Nicholas O. Berry, War and the Red Cross: The Unspoken Mission (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1997).
17. Quoted in Caroline Moorehead, Dunant's Dream: War, Switzerland and the History of the Red Cross (London: HarperCollins, 1998), pp. 637-638.
18. See, for example, the famous American Red Cross poster of 1918 with the quote by Woodrow Wilson "I Summon you to Comradeship in the Red Cross", available: .
19. See Georg Sørensen, Changes in Statehood: The Transformation of International Relations (New York: Palgrave, 2001).
20. See Fiona Terry, Condemmed to Repeat? The Paradox of Humanitarian Action (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2002), p. 38.
21. Sarah Kenyon Lischer, "Collateral Damage: Humanitarian Assistance as a Cause of Conflict", International Security, Vol. 28 (2003), p. 81.
22. Arthur J. Vidich and Stanford M. Lyman, American Sociology: Worldly Rejections of Religion and their Directions (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1985).
23. Ibid., p. 281.
24. Objects are "good to think" when they fit into given structures of thought and feeling. See Claude Lévi-Strauss, Totemism (Boston: Beacon Press, 1963), p. 89.
25. Karl Marx, "The British Rule in India", New York Herald Tribune (25 June 1853), available: .
26. David C. Engerman, "Modernization from the Other Shore: American Observers and the Costs of Soviet Economic Development", American Historical Review, Vol. 105 (2000), pp. 383-416, available: .
27. See Michael Flitner and Volker Heins, "Modernity and Life Politics: Conceptualizing the Biodiversity Crisis", Political Geography, Vol. 21 (2002), pp. 319-340.
28. See Sylvie Brunel, Famines et politique (Paris: Presses de Sciences Po, 2002).
29. See Bruna Irene Seu, "'Your Stomach Makes You Feel That You Don't Want to Know Anything About It': Desensitization, Defense Mechanisms and Rhetoric in Response to Human Rights Abuses", Journal of Human Rights, Vol. 2, No. 2 (2003), pp. 183-196.
30. See Dietrich Schindler, "Dauernde Neutralität", in Alois Riklin et al. (eds.), Handbuch der schweizerischen Aussenpolitik (Bern: Paul Haupt, 1975), pp. 159-180.
31. See Hans Haug, Neutralität und Völkergemeinschaft (Zürich/ St. Gallen: Polygraphischer, 1962).
32. Quoted in Moorehead, op. cit., p. 127.
33. See Scharpf, op. cit.
34. See Favez, op. cit., pp. 94-99.
35. See ibid., p. 282.
36. Bernard Kouchner, Ce que je crois (Paris: Grasset, 1995), pp. 107-108.
37. On the French scene, see also Pascal Dauvin and Johanna Siméant, Le Travail humanitaire (Paris: Presses de Sciences Po, 2002).
38. See Ourdan Remy, "MSF dénonce 'la neutralité face à un génocide'", Le Monde (4 June 1998) (online edn).
39. For an overview see Noëlle Quénivet, "Humanitarian Assistance: A Right or a Policy?", Journal of Humanitarian Assistance, available: (document posted 3 June 2000).
40. Alain Dubos, MSF-France, public talk and question-and-answer session at the French Library in Boston (18 February 2004).
41. Jean-Christoph Rufin, "La Fin de l'exception humanitaire française", Le Monde (29 January 1995) (online edn).
42. Massimo Lorenzi, Entretiens avec Cornelio Sommaruga, président du CICR (Lausanne: Favre, 1998), p. 55.
43. Kouchner, Ce que je crois, op. cit., p. 103.
44. Lesnes Corine et al., "MSF: les défis d'une génération", Le Monde (17 October 1999) (online edn).
45. MSF-Holland Medium Term Policy, 2003-2005, p. 8.
46. Ibid., p. 15.
47. Populations Affected by War in the Mano River Region of West Africa: Issues of Protection, Médecins sans Frontières Report (May 2002), p. 30.
48. Philippe Biberson and Rony Brauman, "Le 'droit d'ingérence' est un slogan trompeur", Le Monde (23 October 1999) (online edn).
