What motivates states to assist other countries in need? Focusing on Chinese, Russian, and American decisions about COVID-19 aid, this book illuminates the role of historically contingent ideas in donors decisions. Drawing on the theoretical insights of the critical geopolitics tradition, it advances and tests explanations for aid-related decisions on a novel global dataset of COVID-19 aid. Rigorously theorized, meticulously researched, and accessibly written, this book illuminates the ways in which China and Russia seek to reshape the humanitarian field consistent with their geopolitical visions. Their competition with the US over approaches to aid has weakened the integrity of humanitarian system.
Acknowledgements
List of Figures, Tables and Maps
Introduction
1 Why Understanding States Motives for Humanitarian Assistance Is
Important?
2 Argument in a Nutshell
3 Methods and Evidence
4 Overview of the Book
1 Critical Geopolitics Perspective on Humanitarian Assistance
1 Taking the Stock of Knowledge on Humanitarian Aid
2 Humanitarianism as a Geopolitical Discourse: Alternative Geopolitical
Logics for Humanitarian Assistance
3 Contestations Over the Conceptual Architecture of Global Humanitarian
Regime
2 Chinas COVID-19 Humanitarianism: an Aid Model Rooted in the State-Centered
Logic of Development Assistance
1 Background on Chinas Humanitarianism
2 Elements of Chinas Geopolitical Logic about Humanitarian Assistance
3 Where Did China Send Its COVID-19 Aid and Why
4 Statistical Analysis of Chinas COVID-19 Assistance
3 Russias COVID-19 Aid Opportunism
1 Historical Background on Russias Humanitarian Aid
2 The Elements of Russias Geopolitical Logic for Humanitarian Aid
3 Analysis of Russias COVID-19 Allocations
4 Geopolitical, Geoeconomic, and Humanitarian Considerations for COVID-19
Assistance by the United States
1 Background on American Humanitarian Assistance
2 The Universalizing Logic of the US Humanitarian Assistance
3 US COVID-19 Assistance
4 Analysis of US Covid-19 Assistance
5 Global Geopolitics of Vaccine Distribution
1 Vaccine Humanitarianism
2 Chinas COVID-19 Vaccine Assistance
3 Russias COVID-19 Vaccine Assistance
4 US COVID-19 Vaccine Assistance
Conclusion
1 Overview of Findings
2 Ways Forward
3 Lessons for the Traditional Donors
References
Index
Mariya Y. Omelicheva, Ph.D. (2007), is Professor of Strategy at National War College, National Defense University. She is the author of Webs of Corruption: Trafficking-Terrorism Nexus in Central Asia (Columbia University Press, 2019, with Lawrence Markowitz), Democracy in Central Asia: Competing Perspectives and Alternate Strategies (University Press of Kentucky, 2015) and Counterterrorism Policies in Central Asia (Routledge, 2011) and over a hundred peer-reviewed articles.
Brittnee Carter, Ph.D. (2017), is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Kansas. She has published many articles in the areas of international security, foreign policy, and terrorism studies.
