The post-hegemonic turn in humanitarian intervention: regional ownership and troubled great power management

Abstract

Since the Great Recession in 2008, the academic debate has been flooded with literature that predicts the sunset of the liberal world order including the practice of humanitarian intervention as initiated at the United Nations (UN) in the early 1990s and regulated by the adoption of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) in 2005. In contrast, this article argues that the practice of humanitarian intervention continues to operate under post-hegemonic and multipolar conditions, but in new ways. Based on a theorization of fundamental institutional change and exploratory case studies of the international reactions to the humanitarian crises in Libya, Côte d’Ivoire, Syria and Mali, and supportive evidence from Gambia and DR Congo, we show that contemporary humanitarian intervention is closely related to a normalization of the fundamental institution of great power management and a regionalization of international society. In this post-hegemonic world order, humanitarian intervention is shaped, facilitated or hampered by various practices of great power management including concert, soft balancing and hard balancing. The return of great-power competition means an inconsistent and sometimes counterproductive resort to humanitarian intervention far from the ideals of the R2P, but the growing importance of regional ownership affects the great powers, keeps this potential response to mass atrocity crimes on the table and adds to its legitimacy.