borrow Judith Shklar’s account of how political theory should explore such a
concept.^4
The thesis argues that such humanitarian debates are really discussions
about how best to honour our human identity, one among our many different
identities, through the elaboration of human solidarity, and follows Kwame Anthony
Appiah in observing that:
if we’re going to deal with identity, it’s reasonable to ask how large a part
these identities should play in our political lives, whether we take politics in
the narrow sense of our dealings with the state, or, more broadly, as our
dealings, in social life, with one another.^5The thesis thus examines the “politics of humanity” in this broadest sense of the
term, without neglecting the particular problems that arise from an international
political context still largely structured by states.
In this introductory chapter, I first situate my starting point in the
experiences and dilemmas of professional humanitarians, against other plausible
alternatives, as the most productive way to make sense of the concept of
humanitarianism. I then set out the reasons why professional humanitarianism is
currently understood as in crisis, and set out the contours of this crisis according to
ongoing discussions about its principles, politics and scope. I then question why
contemporary international political theory has yet fully to engage with this vital set
of issues, before setting out its potential to bring home the importance of a better
understanding of the “politics of humanity”.
4
In her case the particular concept at stake was injustice, which will be examined in
Chapter 5. Judith N. Shklar, 5 The Faces of Injustice (London: Yale University Press, 1990), 50.
Kwame Anthony Appiah, "The Politics of Identity", Daedalus 135, no. 4 (2006): 17. Appiah
usefully elaborates as follows: “I count seven different ways in which I’ve said that you
might speak of ‘identity politics.’ (1) There are political conflicts about who’s in and who’s
out. (2) Politicians can mobilize identities. (3) States can treat people of distinct identities
differently. (4) People can pursue a politics of recognition. (5) There can be a social
micropolitics enforcing norms of identification. (6) There are inherently political identities
like party identifications. And (7) social groups can mobilize to respond collectively to all of
the above.” Appiah, "The Politics of Identity": 22. For two particularly elegant accounts of
the politics of identity, see Amin Maalouf, Les Identités Meurtrières (Paris: Grasset, 1998).
Amartya Sen, Identity and Violence: The Illusion of Destiny (London: W.W. Norton &
Company, 2006).