IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/qmw/qmwecw/420.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

What is a "Complex Humanitarian Emergency"? An Analytical Essay

Author

Listed:
  • Jose Miguel Albala-Bertrand

    (Queen Mary, University of London)

Abstract

The prevailing usage of the concept of complex humanitarian emergency, even if valuable, is often fuzzy and misleading, and rarely articulated in a consistent framework, which could be used advantageously for research, interdisciplinary exchange, and policy making and analysis. We analyse critically the prevailing usage of the concept, and end up by setting up a more consistent and all embracing definition. Both the analysis and the proposed definition are based on a general analytical framework, coined disaster situation, we proposed a few years back in connection to natural disasters. The main conclusion is that the mostly implicit conceptual usage of the term, rather than the term itself, is akin to that of a disaster situation. As such, it can be used flexibly enough by various disciplines, especially from a political economy perspective, to design research, advance knowledge and propose policies within an analytical framework which is more consistent and systematic than that currently used.

Suggested Citation

  • Jose Miguel Albala-Bertrand, 2000. "What is a "Complex Humanitarian Emergency"? An Analytical Essay," Working Papers 420, Queen Mary University of London, School of Economics and Finance.
    • Handle: RePEc:qmw:qmwecw:420
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.qmul.ac.uk/sef/media/econ/research/workingpapers/2000/items/wp420.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Vayrynen, R., 1996. "The Age of Humanitarian Emergencies," Research Paper 25, World Institute for Development Economics Research.
    2. Nafziger, E.W. & Auvinen, J., 1997. "War, Hunger, and Displacement: An Econometric Investigation into the Sources of Humanitarian Emergencies," Research Paper 142, World Institute for Development Economics Research.
    3. Wayne Nafziger, 1996. "The Economics Of Complex Humanitarian Emergencies: Preliminary Approaches And Findings," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-1996-119, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    4. Wayne Nafziger & Juha Auvinen, 1997. "War, Hunger, and Displacement: An Econometric Investigation into the Sources of Humanitarian Emergencies," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-1997-142, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    5. Nafziger, E.W., 1996. "The Economics of Complex Humanitarian Emergencies: Preliminary Approaches and Findings," Research Paper 119, World Institute for Development Economics Research.
    6. J. M. Albala-Bertrand, 2000. "Complex Emergencies versus Natural Disasters: An Analytical Comparison of Causes and Effects," Oxford Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 28(2), pages 187-204.
    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. J. M. Albala-Bertrand, 2000. "Complex Emergencies versus Natural Disasters: An Analytical Comparison of Causes and Effects," Oxford Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 28(2), pages 187-204.

    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. Jose Miguel Albala-Bertrand, 2000. "What is a "Complex Humanitarian Emergency"? An Analytical Essay," Working Papers 420, Queen Mary University of London, School of Economics and Finance.
    2. J. M. Albala-Bertrand, 2000. "Complex Emergencies versus Natural Disasters: An Analytical Comparison of Causes and Effects," Oxford Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 28(2), pages 187-204.
    3. Wayne Nafziger & Juha Auvinen, 1997. "War, Hunger, and Displacement: An Econometric Investigation into the Sources of Humanitarian Emergencies," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-1997-142, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    4. Cornia, Giovanni Andrea & Mwabu, Germano, "undated". "Health Status and Health Policy in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Long-Term Perspective," WIDER Working Papers 295466, United Nations University, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    5. Elkanj, Nasser & Gangopadhyay, Partha, 2014. "Why is the Middle East burning? An historical analysis of the economic causes of conflicts from 1963 to 1999," International Journal of Development and Conflict, Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics, vol. 4(1), pages 35-48.
    6. Christopher Cramer, 1998. ""Civil War is Not a Stupid Thing": exploring growth, distribution and conflict linkages," Working Papers 73, Department of Economics, SOAS University of London, UK.
    7. Isaac Kalonda Kanyama, 2017. "Patterns and trends in horizontal inequality in the Democratic Republic of the Congo," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2017-151, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    8. AfDB AfDB, 2002. "Working Paper 38 - Health Development in Africa," Working Paper Series 2256, African Development Bank.
    9. Baten, Joerg & Mumme, Christina, 2013. "Does inequality lead to civil wars? A global long-term study using anthropometric indicators (1816–1999)," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 32(C), pages 56-79.
    10. Christopher Cramer, 2003. "Does inequality cause conflict?," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 15(4), pages 397-412.
    11. Isaac Kalonda Kanyama, 2017. "Patterns and trends in horizontal inequality in the Democratic Republic of the Congo," WIDER Working Paper Series 151, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    12. Germano Mwabu, 2002. "Working Paper 38 - Health Development in Africa," Working Paper Series 172, African Development Bank.
    13. AfDB AfDB, 2002. "Working Paper 38 - Health Development in Africa," Working Paper Series 2176, African Development Bank.
    14. Cramer, C., 2002. "Homo Economicus Goes to War: Methodological Individualism, Rational Choice and the Political Economy of War," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 30(11), pages 1845-1864, November.
    15. Sonali Deraniyagala, 2005. "The Political Economy of Civil Conflict in Nepal," Oxford Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 33(1), pages 47-62.
    16. Claude Berrebi & Jordan Ostwald, 2011. "Earthquakes, hurricanes, and terrorism: do natural disasters incite terror?," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 149(3), pages 383-403, December.
    17. William Reno, 1997. "Humanitarian Emergencies and Warlord Economies in Liberia and Sierra Leone," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-1997-140, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    18. Helen Barnes, 2005. "Conflict, Inequality and Dialogue for Conflict Resolution in Latin America: The Cases of Argentina, Bolivia and Venezuela," Human Development Occasional Papers (1992-2007) HDOCPA-2005-03, Human Development Report Office (HDRO), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
    19. repec:jle:journl:199 is not listed on IDEAS
    20. Claude Berrebi & Jordan Ostwald, 2013. "Exploiting the Chaos: Terrorist Target Choice Following Natural Disasters," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 79(4), pages 793-811, April.
    21. Andrew Worthington & Abbas Valadkhani, 2004. "Measuring the impact of natural disasters on capital markets: an empirical application using intervention analysis," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 36(19), pages 2177-2186.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Disaster situation; Complexity; Emergency; Institutional setting;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H56 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - National Security and War
    • O00 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - General - - - General
    • O17 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Formal and Informal Sectors; Shadow Economy; Institutional Arrangements
    • J15 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination
    • Z10 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - General

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:qmw:qmwecw:420. 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: Nicholas Owen (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/deqmwuk.html .

    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.