Globalization, Social Movements, and Peacebuilding

2. Neoliberal Ethics, the Humanitarian International, and Practices of Peacebuilding

47 2 Neoliberal Ethics, the Humanitarian International, and Practices of Peacebuilding Cecelia Lynch In his pathbreaking book Famine Crimes (1997/2006), Alex de Waal created a name for a new social movement, the “humanitarian international.”1 In de Waal’s critical treatment, however, this movement, comprised of “the cosmopolitan elite of relief workers, officials of donor agencies, consultant academics and the like, and the institutions for which they work,” as well as “journalists and editors who faithfully propagate the humanitarian worldview,” is not necessarily a cause for celebration. Rather, “the humanitarian international is avowedly dedicated to fighting famine, but does not in fact operate in a way that enables this to be achieved. There are ‘successes’ and ‘failures’ . . . but the unexpected consequences of humanitarian action are more significant” (3–4). De Waal argues that this humanitarianism all too often weakens the types of political accountability, or the “contract” between states and their peoples, that would prevent crises from occurring in the first place. Other observers have put forth similar arguments, although with varying culprits (Easterly 2006; Gibson et al. 2005; ICISS 2001; Terry 2002; Moyo 2010). Given that this movement shows 1. De Waal does not call this complex a social movement, however, but his description fits many scholars’ definition of such movements. 48  Discourses of Conflict and Movement no signs of abating, and instead appears to be proliferating at a significant rate, probing the movement and its effects on peacebuilding is warranted. This book’s critique of the role of neoliberalism and its relationship to structural inequities and structural violence provides a productive path for assessing current constraints and future possibilities for humanitarianism . I argued in 1998, before the Seattle anti-globalization protests, that social movements’ weak responses to the alleged imperatives of market liberalism put movements in danger of “discursive demobilization” (Lynch 1998). After NAFTA and before the 1999 Seattle protests against the World Trade Organization ministerial meeting, many movements, including feminist, peace, environment, and others, appeared to avoid directly challenging structures of economic power, yet achieving their goals required reconfiguring capitalism. By not challenging forms of profitmaking that enabled and even encouraged discrimination, the arms trade, and environmental degradation, progressive social movements could only create change at the margins of social practice. In this chapter, however, I am especially concerned with the way in which neoliberal ideologies , mechanisms, and techniques promote particular ethics or sets of ideas about how humanitarian groups and the recipients of humanitarian aid should act and what they should accomplish. I assert that neoliberal discourses and ethics shape humanitarian practices, including those of NGOs, in ways that promote inequalities among peoples rather than their well-being. Neoliberal discourses, as a result, also threaten to increase the “discursive demobilization” of humanitarian NGOs. As other chapters in this section point out, neoliberalism promotes and “fetishizes” particular terminologies and practices—read discourses —that underlie economic and political institutions and also shape the values and work of those seeking to enact various forms of cosmopolitanism (through human rights, human security, and humanitarianism). In the case of the transnational humanitarian social movement, we need to ask yet again how this result obtains and whether and what type of counterhegemonic ethics exist. This is necessary, I argue, because neoliberal ethics and practices also threaten long-term peacebuilding. The “humanitarian international” social movement, like most social movements, is amorphous and covers a wide range of pragmatic goals Ethics, Humanitarian International, Peacebuilding  49 and ethical possibilities. As many scholars have argued (Ferguson 1994 and 2006; Sending and Neumann 2006, 2010; Lynch 2009), the Foucauldian concept of “governmentality” (Foucault 1991; Burchell, Gordon, and Miller 1991; Rose, O’Malley, and Valverde 2006) captures the processes at work that intertwine NGO relief agencies, states, and multilateral organizations and agencies. The concept of “governmentality” allows us to see how issues that appear technical or economic are actually deeply political, and how ideologies that rely on their separation to solve problems—such as humanitarian coordination or economic development—are instead constitutive of particular forms of neoliberal power. In a related conceptualization , Jackie Smith and Dawn Wiest return to Weber’s institutional “iron cages” to describe and analyze how “institutional logics” can lead to “organizational homogeneity, or isomorphism.” As a result, “To be seen as a legitimate player in a given institutional context, one must accept particular organizational forms and practices, discourses, and standards of behavior” (Smith and Wiest, 2012, chapter 4). Following these logics...