Teaching › Academic Departments › Political Science › Courses › Courses 2008-2009 › Spring Semester › Humanitarianism

Humanitarianism

Course Organization

Professor:

Michael Barnett
mbarnett-at-umn.edu
Office: Rigot 11
Office Hours: Thursday 10:30-12:00

 

Assistant:

Colin Nippert
colin.nippert-at-graduateinstitute.ch
Office: Rigot 38
Office hours: Wednesday 12:15 - 14:00

 

Course Description

      Over the last two centuries, and particularly so over the last two decades, there has been an impressive expansion of humanitarianism – the desire to reduce the suffering of distant strangers.  There now exists a network of states, international organizations, and nongovernmental organizations that count themselves as part of the humanitarian sector.  These organizations have helped to create, and been nourished by, a complex of normative and legal principles.  The existence of this network and normative fabric have created something that resembles, according to Didier Fassin, a “humanitarian government: [T]he administration of human collectivities in the name of a higher moral principle that sees the preservation of life and the alleviation of suffering as the highest value of action."  While government might be too strong a word, governance certainly is not: human activities are now organized globally to help protect distant strangers and alleviate the causes of suffering.   

      This course explores the foundations, logic, dynamics, dilemmas, and consequences of a form of governance that operates in the name of -- and for -- the international community.  It begins by examining the underlying foundations and logic of humanitarian governance.  Humanitarian governance is rooted in the basic supposition that we do and should care for distant strangers.  But, historically and practically speaking, caring for distant strangers varies considerably.  Accordingly, we consider the “forces of compassion” – the conditions under which we care, whether today’s human society is more compassionate than was human society two centuries ago, and the tensions that are part of most modern discourses of compassion.  Furthermore, because humanitarian governance is a form of governance, and because all governance operates through different kinds of power, we must explore the forms and legitimating principles of the power in humanitarian governance.  Specifically, we will explore the relationship between paternalism and humanitarian governance.  Humanitarian governance, after all, justifies its power over others in the name of their welfare – but when does concern for others lead us to want to take control of their lives?
 
      Section II examines features of “creative destruction.”  Although destruction might not appear creative, many people invest disasters with religious and spiritual significance, e.g. “acts of God,” and many humanitarians treat moments of destruction as providing opportunities for renewal, redemption, and progress.   Creative destruction, then, includes the two elements of humanitarian action – to protect those whose lives are at immediate risk and to prevent future suffering by reducing the causes of harm.  These activities, though seemingly beyond ethical reproach, contain their own dynamics and dilemmas, especially when considered in the context of a humanitarianism that is prone toward paternalism.   We will explore the possibility that these dilemmas and difficulties increase as the humanitarian intervention moves from the discrete goal of protecting lives at risk to the more complicated task of trying to restructure states and societies to remove the causes of conflict, injustice, and avoidable pain.  This section, then, considers the debate over humanitarian intervention, the dilemmas of emergency relief, the “liberal peace,” post-conflict peacebuilding and statebuilding, and whether processes that are expected to place more power in the hands of increasingly democratically-oriented states are merely reproducing existing power inequalities at the local level or introducing new ones at the global level.  If power is scaling up and away, then the immediate question is: where is accountability?  Lastly, we consider whether a humanitarianism that operates in the name of the “international” community and “universal” values is synonymous with Christianity and the West.
 
 
 
Requirements.  All students must come to class prepared to contribute through discussion - which requires you to have read and reflected on the materials assigned for that class session.  I will not give a grade for participation, but those who demonstrate through their class participation that they have read and considered the materials will help their final grade.  All students must write me an email identifying 3-4 questions or observations that are provoked by the reading by the Sunday evening immediately prior to the Monday seminar. 
 
There are three written assignments for this class.  You must do one reaction paper, worth 20% of your grade.  There is a term paper that will comprise 50% of your grade.   Because students in this class have different professional goals, and are at different stages in their professional development, I am going to give you some freedom to determine for yourselves what topic and what kind of exercise would be most beneficial.  Formats can include research designs, research-length articles, extensive literatures reviews, and the like.  Topics can include anything that can be reasonably subsumed under the category of humanitarianism, and I can get to decide what is reasonable.  Lastly, there is a final exam worth 30% of your grade.
 
 
Readings.  There is a fair bit of reading in this course.  You must do the reading for each week before coming to seminar.  There are several books, articles, and essays assigned for the course.  We will be reading all or most of the following books, which are on reserve and available for purchase. 
  • Michael Barnett and Tom Weiss, eds.  2008.  Humanitarianism in Question: Politics, Power, Ethics.  Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
  • Gareth Evans. 2008.  The Responsibility to Protect, Washington, D.C.: Brookings Press.
  • Mark Duffield.  2001.  Global Governance and the New Wars. NY: Zed Press.
 