49. MSF-Holland Medium Term Policy 2003-2005, p. 5.
50. Bernard Kouchner, "Vive la. vie!", Le Monde (11 December 1999) (online edn).
51. Mamou Jacky, "L'Urgence est à l'utopie", Le Monde (5 January 2000) (online edn).
52. Philippe Biberson, "L'Humanitaire post-moderne", Messages (internal newsletter of MSF-France), no. 108 (2000), p. 1.
53. See François Jean (ed.), Life, Death and Aid: The Médecins sans Frontières Report on World Crisis Intervention (London and New York: Routledge, 1993).
54. See Fabien Dubuet, "Kosovo: le piège humanitaire des enclaves", Esprit, No. 269 (2000), p. 144.
55. See Biberson and Brauman, op. cit.
56. Rufin, op. cit.
57. This analogy is used in Biberson and Brauman, op. cit.
58. See Max Glaser, Negotiated Access: Humanitarian Engagement with Armed Nonstate Actors (Cambridge, MA: Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, Harvard University, 2004). available: .
59. See Detlef Pollack, Säkularisierung - ein moderner Mythos? Studien zum religiösen Wandel in Deutschland (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2003).
60. Interview with Andreas Selmeci, Diaconal Agency, Human Rights Desk (21 May 2003).
61. Werner Lottje, "The Work of the Human Rights Office in the Diaconal Agency of the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD)", Unpublished paper, Human Rights Office, Diaconal Agency (1996), p. 7.
62. Interview with a former German army general and military attaché (5 June 2003).
63. I borrow this term from Nina Berman, Impossible Missions? German Economic, Military, and Humanitarian Efforts in Africa (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2004), p. 216.
64. Margaret Mead, And Keep Your Powder Dry: An Anthropologist Looks at America (New York: William Morrow, 1942), p. 220.
65. See Scharpf, op. cit., pp. 73-74.
66. See Wallace J. Campbell, The History of CARE: A Personal Account (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1990).
67. Michael Novak, quoted in Scott Flipse, "The Latest Casualty of War: Catholic Relief Services, Humanitarianism, and the War in Vietnam, 1967-1968", Peace & Change, Vol. 27 (2002), p. 257.
68. See ibid.
69. See Alan Whaites, "Pursuing Partnership: World Vision and the Ideology of Development: A Case Study", Development in Practice, Vol. 9 (1999), pp. 410-423.
70. Jean Jacques Rousseau, What is the Origin of Inequality among Men, and is it Authorised by Natural Law? (1754; trans. G.D.H. Cole), p. 32, available: .
71. Interview with Bob Macpherson, CARE-USA, Emergency Response Officer (5 February 2004).
72. Lawrence A. Pezzullo, "Catholic Relief Services in Ethiopia: A Case Study", in Bruce Nichols and Gil Loescher (eds.), The Moral Nation: Humanitarianism and US Foreign Policy Today (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1989), p. 225.
73. "Confusion des genres" is a typical formula used by ICRC intellectuals both in criticisms of other aid groups and in self-criticism. See, for example, Jean-François Berger, The Humanitarian Diplomacy of the ICRC and the Conflict in Croatia, 1991-1992 (Geneva: ICRC, 1995), p. 22.
74. Andrew Natsios, "Faith-based NGOs and US Foreign Policy", in Elliott Abrams (ed.), The Influence of Faith: Religious Groups and US Foreign Policy (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2001), p. 193.
75. Andrew Natsios, "Did We Make a Difference in Somalia?", World Vision Magazine (April/May 1995), p. 12.
76. Paul O'Brien, "Politicized Humanitarianism: A Response to Nicholas de Torrente", Harvard Human Rights Journal, Vol. 17 (2004), pp. 31-39.
77. Interview with Kevin Henry, CARE-USA, Advocacy Director (9 December 2003).
78. This is the angle from which Mark Duffield has analysed second-wave humanitarianism. See Duffield, op. cit.
79. MSF-France, Palestinian Chronicles (July 2002), p. 13, available: .
80. See Michael Ignatieff, "The Terrorist as Auteur", The New York Times Magazine (14 November 2004).
81. Lorenzi, op. cit., p. 159.
82. Consider the case of the bombing of the Red Cross headquarters in Baghdad on 27 October 2003, discussed in Kenneth Anderson, "Humanitarian Inviolability in Crisis: The Meaning of Impartiality and Neutrality for U.N. and NGO Agencies Following the 2003-2004 Afghanistan and Iraq Conflicts", Harvard Human Rights Journal, Vol. 17 (2004), pp. 41-74.