Beyond Good Intentions. The Role of Self-Interest in Humanitarian Interventions. Looking back to the Australian Intervention in East Timor
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.32870/mycp.v4i10.476Keywords:
humanitarian intervention, self-interest, decision-making, foreign policy, motives, sources of influenceAbstract
Humanitarian intervention (HI) became a prominent feature of International Relations (IR) in the aftermath of the Cold War, and it set up the basis of what later developed as the Responsibility to Protect (R2P). From an International Relations perspective, the underlying debate developed around the questionof was what provided the humanitarian character of an intervention. In that regard, little attention was paid to the role of self-interest in the decision-making processes leading to such interventions. This paper asks what are the crucial factors that explain when humanitarian emergencies actually lead to humanitarian interventions. It builds upon the frameworks developed by Snyder, Bruck and Sapin (1962), and Rosenau (1966), which categorize five sources of influence in foreign policy decision making external or global, societal, governmental, individual and role sources— to analyze an emblematic case of HI in the history of international relations, namely, the Australian-led intervention in East Timor. First, the paper looks at the theoretical explanations of HI. Secondly, the debate about the configuration of self-interest is reviewed. Next, the paper identifies the role that different sources played in the process that lead to hi. Finally, the decision making framework is applied to Australia’s intervention in East Timor.Downloads
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