Jn. Pieterse, SOCIOLOGY OF HUMANITARIAN INTERVENTION - BOSNIA, RWANDA AND SOMALIA COMPARED, International political science review, 18(1), 1997, pp. 71-93
Among the key problems of ''humanitarian intervention'' in internation
al law and international relations are the dynamics of sovereignty and
the question of selectivity in intervention. The causes of conflict i
n 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, althoug
h 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 c
ore causes of conflict are authoritarian institutions and political cu
ltures 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. T
he 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 thi
nk in terms of state sovereignty, national interest, international sec
urity. ''Humanitarian intervention'' reinforces authoritarianism, hard
sovereignty, militarization. For ''humanitarian intervention'' to con
tribute to conflict resolution, what is required are postconventional
political options such as new types of state, partial forms of soverei
gnty and democratization. Meanwhile ''humanitarian intervention'' offe
rs a mirror of global politics as they actually exist.