WIDER RESEARCH for ACTION Why Humanitarian Emergencies Occur
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UNU World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU/WIDER) Research for Action 31 Why Humanitarian Emergencies Occur Insights from the Interface of State, Democracy and Civil Society Claude Ake This study has been prepared within the UNU/WIDER project on the Wave of Emergencies of the Last Decade: Causes, Extent, Predictability and Response, being co-directed by Professor E. Wayne Nafziger, Senior Research Fellow, and Professor Raimo Vayrynen, University of Notre Dame, Indiana, USA. UNU/WIDER gratefully acknowledges the financial contribution to the project by the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland and the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA). UNU World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU/WIDER) A research and training centre of the United Nations University The Board of UNU/WIDER Harris Mutio Mule Sylvia Ostry Jukka Pekkarinen Maria de Lourdes Pintasilgo, Chairperson George Vassiliou Ruben Yevstigneyev Masaru Yoshitomi Ex Officio Heitor Gurgulino de Souza, Rector of UNU Giovanni Andrea Cornia, Director of UNU/WIDER UNU World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU/WIDER) was established by the United Nations University as its first research and training centre and started work in Helsinki, Finland in 1985. The purpose of the Institute is to undertake applied research and policy analysis on structural changes affecting the developing and transitional economies, to provide a forum for the advocacy of policies leading to robust, equitable and environmentally sustainable growth, and to promote capacity strengthening and training in the field of economic and social policy making. Its work is carried out by staff researchers and visiting scholars in Helsinki and through networks of collaborating scholars and institutions around the world. UNU World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU/WIDER) Katajanokanlaituri 6 B 00160 Helsinki, Finland Copyright © UNU World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU/WIDER) Camera-ready typescript prepared by Liisa Roponen at UNU/WIDER Printed at Hakapaino Oy, 1997 The views expressed in this publication are those of the author(s). Publication does not imply endorsement by the Institute or the United Nations University of any of the views expressed. ISSN 1239-6761 ISBN 952-9520-47-6 CONTENTS FOREWORD IN MEMORIAM ABSTRACT I INTRODUCTION II STATE-BUILDING AND HUMANITARIAN EMERGENCIES III THE ROLE OF CIVIL SOCIETY IV THE ROLE OF DEMOCRACY BIBLIOGRAPHY FOREWORD This paper by the late Professor Claude Ake is part of an effort he began to explain why complex humanitarian emergencies have been so substantial in the 1990s. The analysis is multi-disciplinary, drawing on insights from history, politics, and economics. Ake concludes that humanitarian emergencies are less likely to occur in a truly democratic society where there is the rule of law, equal opportunity, accountability of power, and a leadership sensitive to social needs. The study is a part of UNU/WIDER's research project on the political economy of complex humanitarian emergencies, co-directed by E. Wayne Nafziger, Senior Research Fellow at UNU/WIDER, and Raimo Vayrynen, Professor at the University of Notre Dame. The research project seeks to use economic analysis, as well as political analysis, to explain the causes of humanitarian emergencies. Ake's thoughtful analysis of how failures of democratization and the lack of development of a civil society contribute to an increased incidence of humanitarian emergencies is one of the initial efforts by researchers associated with the project to analyse humanitarian disasters. The paper will also serve as a part of Professor Ake's legacy on the subject of democratization and the prevention of humanitarian disasters. I strongly recommend this paper, one of the final contributions of Professor Ake to his many colleagues, students, and friends. Giovanni Andrea Cornia Director, UNU/WIDER January 1997 v IN MEMORIAM PROFESSOR CLAUDE AKE The death of Professor Claude Ake in an airplane crash near Lagos, Nigeria on 7 November 1996 was a profound shock to Africanists, social scientists, and his friends world wide. His death is a great loss to the 40 colleagues he met with at the 6-8 October 1996 United Nations University/World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU/WIDER) conference on 'The Political Economy of Humanitarian Emergencies' held in Helsinki, Finland. Professor Ake's essay, reprinted here, was the initial draft of a contribution to UNU/WIDER's research project on the political economy of complex humanitarian emergencies. The research project seeks to use economic and political analysis to explain the causes of