Selective humanitarians: how region and conflict perception drive military interventions in intrastate crises
| Published date | 01 June 2024 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/00471178221104344 |
| Author | Sidita Kushi |
| Date | 01 June 2024 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/00471178221104344
International Relations
2024, Vol. 38(2) 216 –255
© The Author(s) 2022
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DOI: 10.1177/00471178221104344
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Selective humanitarians:
how region and conflict
perception drive
military interventions in
intrastate crises
Sidita Kushi
Bridgewater State University
Abstract
Why are some violent intrastate crises more likely to prompt humanitarian military interventions
than others? States appear to intervene robustly in reaction to some internal conflicts, such as
Kosovo, but withhold similar options in more intense conflict, as in Darfur. Much of the research
on this ‘selectivity gap’ focuses on universal norms or geopolitical interests. I, however, argue that
the selectivity of these interventions is a product of regional variations interacting with conflict
perceptions. This paper introduces a dataset of almost 1000 observations of intrastate armed
conflict between 1989 and 2014, paired with international military responses and non-responses,
as well as an Intervention Index that accounts for the intensity of military interventions. I find that
once a threshold of human suffering is met via the existence of an internal armed conflict, powerful
states will intervene depending on whether the conflict occurs in the Western sphere of influence
and whether it is denoted as an identity war. A Western region coupled with no perceptions of
identity-based civil war prompts the greatest odds of humanitarian military intervention. Such
conclusions carry implications on the role of norms and interests in international politics, as
biased by region, and for military intervention as a policy choice.
Keywords
conflict perceptions, humanitarian military intervention, intrastate crisis, region, West
Introduction
March 24th, 1999 marked the first time since the founding of the United Nations (UN)
that a group of states, acting outside of international and domestic institutions, overrode
Corresponding author:
Sidita Kushi, Department of Political Science, Bridgewater State University, Clifford House, #101, 131
Summer Street, Bridgewater, MA 02315, USA.
Email: skushi@bridgew.edu
1104344IRE0010.1177/00471178221104344International RelationsKushi
research-article2022
Article
Kushi 217
another state’s sovereignty primarily on humanitarian grounds. The North Atlantic Treaty
Organization’s (NATO) military intervention against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
(FRY), to end humanitarian atrocities in Kosovo, was a political turning point.1 An inter-
national humanitarian military intervention (HMI) hinted at the triumph of norms over
cold realpolitik. But as the years followed, such changes did not envelop the world
evenly. The international community continues to discount the decades-long suffering in
Darfur, dismisses the genocidal policies within Myanmar, and even perpetuates the suf-
fering in contemporary Yemen.2 At the same time, powerful states and institutions under-
take humanitarian-laden missions in Libya, Syria, and the Balkans. Such patterns prompt
the question – why do humanitarian military interventions occur in reaction to certain
internal violent crises while they remain absent in others?
The determinants of international humanitarian interventions remain largely under-
explored.3 What’s more, while scholars clamor for regionally-sensitive theories of
intervention, ‘a sustained effort to theorize about why patterns and effects of foreign
military intervention diverge across regions has been lacking’.4 As Pickering and
Mitchell further declare, ‘the time seems ripe for the thoughtful development of theo-
ries and tests bound by time and region’.5 This article offers a regionally-sensitive
analysis of the driving forces behind the phenomenon of humanitarian military inter-
vention since the end of the Cold War.
How do we respond to the suffering of foreigners, harmed by their own govern-
ment? In 2005, the adoption of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) principle within the
UN charter further opened governments to an investigation by the international com-
munity.6 Yet despite a consensus on the protection of innocents across national borders,
military interventions in states experiencing internal violent humanitarian crises are far
from likely or equally distributed across the world.7 Clear regional patterns are evident
yet underexplored. For instance, Western states militaristically intervened to stop
human rights abuses in Kosovo, against UN protocol, while ignoring the larger-scale
atrocities occurring in South Sudan. Over the past hundred years, the intrastate con-
flicts within the small Balkan Peninsula have prompted a disproportionate share of the
20th century’s military interventions, with the region experiencing over 10 back-to-
back interventions in the post-Yugoslavia era alone.8 In contrast, the genocides and
intrastate conflicts within Africa, Asia, and the Middle East have either illustrated a
fragile consensus on the protection of innocents or, most often, the indifference of
power politics.
