Despite hopes of greater world peace after the Cold War ended, why have there been so many humanitarian emergencies during the 1990s? Do these emergencies have any similarities that can help explain their occurrence?
Taking an approach encompassing political and economic influences, this United Nations University paper analyses the incidence of humanitarian emergencies. These emergencies tend to be centred on conflict within states, often associated with state-making. In such a case, a group, who was previously not allied to the state power, conquers independent communities. Violence is often necessary to exert political control, establish claims on economic resources and reduce opposition to the group.
State-making and the competition for power bring the threat of change to the political and social environment. People are also concerned about the potential disappearance of recognised norms and standards. Is it possible for state-building to be managed without a country descending into a humanitarian emergency?
The most important elements in emergency prevention are democracy and the role played by civil society. The paper finds the prevalence of humanitarian emergencies to be greater in undemocratic societies, where the rule of law is not obeyed and where leaders are not held accountable to meeting society’s needs equitably. Further conclusions are that:
- For security and defence against domination by a central power, people seek solidarity in groups with kin, language, religion or ethnicity commonalities. Each group has different and exclusive interests or needs
- Many humanitarian emergencies involve conflict between such groups actively seeking to protect their individual cultural identities, which they perceive to be threatened by oppressive state-making
- Many researchers believe democratisation causes conflict, as society’s demands on the state increase and social groups compete to gain a share of the central power. However, this paper finds that democracy comes after conflict: From society’s demands for positive change, particularly for justice and inclusion
- The state is often seen as too prejudiced to calm and unite diverse peoples and so the social divisions and violent rivalry continue. However, democracy can create an environment that reduces the insecurities associated with factions fighting for power. Democracy encourages states to operate equitably and legally
- An active, well-developed civil society, supportive of democratic principles, is an important factor in mitigating against emergencies.
Encouraging democratisation should be the first and possibly the most important policy issue to address in reducing the prevalence of humanitarian emergencies. Other policy implications include:
- Noting and addressing the interests and needs of all social groups. Consequently, people will feel less of a need to compete to assert their ethnic identity, but rather act for the good of the country as a whole
- Assisting civil society to develop good practices. Civil society can encourage and help maintain democracies and thus avoid humanitarian emergencies. However, to have an effective role, civil society must be disciplined by democratic thinking and practice.