Course Schedule
 
                                                             Section I:
                       The Principles and Logics of Humanitarian Governance
 
February 16   Introduction
 
February 23   Why Care?
 
  • Carlo Ginzburg. 1994.  "Killing a Chinese Mandarin: The Moral Implications of Distance," Critical Inquiry, 21, 1, August, 46-60.
  • Deen Chatterjee, ed., 2001. The Ethics of Assistance (NY: Cambridge University Press).  Read the following: Peter Singer, "Outsiders: Our Obligations to those Beyond Our Borders" and Richard Arenson, "Moral Limits on the Demands for Beneficence."
  • Tony Vaux.  2001.  “Introduction,” in his The Selfish Altruist (London: Earthscan). pp. 1-17. 
 
March 2    Nineteenth Century Roots of Humanitarianism
 
  • Kevin Rozario.  2007.  Read “Introduction: The Golden Age as Catastrophe,” in his The Culture of Calamity (Chicago: University of Chicago Press).
  • Craig Calhoun.  2008. "The Imperative to Reduce Suffering: Charity, Progress, and Emergencies in the Field of Humanitarian Action,” in Michael Barnett and Tom Weiss, eds., Humanitarianism in Question: Politics, Power, Ethics (Ithaca: Cornell University Press).
  • Lynn Hunt.  2006.  “Introduction: We Hold These Truths to be Self-Evident,” in her Inventing Human Rights (NY: Norton Press), pp. 15-34.
  • Thomas Haskell.  1985. "Capitalism and the Origins of the Humanitarian Sensibility," Part 1, American Historical Review, 90, April, 339-61.
  • Peter Redfield and Erica Bornstein.  Forthcoming.  “Forces of Compassion.”  Revised version to appear in Forces of Compassion. 
 
Paper Proposal Due.
 
March 9    Twentieth Century Roots of Humanitarianism
 
  •  James Fearon.2008. "The Rise of Emergency Aid," . In Barnett and Weiss
  • Rachel McCleary and Robert Barrow.  2008.  “Private and Voluntary Organizations in International Relief and Development: 1939-2003,” Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 37, 3, 512-536.
  • Gilbert Rist. 2002.  The History of Development: From Western Origins to Global Faith (NY: Zed Books, 2002), chapters 3-5.
  • Judith Randel and Tony German.  2002.  "Trends in the Financing of Humanitarian Assistance," in Joanne Macrae, ed., The New Humanitarianisms: A Review of Trends in Global Humanitarian Action, 29-38, London: Overseas Development Institute.
  • Elizabeth Borgwardt.  2005.  Read “Forging a New American Multilateralism,” in her A New Deal for the World: America’s Vision for Human Rights (Cambridge: Harvard University Press).
 
March 16  Humanitarianism: Its Goals and Principles
 
  • Read the following in Barnett and Weiss, Humanitarianism in Question: Barnett and Weiss, "Humanitarianism: A Brief History of the Present";  Jennifer Rubenstein, “The Distributive Commitments of International NGOs”; and Stephen Hopgood, "Saying No to Walmart?  Money and Morality in Professional Humanitarianism."
  • International Committee of the Red Cross.  Codes of Conduct
  • James Orbinski. 1999. "Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech," Oslo, Norway, December 10.
 
 
March 23  Humanitarian Governance?
           
  • Jean Herve Bradol. 2004.  "The Sacrificial International Order and Its Goals and Principles," in Fabrice Weissman, ed., In the Shadow of Just Wars: Violence, Politics, and Humanitarian Action (Ithaca: Cornell University Press).
  • Alex de Waal.  1998.  “Humanitarian International,” in his Famine Crimes (Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press), 65-85.
  • Didier Fassin, "Humanitarianism: a Nongovernmental Government," in Michael Feher, ed., Nongovernmental Politics (NY: Zone Books, 2007).
  • Peter Redfield, “Sacrifice, Triage, and Global Humanitarianism.” In Barnett and Weiss.
  • Gerald Dworkin.  2005.  “Moral Paternalism,” Law and Philosophy, May, 305-19.
 
 
                                                                             Section II:
                                             Creative Destruction
                                                                             
 
March 30  Humanitarian Intervention
 
  • David Chandler.  2002.  "Human Rights Based Humanitarianism," in his From Kosovo to Kabul, pp. 21-52 (NY: Pluto Press).
  • Evans, The Responsibility to Protect:  Chapters 1-6, 10.
 
Short Paper Choice #1: Is the “Responsibility to Protect” a norm?  If not, why not and what would have to occur for it to become a norm?  If so, how did this happen? 
 
