Sociology of Humanitarian Intervention: Bosnia, Rwanda and Somalia Compared

Among the key problems of “humanitarian intervention” in international law and international relations are the dynamics of sovereignty and the question of selectivity in intervention. The causes of conflict in the major cases of “humanitarian intervention,” former Yugoslavia, Somalia and Rwanda, are discussed under several headings: the end of the cold war; economics and scapegoating; ethnic politics?; media war; external influences; and politics of displacement. Ethnicity, although generally considered a cause of conflict, is not an explanation but rather that which is to be explained. The terminology of ethnicity is part of the conflict and cannot serve as a language of analysis. The core causes of conflict are authoritarian institutions and political cultures and the politics of hard sovereignty, while external influences play a significant role. Revisiting “humanitarian intervention” in this light, it clearly provides no solution for structural problems. The crucial problems, democratization and the fundamental restructuring of state-society relations, are not even on the agenda for they fall outside the parameters of conventional wisdom, which is trained to think in terms of state sovereignty, national interest, international security. “Humanitarian intervention” reinforces authoritarianism, hard sovereignty, militarization. For “humanitarian intervention” to contribute to conflict resolution, what is required are postconventional political options such as new types of state, partial forms of sovereignty and democratization. Meanwhile “humanitarian intervention” offers a mirror of global politics as they actually exist.