1st Edition

The New Humanitarians in International Practice Emerging actors and contested principles

Edited By Zeynep Sezgin, Dennis Dijkzeul Copyright 2016
    396 Pages 15 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    394 Pages 15 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    As humanitarian needs continue to grow rapidly, humanitarian action has become more contested, with new actors entering the field to address unmet needs, but also challenging long-held principles and precepts.

    This volume provides detailed empirical comparisons between emerging and traditional humanitarian actors. It sheds light on why and how the emerging actors engage in humanitarian crises and how their activities are carried out and perceived in their transnational organizational environment. It develops and applies a conceptual framework that fosters research on humanitarian actors and the humanitarian principles. In particular, it simultaneously refers to theories of organizational sociology and international relations to identify both the structural and the situational factors that influence the motivations, aims and activities of these actors, and their different levels of commitment to the traditional humanitarian principles. It thus elucidates the role of the humanitarian principles in promoting coherence and coordination in the crowded and diverse world of humanitarian action, and discusses whether alternative principles and parallel humanitarian systems are in the making.

    This volume will be of great interest to postgraduate students and scholars in humanitarian studies, globalization and transnationalism research, organizational sociology, international relations, development studies, and migration and diaspora studies, as well as policy makers and practitioners engaged in humanitarian action, development cooperation and migration issues.

    Introduction: New humanitarians getting old? Zeynep Sezgin & Dennis Dijkzeul Part 1 A brief history of humanitarian actors and the humanitarian principles 1. A brief history of humanitarian actors and principles Wolf-Dieter Eberwein & Bob Reinalda Part 2 New donor humanitarianism 2. India as humanitarian actor: Convergences and divergences with DAC-Donor principles and practices Kristina Roepstorff 3. Turkey as a rising power: An emerging global humanitarian actor Alpaslan Özerdem Part 3 Multi-Mandate organisations and developmental humanitarianism 4. Multi-Mandate organisations in humanitarian aid Dorethea Hilhorst & Eline Pereboom Part 4 Armed humanitarianism 5. Blurred lines, shrunken space? Offensive peacekeepers, networked humanitarians and the performance of principle in Democratic Republic Congo Ryan O’neill 6. Rebels without borders: Armed groups as humanitarian actors Ryan O’neill 7. The military, the private sector and traditional humanitarian actors: Interaction, interoperability and effectiveness Samuel Carpenter & Randolph Kent Part 5 Private humanitarianism 8. Business in humanitarian crises – For better or for worse? Gilles Carbonnier & Piedra Lightfoot 9. Humanitarian action for sale : Private military and security companies in the humanitarian space Jutta Joachim & Andrea Schneiker Part 6 Diaspora humanitarianism 10. Diaspora humanitarianism: The invisibility of a third humanitarian domain Cindy Horst, Stephen Lubkemann & Robtel Neajai Pailey 11. Diaspora humanitarianism: Implications for the humanitarian action in Syria and neighbouring countries Zeynep Sezgin Part 7 Faith-Based humanitarianism 12. International Muslim NGOs: "Added value" or an echo of Western principles and donor wishes? Marie Juul Petersen 13. Writing the other into humanitarianism: A conversation between "South-South" and "faith-based" humanitarianisms Elene Fiddian-Qasmiyeh & Julia Pacitto Part 8 Regional and local humanitarianism 14. Regional organisations and the humanitarian system: History, trends and implications Lilianne Fan 15. Traditional and non-traditional humanitarian actors in disaster response in India Tony Vaux Conclusion Dennis Dijkzeul, Ryan O’neill & Zeynep Sezgin

     

    Biography

    Zeynep Sezgin is Lise-Meitner Fellow of the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) and leads the research project "Legitimacy of Faith-Based Humanitarian Organisations in Austria, Germany and Pakistan" at the Department of Development Studies at the University of Vienna, Austria.

    Dennis Dijkzeul is Professor of Conflict and Organisation Research at the Social Science School and the Institute for International Law of Peace and Armed Conflict (IFHV) at Ruhr University Bochum, Germany.

    "In the humanitarian world the norm of all societies is acceptable; crises happen, the norm slips and the good humanitarian steps in with temporary action to return society to the straight and narrow. But the received wisdom, the history, the model, is now stretched beyond credulity. The real world of crisis and crisis response is far more diverse, messy, shot with tensions and contradictions. The New Humanitarians in International Practice describes and explores the real humanitarian world in all its uncomfortable diversity from politicized donors to profit seeking companies, taking in the fighting humanitarians and evangelists on the way. It explores the regional and local humanitarian groups contrasting them with the romantic image of the international patriotically-neutered agency of the TV adverts."–Peter Walker, Chatham University, USA

    "This important book is a superb blend of scholarship on and real-world experience with contemporary humanitarian action. Sezgin and Dijkzeul have brought together an exceptional group of contributors – both scholars and practitioners - to examine the implications of an array of emerging new players of an increasingly fragmented humanitarian system. The book’s eight "new" humanitarianisms offer a bold critical perspective on the aims and activities of a variety of new humanitarian actors and their impact on humanitarian principles and practices. An excellent and much needed look at what is happening to the humanitarian system – it should be required reading for scholars and policymakers of humanitarian action!"–James P. Muldoon Jr., The Mosaic Institute, Canada

    "The New Humanitarians in International Practice provides novel, empirically grounded insights into the diversified, contemporary humanitarian system...For contemporary humanitarians as well as humanitarian studies scholars and students, Sezgin and Dijkzeul’s book should be required reading as it provides much-needed food for thought concerning the role and limitations of traditional humanitarian actors and their uneasy relationship with structures of the Global South and non-traditional humanitarian players." - Claudia Breitung, Bonn International Center for Conversion (BICC), Global Policy November 2016