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Disasters
Oct, 2022;46 (4): 1027-1048.

Five shades of grey: variants of 'political' humanitarianism.

Miriam Bradley
Author Information
  1. Miriam Bradley: Associate Professor, Institut Barcelona d'Estudis Internacionals (IBEI), Spain. ORCID
PMID: 34553409 DOI: 10.1111/disa.12512

Abstract

Humanitarianism is a contested concept. Should humanitarian action seek to address only the symptoms of crises, or also their causes? Can humanitarian agencies best achieve their goals through a commitment to neutrality, or should they take a self-consciously political approach? This paper argues that debates about the desirability of more ambitious approaches to humanitarianism have been clouded by a lack of conceptual clarity. Showing that the perspective of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is not as apolitical as is often presented, and that so-called 'political humanitarianism' conflates four conceptually distinct ways of being political, the paper suggests that a black and white characterisation of approaches to humanitarianism as either political or apolitical is more accurately rendered as (at least) five shades of grey. Distinguishing the variants of 'political' humanitarianism matters, and the paper highlights how their conflation has marred normative debates on the desirability of different approaches.

Keywords

International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) classical humanitarianism consequentialism deontology humanitarian principles neutrality new humanitarianism political humanitarianism speaking out state sovereignty

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MeSH Term

Altruism
Humans
Red Cross
Relief Work
Journal Article
Article has an altmetric score of 5

Word Cloud

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