The Decisions in Between: A Humanitarian-Crisis Decision-Making Model (original) (raw)
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Why are some violent intrastate crises more likely to prompt humanitarian military interventions than others? States appear to intervene robustly in reaction to some internal conflicts, such as Kosovo, but withhold similar options in more intense conflict, as in Darfur. Much of the research on this ‘selectivity gap’ focuses on universal norms or geopolitical interests. I, however, argue that the selectivity of these interventions is a product of regional variations interacting with conflict perceptions. This paper introduces a dataset of almost 1000 observations of intrastate armed conflict between 1989 and 2014, paired with international military responses and non-responses, as well as an Intervention Index that accounts for the intensity of military interventions. I find that once a threshold of human suffering is met via the existence of an internal armed conflict, powerful states will intervene depending on whether the conflict occurs in the Western sphere of influence and wheth...