Disaster, Security, and Governance

MAGG Spring 2014Bin Xu

Assistant ProfessorFlorida International University

Kindness of Strangers

• Adam Smith, 1759. The Theory of Moral Sentiments

• Distant suffering/kindness of strangers

Kindness of Strangers

Each man's death diminishes me,For I am involved in mankind.Therefore, send not to knowFor whom the bell tolls,It tolls for thee.

--John Donne

Global Politics of Humanitarian Aids

• International humanitarianism: “the transnational concern to help persons in exceptional distress” (Hannigan 2012, 42)

• “A world without ethical boundaries”

• Nevertheless, humanitarianism is political

Humanitarian Intervention

• Humanitarian intervention is justifiable when “sovereign states lack the will or resources with which to protect their citizens from ‘avoidable catastrophes.’” (Hannigan 2012, 43)

• Dilemma: sovereignty; conditional or unconditional

• Humanitarian intervention and humanitarian access

The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement

• ICRC official video

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kEtOXDJl8q0

The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement

• The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC 1863)

• The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC, 1919)

• Differences: • 1) wars vs. disasters/health/rebuilding;

2) INGO vs. league of national societies

WWI and Humanitarianism

• Humanitarian organizations and initiatives (the Commission for Relief in Belgium [Herbert Hoover])

• International Relief Union (IRU, Giovanni Ciraolo): 1) an international disaster insurance union; 2) faltered in WWII, resurrected and was liquidated

in 19683) Problems

Post-WWII

• Emergence of UN agencies:1. The United Nations International

Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF)2. International Refugee Organization

(IRO)3. The Food and Agriculture Organization

(FAO)4. The World Health Organization (WHO)

Post-WWII Humanitarian Battlefield

• The Biafra crisis (1968-1970)

• ICRC’s retreat• Doctors Without

Borders

Post-WWII Humanitarian Battlefield

• The Ethiopian Famine (1984)• The land reform• War between the Derg government & rebels• The international aids went through the

government’s Relief and Rehabilitation Commission (RRC)

• LIVE AID• Complex Emergency: protracted crisis

Politics of US Humanitarian Aids

• Stage 1 (Yes/No, Drury, Olson, and van Belle [2005])

1. US federal deficits and domestic disaster costs depress the likelihood of aid

2. US aids tend to be allocated to salient events (media power)

3. Allies and democratic countries (small impacts) get more US aids.

4. Wealthier countries receive less.

Politics of US Humanitarian Aids

• Stage 2 (How much)1. Neither foreign policy nor federal

deficits influences how much aids the US gives.

2. The # of stories in NYT