IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/pophec/v10y2011i1p20-45.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Legitimacy, humanitarian intervention, and international institutions

Author

Listed:
  • Miles Kahler

    (University of California, USA, mkahler@ucsd.edu)

Abstract

The legitimacy of humanitarian intervention has been contested for more than a century, yet pressure for such intervention persists. Normative evolution and institutional design have been closely linked since the first debates over humanitarian intervention more than a century ago. Three norms have competed in shaping state practice and the normative discourse: human rights, peace preservation, and sovereignty. The rebalancing of these norms over time, most recently as the state’s responsibility to protect, has reflected specific international institutional environments. The contemporary legitimacy of humanitarian intervention is based on UN Security Council authorization of the use of force. Although the Security Council is often viewed as representative of great-power influence, international acceptance of its role is based on the role of non-permanent members and their support for the sovereignty norm. The current rebalanced norms supporting humanitarian intervention, institutional bias that protects state sovereignty, and the changing character of mass violence may undermine the tenuous contemporary legitimacy of humanitarian intervention. Normative adjustments and new institutional designs are required to insure the legitimacy of international action that protects populations against mass violence.

Suggested Citation

  • Miles Kahler, 2011. "Legitimacy, humanitarian intervention, and international institutions," Politics, Philosophy & Economics, , vol. 10(1), pages 20-45, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:pophec:v:10:y:2011:i:1:p:20-45
    DOI: 10.1177/1470594X10386570
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1470594X10386570
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/1470594X10386570?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Walter, Barbara F., 1997. "The Critical Barrier to Civil War Settlement," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 51(3), pages 335-364, July.
    2. Thompson, Alexander, 2006. "Coercion Through IOs: The Security Council and the Logic of Information Transmission," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 60(1), pages 1-34, January.
    3. Voeten, Erik, 2005. "The Political Origins of the UN Security Council's Ability to Legitimize the Use of Force," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 59(3), pages 527-557, July.
    4. Valentino, Benjamin & Huth, Paul & Balch-Lindsay, Dylan, 2004. "“Draining the Sea”: Mass Killing and Guerrilla Warfare," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 58(2), pages 375-407, April.
    5. Zacher, Mark W., 2001. "The Territorial Integrity Norm: International Boundaries and the Use of Force," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 55(2), pages 215-250, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Alexandra Bohm, 2013. "Responding to Crises: The Problematic Relationship between Security and Justice in The Responsibility to Protect," Global Policy, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 4(3), pages 247-257, September.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Axel Dreher & Jan-Egbert Sturm & James Raymond Vreeland, 2015. "Politics and IMF Conditionality," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 59(1), pages 120-148, February.
    2. Terrence L. Chapman, 2007. "International Security Institutions, Domestic Politics, and Institutional Legitimacy," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 51(1), pages 134-166, February.
    3. Daniel Verdier, 2009. "Successful and Failed Screening Mechanisms in the Two Gulf Wars," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 21(3), pages 311-342, July.
    4. Dreher, Axel & Sturm, Jan-Egbert & Vreeland, James Raymond, 2009. "Global horse trading: IMF loans for votes in the United Nations Security Council," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 53(7), pages 742-757, October.
    5. Amy Yuen, 2020. "Negotiating peacekeeping consent: Information and peace outcomes," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 57(2), pages 297-311, March.
    6. Nadav G. Shelef & Yael Zeira, 2017. "Recognition Matters!," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 61(3), pages 537-563, March.
    7. Geoffrey PR Wallace, 2019. "Supplying protection: The United Nations and public support for humanitarian intervention," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 36(3), pages 248-269, May.
    8. Syropoulos, Constantinos & Zylkin, Thomas, 2015. "The Problem of Peace: A Story of Corruption, Destruction, and Rebellion," School of Economics Working Paper Series 2015-5, LeBow College of Business, Drexel University.
    9. Clayton L. Thyne, 2006. "Cheap Signals with Costly Consequences," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 50(6), pages 937-961, December.
    10. Magnus Lundgren, 2017. "Which type of international organizations can settle civil wars?," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 12(4), pages 613-641, December.
    11. Beth A. Simmons, 2002. "Capacity, Commitment, and Compliance," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 46(6), pages 829-856, December.
    12. Flores Thomas Edward, 2014. "Vertical Inequality, Land Reform, and Insurgency in Colombia," Peace Economics, Peace Science, and Public Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 20(1), pages 5-31, January.
    13. Daniel Krcmaric, 2018. "Varieties of civil war and mass killing," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 55(1), pages 18-31, January.
    14. Alexander B. Downes, 2007. "Restraint or Propellant? Democracy and Civilian Fatalities in Interstate Wars," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 51(6), pages 872-904, December.
    15. Christopher Pallas & Johannes Urpelainen, 2012. "NGO monitoring and the legitimacy of international cooperation: A strategic analysis," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 7(1), pages 1-32, March.
    16. Joakim Kreutz, 2012. "From Tremors to Talks: Do Natural Disasters Produce Ripe Moments for Resolving Separatist Conflicts?," International Interactions, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 38(4), pages 482-502, September.
    17. Philip Arena & Brian Hardt, 2014. "Incentives to Rebel, Bargaining, and Civil War," International Interactions, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 40(1), pages 127-141, January.
    18. Paul Collier & Anke Hoeffler, 2006. "Military expenditure in post-conflict societies," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 7(1), pages 89-107, January.
    19. Robert Brown, 2010. "Measuring Delegation," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 5(2), pages 141-175, June.
    20. Jiwon Lee, 2016. "Settlements in the Civil Wars of Myanmar and Sri Lanka: The Success, Failure and Deception of the Peace Process," Millennial Asia, , vol. 7(1), pages 63-76, April.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:pophec:v:10:y:2011:i:1:p:20-45. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.