From Kosovo to Darfur: The Regional Biases within Humanitarian Military Interventionism
From Kosovo to Darfur: The Regional Biases within Humanitarian Military Interventionism
by Sidita Kushi
University of Michigan Press, 2025
ISBNs
Cloth: 978-0-472-07744-1
Paper: 978-0-472-05744-3
eISBN: 978-0-472-90503-4 (OA)
About the Book
Why are some violent crises more likely to prompt humanitarian military interventions than others? Conventional wisdom says that humanitarian military interventions occur due to national interests, shared values and norms, or economic benefits for the interveners. Yet neither of these factors can fully explain the selectivity of such interventions. The international community continues to ignore the decades-long suffering in Darfur, often dismisses the genocidal policies within Myanmar, and even perpetuates the suffering in contemporary Yemen, while undertaking humanitarian-laden missions in Libya, Syria, and the Balkans.
Using in-depth case studies and new data on all post–Cold War internal armed conflicts matched to third-party responses, From Kosovo to Darfur offers the first regionally sensitive analysis of humanitarian military intervention since the end of the Cold War. It shows that international military interventions in the context of acute humanitarian crises are driven by different pathways within the Western versus the non-Western world and fueled by elite perceptions of the crisis, making interventions closer to the geographic and cultural West most probable and most intense. As our international community becomes increasingly interdependent and aware of human suffering across borders, From Kosovo to Darfur points to new pathways of conflict trajectories and reveals vital implications for leaders, scholars, and nongovernmental actors advocating for or against international military intervention as a policy choice.
Using in-depth case studies and new data on all post–Cold War internal armed conflicts matched to third-party responses, From Kosovo to Darfur offers the first regionally sensitive analysis of humanitarian military intervention since the end of the Cold War. It shows that international military interventions in the context of acute humanitarian crises are driven by different pathways within the Western versus the non-Western world and fueled by elite perceptions of the crisis, making interventions closer to the geographic and cultural West most probable and most intense. As our international community becomes increasingly interdependent and aware of human suffering across borders, From Kosovo to Darfur points to new pathways of conflict trajectories and reveals vital implications for leaders, scholars, and nongovernmental actors advocating for or against international military intervention as a policy choice.
About the Author
Sidita Kushi is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Mount Holyoke College.
Reviews
“Sidita Kushi convincingly questions common assumptions in international relations about humanitarian military interventions, compiles valuable new data, and uncovers key evidence of how conflict perceptions change over time. Given the many policy challenges surrounding military interventions today, this book is an indispensable guide to what’s really at stake.”— Mai’a K. Davis Cross, Northeastern University
“From Kosovo to Darfur rips the veil off the clean-cut narratives of Western intervention, exposing the raw mechanics and hypocrisy of selective engagement and geopolitical convenience. The African Union, the Arab League—big names, bigger ambitions, but starved of the muscle and money to move beyond symbolic gestures, shackled by histories of plunder and the lingering ghosts of empire. This isn’t just another policy critique; it’s a hard-hitting piece of scholarly analysis making the case for shifting the balance, for injecting real power into regional institutions, for breaking the cycle of Western overreach and empty promises, and finally forging a world where crisis response isn’t just a game of who gets to play savior.”— Monica Duffy Toft, Tufts University
“From Kosovo to Darfur uses multiple methods to show that states intervene depending on whether the conflict occurs near the western neighborhood and whether it is cast as an identity-based civil war. It’s clearly organized and structured, the terminology is defined, and theoretical frameworks are cited and characterized to support the argument. This book would work well for syllabi at the undergraduate or graduate level.”— Sarah Kreps, Cornell University
"A much-needed analysis of humanitarian interventions that calls other scholars to expand on Kushi's research. Recommended for a general public interested in a more complex view on international relations than dominant narratives provide, and an essential purchase for academic libraries supporting international studies programs."— Annie Windholz, Library Journal
“[Kushi] asserts that, based on careful data analysis, a “threshold condition” of human rights within a country could result in internationally accepted military intervention…A worthy addition to the international relations literature. Summing Up: Recommended.”
— C. E. Welch, Choice“From Kosovo to Darfur works to fill a gap in existing literature on civil war and humanitarian intervention with regard to region. The strength of the book lies in its theoretical framework, and the case studies used to support the framework. It merges region with the global power hierarchy to identify areas of the world that are part of, or near, the ‘West’ in an interesting and valuable contribution to scholarship.”— Marie Olson Lounsbery, East Carolina University
Tags
Humanitarian intervention, Libya, Kosovo, Kosovo War 1998-1999, Darfur, Darfur Conflict 2003-, Security (National & International), Human Rights, International Relations, Case studies, Political Science, History
Open Access Information
License: CC BY-NC-ND
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