Some international relations theorists have interpreted intervention trends as evidence
of a more multilateral, ethically-oriented international society – where human rights
often override national security considerations or enjoin within the definition of state
security.9 Others have argued that these missions reflect the pursuit of Western national
interests, running rampant under the guise of morality and that in reality, ‘humanitarian’
military interventions do not exist.10 What is required is a foundation that can begin to
explain why regions like the Balkans experience military interventions during times of
crisis, while systemic violence in African, Asian, Latin American, and some Middle
Eastern nations receive less international attention and limited intervention. A more
nuanced hypothesis that caters to regional differences in the practices behind perceived
humanitarian interventions is missing within this literature.
218 International Relations 38(2)
In this paper, I advance the argument that regional variations particularly between
Western versus non-Western neighborhoods drive the selectivity gap of humanitarian
military interventions, even supplanting the explanatory power of key theoretical varia-
bles such as national interest, economic linkages, and human rights. I further argue that
this regional bias, often serving as a proxy for value-based institutional capacity and
resource-pooling, showcases strong linkages with Western perceptions of the conflict on
the ground. The study’s results reveal that an internal armed conflict denoted as an iden-
tity-based civil war outside of the Western sphere has a low probability of third-party
intervention, while non-civil war violence within the Western sphere holds the highest
probability of intervention. I theorize that regional bias and conflict perceptions alter
third-party policy options and ultimately, their policy choices, during times of crisis,
perhaps with conflict perceptions acting as either activators or silencers of regional insti-
tutional missions. Western audiences must perceive the violence as a special type of
internal conflict – one of ethnic cleansing or systematic killing – not another endless
ethnic/religious civil war between equally culpable parties. Once this favorable conflict
perception sets in, if a conflict unravels within or at the edge of a highly institutionalized
Western neighborhood, the likelihood of intervention rises even further. While these
findings and theoretical linkages require additional testing via more nuanced case stud-
ies, they point to important, yet overlooked patterns in the phenomenon of humanitarian
military intervention.
Taking inspiration from Holzgrefe and Finnemore, I define international humanitar-
ian intervention as the use of military force by a state or a group of states (including
through UN structures) to protect foreign nationals from intrastate abuse.11 While the
debate on humanitarian military interventions is complex, with many additional caveats
to the definition, I rely on three main criteria within this study: (1) the threat or usage of
force abroad by a state, coalition of states, or international institutions; (2) With a stated
intention of ameliorating human rights abuses against non-citizens; (3) In response to a
violent, human-made crisis. Therefore, what differentiates humanitarian interventions
from general military interventions is the humanitarian crisis stemming from the unit of
analysis, which leads to perceptions of humanitarian motives and the objective to protect
‘individuals other than its own citizens’12 or ‘saving strangers’, as Wheeler has coined.13
Such motives separate humanitarian military interventions from interventions for self-
defense, the rescue of a state’s own citizens, or purely self-interested military interven-
tions in pursuit of territory, strategic interests, or regional hegemony. This study considers
interventions with stated humanitarian aims, such as the stopping or reducing of violence
and human rights abuses within the target country or the protection of civilians. Yet the
humanitarian motivation/intent is almost always present alongside other motivations,
including national self-interest and traditional geopolitical considerations, such as pre-
venting refugee spillovers or managing a failing state to prevent spillover.14
Using a new dataset of post-1989 intrastate conflicts and their international responses,
I first test the explanatory power of standard variables of intervention, paralleling key
international relations paradigms. Then, taking theoretical inspiration from Keohane and
Campbell, I show how the selectivity gap requires the usage of regionally-sensitive vari-
ables and theoretical premises.15 The results of this study encourage further case study
analysis on the interactions between region and conflict perceptions as they relate to
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