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  • Many Reasons to Intervene: French and British Approaches to Humanitarian Action ed. by Karl Blanchet & Boris Martin
  • Larissa Fast (bio)
Many Reasons to Intervene: French and British Approaches to Humanitarian Action (Karl Blanchet & Boris Martin eds., Columbia University Press, 2011), 139 pages, ISBN 978-0-2317-0262-1.

A raft of new books on humanitarianism have appeared on bookshelves in the past several years, including Karl Blanchet's and Boris Martin's edited volume titled Many Reasons to Intervene: French and British Approaches to Humanitarian Action. The book features essays by leading scholars and humanitarian practitioners with the aim of addressing four challenges of contemporary humanitarian action: the maturation of French and British humanitarian nongovernmental organizations (NGOs); the evaluation of the humanitarian response; the role of NGOs in global politics; and the relationship between humanitarianism and religion. The book offers a fresh look at some enduring challenges and promises to explore existing tensions between the French and the Anglo-Saxon response traditions.

In their opening chapter, the editors raise a central question of the volume: "[W]hat role can or should humanitarian organisations play on the new international geopolitical chessboard?"1 In the period between the humanitarian response to the 1968 war in Biafra and the end of the Cold War, French humanitarian actors tended to play a role more critical of and contrary to the state, whereas actors from the Anglo-Saxon tradition tended to work in closer cooperation with the state. The humanitarian response to the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004, Blanchet and Martin argue, calls for a renewed look at this question in order to better understand NGOs, their historical evolution, and the ramifications of the divergent French and British humanitarian traditions.

Thus, the premise of the book, as set forth in the title and the opening chapters, sets up a stark contrast between these two approaches to humanitarian action. These differences, articulated by Rony Brauman in the preface, relate to the culture of debate (French) as opposed to consensus (British), the founding values of the organization (French organizations often coalesce around professions, such as medicine, and British NGOs around thematic concerns), and staffing practices (whereas the French tend to employ expatriates, the British tend to favor hiring national staff). The individual chapters, however, are uneven in addressing this particular dichotomy. A number of the chapters, notably those of Hugo Slim on the evolution and character of the British tradition, of Philippe Ryfman on the French tradition, and of Egbert Sondorp on the ethics of the two approaches, confront the contrast head on. All three characterize the traditions in terms of their development and maturation over time, and all three highlight various questions about the legitimacy of the [End Page 1009] sector in the public eye. Slim's chapter is particularly informative, tracing the trajectory of British pragmatism and evangelical influences in the development of the humanitarian sector. The remaining chapters in the volume address the dichotomy between the French and British approaches implicitly or with less detail. In the epilogue, David Rieff provides an explanation for this uneven treatment. He argues that the dichotomy is a false one, a chimera wherein despite their different histories these approaches to humanitarianism are not starkly divergent, even as the cultural differences between the two remain the subject of much speculation and debate. Both Brauman and Rieff conclude that the internationalization of the humanitarian field has muted these differences, rendering the dichotomy of less analytic value and thereby reflecting the maturation of the humanitarian sector overall.

Setting this critique and particular dichotomy aside, the book includes informative discussions of the major challenges confronting humanitarians in a contemporary context. François Grünewald and Hugh Goyder write of different approaches to evaluating the humanitarian response, both pointing out the missing link between evaluation, learning, and change, and the need to ensure that the dignity and perspectives of those on the receiving end of assistance are taken into account in the evaluation process. The chapters by Sami Makki and James Darcy on "NGOs on the New Geopolitical Chessboard" treat the topics of NGO relationships with military actors and with political actors. Makki surveys the complex array of civilian and military...

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