Localisation or deglobalisation? East Asia and the dismantling of liberal humanitarianism

Abstract

Among the 2016 World Humanitarian Summit outcomes, localisation of humanitarian aid has received the greatest amount of attention. Localisation is described as giving more support to national first respondents, making humanitarian aid ‘as local as possible, as international as necessary’. Despite the good intentions, localisation presents a biased understanding of the local and its agency in transforming humanitarianism. Not only is localisation a failed attempt to reconfigure the international humanitarian system power relations, dominated by Western actors, but also it glosses over the crucial role of the South in moulding the humanitarian action norm. In order to address the latter, the paper reviews the history of humanitarian action in East Asia as a case of norm circulation, showing how the region’s agency was essential to accommodate the foundations of liberal humanitarianism during the Cold War and, in the last two decades, to contest them. I argue that instead of localisation, a process of deglobalisation is taking shape in the region, based on increased national ownership of crisis response, privileging reciprocal, bilateral support over multilateral action, and legitimating the rejection of unnecessary support. These changes are pushing traditional humanitarian actors to rethink their practices, bringing much-needed change but also challenges.