Repression Without Resistance: Disaster Responses in Authoritarian Low-Intensity Conflict Settings

Based on a total of one year of qualitative fieldwork conducted on drought and flood responses in Ethiopia, Myanmar and Zimbabwe, engaging with state, civil society, community and international humanitarian actors, this PhD thesis confronts the uneasy relationship that disaster responders have with politics. Responding to disasters triggered by natural hazards is a deeply political process, but it is usually presented by practitioners, and sometimes even studied, as an apolitical endeavour. This is especially striking when disasters unfold in authoritarian and politically highly polarised low-intensity conflict (LIC) settings. The thesis details why a predominantly technocratic disaster response emerges, which form it takes, and with which implications. In doing so, it presents the case of the Ethiopian humanitarian theatre, with aid actors wearing, dropping and forgetting their masks; the case of non-state disaster responders socially navigating the Myanmar sea of political, social and humanitarian transitions and tensions to get relief towards ethnic and religious minorities; and the case of powerful actors strategically depoliticising disaster response in Zimbabwe, with less powerful actors rather coerced to do so, and the least powerful, community members, bearing the implications of it in their bodies and minds

Getting relief to marginalised minorities

Little academic research has examined the challenges humanitarian actors face or the strategies they develop in the increasingly numerous authoritarian and low-intensity conflict settings. Based on 4 months of qualitative fieldwork in Myanmar in 2017–2018, this article explores how civil society organisations, international nongovernmental organisations, international organisations, and donor agencies tried to provide relief to marginalised minorities in the ethnic States of Chin and Rakhine following Cyclone Komen in 2015. The study findings detail how civil society actors mobilised parallel minority and Christian networks and lobbied international actors to support disaster victims of Chin ethnicity. In Rakhine State, it was overwhelmingly international humanitarians who were able and willing to support Muslims, including the Rohingya. This increased tensions among community groups and between Myanmar and the international community. Particularly in the context of rising identity politics, humanitarian governance encompasses the governance of perceptions. Trade-offs between long-term acceptance and following humanitarian principles in aid allocation are largely unavoidable and must be carefully considered

Disaster Governance in Conflict-Affected Authoritarian Contexts: The Cases of Ethiopia, Myanmar, and Zimbabwe

Disaster governance in conflict areas is of growing academic concern, but most existing research comprises either single case studies or studies of a variety of country contexts that group all types of conflict together. Based on three case studies, this article offers a middle-ground scenario-based approach, focusing on disaster governance in authoritarian contexts experiencing low-intensity conflict. Low-intensity conflict is characterized by intense political tensions and violence that is more readily expressed in ways other than direct physical harm. Inspired by Olson’s (2000) maxim that disasters are intrinsically political, this article explores the politics of disaster response by asking what is at stake and what happened, unpacking these questions for state, civil society, and international humanitarian actors. Using data from a total of one year of qualitative fieldwork, the article analyzes disaster governance in 2016 drought-ridden Ethiopia, marked by protests and a State of Emergency; 2015 flooded Myanmar, characterized by explosive identity politics; and 2016–2019 drought-ridden Zimbabwe, with its intense socioeconomic and political turbulence. The study’s findings show how framing and power processes in disaster governance—comprising state and non-state actors—largely lean toward the state, with the consequence that political interests, rather than needs assessments, steer who and what will be protected from disaster impact

The humanitarian theatre

This article aims to rekindle the debate on the politics of aid in the increasingly common – yet still under-studied – authoritarian and low-intensity conflict settings, detailing the case of Ethiopia in 2016, when a 50-year drought coincided with a wave of protests and a state of emergency. During four months of qualitative fieldwork in 2017, state, civil society, Ethiopian and international actors were approached – from humanitarian headquarters to communities in the Amhara, Oromiya and Somali regions. Research participants relayed stark discrepancies between the humanitarian theatre's ‘frontstage’, where disaster responders showcase an exemplary response, and its ‘backstage’, where they remove their frontstage masks and reflect on the information, the decision-making monopoly of the state and the intrusion of conflict dynamics into the humanitarian response. In humanitarian research and in policy, a collective conversation is necessary on where to draw the line between respect for governments’ sovereignty and the intrusion of humanitarian principles