 
April 6       Emergency Relief
 
  • Fiona Terry.  2002.  Condemned to Repeat? Read Chapters One and Six. 
  • Hugo Slim. 1997.  "Doing the Right Thing: Relief Agencies, Moral Dilemmas, and Moral Responsibility in Political Emergencies and War," Disasters, 21, 3, 244-57
 
April  20    Liberal Peace
 
  • Mark Duffield. 2002. Global Governance and the New Wars: The Merging of Development and Security (NY: Zed Books), Chapters 1-6.
  • Michael Pugh. 2004. "Peacekeeping and Critical Theory," in Alex Bellamy and Paul Williams, eds, Peacekeeping and Global Order (NY:Routledge), 39-58.
 
 
April 27      Post-Conflict Reconstruction
 
  • Ghani and Lockhard. Fixing Failed States. Chapters 7 & 8.
  • Charles Call.  2008.  “Building States to Build Peace?” in Charles Call with Vanessa Wyth, eds., Building States to Build Peace (Boulder:: Lynne Reinner).
  • Read the following in Roland Paris and Tim Sisk, eds., The Dilemmas of Statebuilding: The Long Road to Peace Confronting the Contradictions of Postwar Peace Operations (NY: Routledge, 2008); Miles Kahler: “A New Generation of Statebuilding Scholarship: Reflections on This Volume,” and Tim Sisk and Roland Paris,  “Confronting the Contradictions.”

Short Paper Choice #2: You are the head of a post-conflict unit in [insert country of your choice].   Write a 3-4 page briefing paper identifying which post-conflict activities during the first six months require most weight and why.

 

May 4       Post Conflict Reconstruction: Liberation, Domination, or Paternalism?

  • James Ferguson,  1994.   “The Anti-Politics Machine,” and “Epilogue,” in his The Anti-Politics Machine: "Development," Depoliticization, and Bureaucratic Power in Lesotho (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press), 251-89.
  • Laura Zanotti. 2008.  “Imagining Democracy, Building Unsustainable Institutions: The UN Peacekeeping Operation in Haiti,” Security Dialogue, 39, 5, 539-561.
  • Michael Barnett and Christoph Zuercher.  2008.  “The Peacebuilder’s Contract,” in Roland Paris and Tim Zisk, The Dilemmas of Statebuilding: The Long Road to Peace Confronting the Contradictions of Postwar Peace Operations (NY: Routledge University Press).
  • William Bain.  2006. ed.  The Empire of Security and Safety of the People.  NY: Routledge University Press. Read Adam Roberts, “Intervention: Beyond `Dictatorial Interference’” and William Bain, “Saving Failed States: Trusteeship as an Arrangement of Security.”
  • Dominik Zaum.  2007.  The Sovereignty Paradox: The Norms and Politics of International Statebuilding (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007). Read Introduction, 1,2, 6.
  • David Chandler.  2006.  Empire in Denial: The Politics of State-Building.  London: Pluto Press.  Read Chapters 1, 3.
     

May 11      Accountability and Participation
 

  • Hugo Slim.  2002.  "By What Authority? The Legitimacy and Accountability of Non-governmental Organisations," Journal of Humanitarian Assistance, March.
  • Rita Abrahamsen. 2004.  ‘The Power of Partnerships in Global Governance’, Third World Quarterly, 25, 8, 1453-1467.
  • Janice Stein, “Humanitarian Organizations: Accountable – Why, to Whom, for What, and How? In Barnett and Weiss.
  • Ruth Grant and Robert Keohane."Accountability and Abuses of Power in World Politics," American Political Science Review, 99, 1, 2005, 29-43.

 

May 18      It’s a Small World After All?
 

  • Elizabeth. Ferris.  2006. “Faith-based and secular humanitarian organizations". International Review of the Red Cross 87 (858): 311-325.
  • Wainaina B, Tippett K. (2008).  Audio interview: The Ethics of Aid: One Kenyan’s Perspective. Speaking of Faith. American Public Media. December 4, 2008.
    (Listen:   MP3,  Real Audio 52:34 ) - info (with unedited interview (1:40.31))
    http://speakingoffaith.publicradio.org/programs/008/ethics_of_aid-kenya/
  • Fred Kniss and David Todd Campbell. 1997. “The Effect of Religious Orientation on International Relief and Development Organizations,” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 36(1):93-103.
  • Carlo Benedietti. 2006. Islamic and Christian inspired Relief NGOs: Between tactical         collaboration and strategic diffidence?”  Journal of International Development, 18, 849–859.
  • Jonathan Benthall.  2008.  “Have Islamic aid agencies a privileged relationship in majority Muslim areas? The case of post-tsunami reconstruction in Aceh,” Journal of Humanitarian Assistance.
     
    Final Papers Due.

 

May 25      Final Exam.

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