humanitarian emergencies. All of us at the Helsinki conference will remember Professor Ake's passion, clarity, and skill in examining the origins of complex humanitarian emergencies and their relationship to authoritarianism, ethnicity, and the state. Professor Ake's investigation of the political economy of emergencies at the Helsinki conference, like his other speeches and writings, had a moral dimension. His analysis of colonialism, multinational capital, dependent capitalism, the centralization of power, and corrupt and authoritarian Third World elites combined careful scholarship with prophetic insight. At the same time, Professor Ake was known for his political activism and courage in defending democracy and human rights in Nigeria and Africa generally. In 1995, he resigned from a commission appointed by Shell Oil Company to study the ecology of the oil-producing Niger Delta in coastal Nigeria. Professor Ake resigned to protest the execution of Ken Saro-Wiwa, novelist and political activist who had led opposition to the environmental degradation of the Niger Delta region and the exploitation of the Ogoni people. vii Africa has lost a most insightful political economist, a scholar who spoke critically to those elites who used power capriciously and repressively. The New York Times, in its obituary, quotes George Bond, Director of the Institute of African Studies at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs about Professor Ake: 'He was one of the pre-eminent scholars on African politics and a scholar-activist concerned with the development of Africa. His concern was primarily with the average African and how to improve the nature of his conditions.' This concern is exemplified in the essay of Professor Ake here. In this essay, he argues that democratization is the most salient factor in addressing ethnic conflict and humanitarian emergencies. Indeed, 'it is only democratic politics and participatory development which can reverse the degeneration of development as an exercise in self-alienation.' One of Ake's major legacies, an important contribution to our understanding of Africa's political economy, is the book, Democracy and Development in Africa, published by the Brookings Institution, Washington, DC, in 1996. In this book, Ake observes that: For most Africans, incomes are lower than they were two decades ago, health prospects are poorer, malnutrition is widespread, and infrastructure and social institutions are breaking down.' The book then traces the evolution and failure of Africa's development policies. Yet despite Africa's widespread authoritarianism and stagnation, the roots of which Professor Ake analyses, he concludes with hope, stating that: 'The struggle over the political framework that will enable the development project to finally take off is now in progress, and the prospects for development are promising.' If he is right, it will be in no small measure due to the political courage of visionary Africans like himself. E. Wayne Nafziger and Raimo Vayrynen Research Project Co-Directors UNU/WIDER January 1997 Viii ABSTRACT This paper provides a beginning toward explaining why humanitarian emergencies have been so substantial in the post-cold war era, a period expected to be less violent. The humanitarian emergencies of the contemporary period tend to be state-centred, focus on identity claims, and occur in developing countries facing the contradictions of capitalist modernity. State-making in developing countries is the political equivalent of primitive accumulation in a capitalist economy; to create a state requires conquest and subjugation though the appropriation and monopoly of the means of violence. State building involves both vertical (hierarchical) and horizontal (ethnic) articulations. Civil society can aid in preventing humanitarian emergencies, but only when civil society is associated with democratization. Indeed democratization is the most salient factor for addressing humanitarian emergencies. In a truly democratic society where there is the rule of law, equal opportunity, accountability of power, and a leadership sensitive to social needs, primary group identities will be less appealing. In such circumstances, humanitarian emergencies are less likely to occur. IX I INTRODUCTION Humanitarian emergencies are not specific to the contemporary world. They have occurred with uncanny inevitability in every historical epoch. However in this era, they have acquired a singular significance by their incidence, spread and intensity. And also by their poignancy in a post-cold war world which was reasonably expected to be less violent. How do we explain this rash of humanitarian emergencies and their tragic enormity? Clearly, humanitarian emergencies are complex phenomena which are highly differentiated and thus difficult to explain. However, a close look