Humanitarian governance and resilience building: Ethiopia in comparative perspective

Humanitarian governance is usually understood according to the classic, Dunantist paradigm that accords central importance to international humanitarian agencies. However, this is increasingly paralleled by ‘resilience humanitarianism’ that focuses, among other things, on including national actors in humanitarian governance. This article views humanitarian governance as emerging through interactions between authorities, implementing agencies and communities. It is based on interactive ethnography in five countries by Partners for Resilience (PfR). Using the Theory of Change (ToC) tool, it analyses the various interpretations and priorities of actors involved in humanitarian problems, solutions and programme governance. For example, PfR had a ‘software’ focus, aiming to unlock communities’ potential for resilience, whereas communities and authorities preferred to receive tangible ‘hardware’ support. The findings highlight the crucial role of local authorities in shaping humanitarian aid. This is especially pertinent in view of the international agenda to localise aid, which requires the understanding and support of national actors in order to responsibly protect the vulnerable

Strengthening community resilience in conflict: learnings from the Partners for Resilience programme

This report describes the main findings and recommendations of research carried out for the Partners for Resilience (PfR) alliance on how the PfR programme is affected by – or may affect – conflict. Although PfR works in different conflict-affected countries and contexts, it does not address conflict or insecurity explicitly. This is potentially problematic for PfR’s effectiveness. It is therefore important to consider whether PfR could or should address conflict more explicitly. For this research, a qualitative analysis of the experiences within the ongoing PfR programme was conducted in all 10 countries: Ethiopia, Guatemala, Haiti, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Mali, Philippines, South Sudan, Uganda and the regional programmes in Asia, Africa and Central America. The research was conducted by consultants and researchers from the International Institute of Social Studies, the Hague. The core of the study consisted of an online survey, for which PfR staff and partners from all countries were invited, in addition to Skype interviews and a desk study. In all, 52 people participated. The overall recommendation for PfR is to address conflict more explicitly in its IRM approach and to integrate conflict in the design and programming of a new phase. This would entail acknowledgment by PfR that conflict is impacting the goals of PfR work, and a commitment to support and train staff in addressing conflict. More concretely, the report offers several recommendations and ideas for next steps. In line with suggestions of research participants, the key elements for conflict-sensitive programming for PfR partners are: 1. transparent communication towards all parties 2. facilitation of multi-stakeholder dialogues to increase parties’ understanding of conflict dynamics 3. the creation of a safe spaces for stakeholders. It is also suggested that Netherlands embassies play a role in addressing conflict and supporting PfR, for example by lobbying stakeholders and supporting partners financially or otherwise. Moreover, PfR should create a conflict-sensitivity toolbox and develop guidelines for conflict-sensitive and inclusive policy and programming (not just including women, but also ethnic minorities) and training for its worldwide staff in the use of conflict risk assessment tools. We believe that these steps will make the work of PfR more effective and decrease the risk that interventions feed into conflict. A more detailed set of recommendations feature at the end of this report

Patterns of Genome Evolution among the Microsporidian Parasites Encephalitozoon cuniculi, Antonospora locustae and Enterocytozoon bieneusi

Microsporidia are intracellular parasites that are highly-derived relatives of fungi. They have compacted genomes and, despite a high rate of sequence evolution, distantly related species can share high levels of gene order conservation. To date, only two species have been analysed in detail, and data from one of these largely consists of short genomic fragments. It is therefore difficult to determine how conservation has been maintained through microsporidian evolution, and impossible to identify whether certain regions are more prone to genomic stasis.Here, we analyse three large fragments of the Enterocytozoon bieneusi genome (in total 429 kbp), a species of medical significance. A total of 296 ORFs were identified, annotated and their context compared with Encephalitozoon cuniculi and Antonospora locustae. Overall, a high degree of conservation was found between all three species, and interestingly the level of conservation was similar in all three pairwise comparisons, despite the fact that A. locustae is more distantly related to E. cuniculi and E. bieneusi than either are to each other.Any two genes that are found together in any pair of genomes are more likely to be conserved in the third genome as well, suggesting that a core of genes tends to be conserved across the entire group. The mechanisms of rearrangments identified among microsporidian genomes were consistent with a very slow evolution of their architecture, as opposed to the very rapid sequence evolution reported for these parasites