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This article considers changing views on disasters and disaster-affected communities and their translation into global disaster management and therapeutic governance of communities. The article discusses how Western views shifted from optimistic sociological approaches to human agency in disasters to pessimistic ecological models of human pathology in disasters. I particularly draw upon changing frameworks of communal meaning among the British, which have both reflected and influenced changing international disaster approaches and responses to crises in the developing world. Traditional humanitarianism treated emergencies as of being caused by natural disasters and the community as innocent victims. The recipient community in international aid was therefore not portrayed as culpable, but it was infantilised. In the last two decades a new humanitarianism has emerged around the concept of complex emergencies, which problematises affected communities as requiring therapeutic governance to break the vicious cycles of psychosocial dysunction. Adapted from the source document.

The article considers efforts to eradicate corporal punishment as an aspect of the global governance of childhood and raises problems relevant to global governance more broadly. The article analyses contradictions in children's rights advocacy between its universal human rights norms and implicit relativist development model. Children's rights research is influenced by social constructivist theories, which highlight the history of childhood and childhood norms. Earlier social constructivist studies identified the concept of childhood underpinning the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) as a Western construction based on Western historical experiences, which excluded the experiences of childhood in developing countries. More recent social constructivist approaches emphasise how childhood norms are constructed and therefore can be reconstructed. The article outlines problems with attempts to globalise childhood norms without globalising material development. The article discusses the softening of discipline norms in Western societies historically. It indicates problems with children's rights advocacy seeking to eradicate the corporal punishment of children globally without globalising the material conditions, which underpin the post-industrial ideal of childhood embodied in the CRC.

Abstract: The chapter explores continuities in modern British humanitarianism at its birth two hundred years ago and today. Modern British humanitarianism arose out of the contradictions between humanist ideals, expanding social sympathies, and fears of radical political change following the French Revolution. Its development was strongly influenced by middle class evangelical reform circles, exemplified by the abolitionist William Wilberforce. The chapter argues that British humanitarianism today follows Wilberforce's conservative humanitarian tradition and his anti-progressive views. A final proofed version of this paper was published as a chapter:- Vanessa Pupavac (2010) 'Between Compassion and Conservatism: A Genealogy of British Humanitarian Sensibilities', in Didier Fassin and Mariella Pandolfi (eds) States of Emergency: Anthropology of Military and Humanitarian Intervention. New York: Zone Books (distributed by MIT Press), pp. 47-77.

Critics of global governance have been influenced by Foucault's analysis of modern total institutions disciplining both the mind and the body. However, Foucauldian biopolitics may present global governance too smoothly. This article takes critiques arguing that consumer capitalism's divorce from industrial production encourages romantic understandings of global problems and applies them to development aspects of the development—security nexus. It discusses three influential economists each of whose work is emblematic of consumer capitalism's international development vision at particular historical junctures. The article outlines how Rostow's The Stages of Economic Growth, arising during the postwar economic growth boom, envisages developing countries becoming consumer societies at the highest stage of development, but also anticipates consumer society's romantic critiques of modernity. It next examines Schumacher's Small Is Beautiful and his Buddhist economics, arising in the post-Bretton Woods crisis period, as symptomatic of re-emerging romantic critiques of society. Finally, it discusses Sen's human development approach as a market romance illustrating consumer capitalism's individual-orientated development strategies. The article concludes that the contemporary development romance addresses neither people's basic needs nor their aspirations, and it problematizes global governance's ability to secure and govern populations.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) was founded in 1948 with a remit to promote public health around the world. The WHO's constitution sets out its objective as 'the attainment by all peoples of the highest possible level of health' (WHO, 1948). The paper raises broad questions over the aspirations and practice of international health policy in its international political and development context. The paper explores how international health policy has been informed by evolving international development strategies, from the earlier modernisation approaches to the sustainable development approaches of recent decades. The final part considers international health policy today in a world of continuing international inequalities.

AbstractMost studies of how refugees are represented focus on negative media representations. Less attention has been paid to sympathetic counter-representations. This article explores the representations preferred by refugee advocacy organizations and how they tend to exclude the mass of ordinary refugees and the difficult arguments required to defend refugee rights. The article outlines the rise of the health paradigm for understanding the conditions of refugees. The contemporary representation of refugees as traumatized victims is inspired by compassion. However, the trauma framework implies impaired capacity and the need for individuals to surrender their welfare to expert authorities. The article argues that casting refugees in the sick role risks compromising their rights. The article is informed by the writing of the sociologist Talcott Parsons on the sick role and the philosopher Hannah Arendt on refugees.

Pupavac examines the rise of linguistic human rights advocacy and its approach in a case study of language politics in the post-Yugolav states. A core concern of contemporary linguistic rights advocacy has been to tackle ethnically based discrimination and promote ethnic diversity. It does not only seek to prevent states from discriminating against those who speak minority languages. It expects states to take positive steps to preserve their diversity of languages. However strategies affirming distinct linguistic identities may become complicit in perpetuating ethnic discrimination and ethnic divisions, as is evident in the language politics of the post-Yugoslav states.

This article discusses the dilemmas of humanitarian advocacy in the contemporary world. First the article considers the crisis of humanitarianism within the wider crisis of meaning in international politics which encouraged humanitarian advocacy. Humanitarian advocacy in the last fifteen years has drawn attention to how humanitarian crises have been precipitated by state policies and has sought international intervention to protect people. Accordingly humanitarian advocacy has become associated with challenging the national sovereignty of the developing state. However rather than the strong sovereign state lying behind today's humanitarian crises, the article contends that the weak state is the problem. The article suggests that the existing humanitarian advocacy paradigm risks legitimising further erosion of weak states. Humanitarian advocacy has arguably complimented neoliberal economic policies hollowing out the developing state and abandoning national development. The article concludes that humanitarian advocacy should prioritise reasserting the importance of humanitarian relief without conditionality and how to regain humanitarian access on the basis of consent.A later revised and proofed version of this article was published as follows :-Vanessa Pupavac (2006) 'The politics of emergency and the demise of the developing state: problems for humanitarian advocacy.' Development in Practice, Special Issue on Current Issues in International Humanitarianism, Vol. 16, Nos. 3&4, June, 2006, pp. 255-269 (first article in special issue). Article reprinted in Tony Vaux (ed.) Development and Humanitarianism: Some Practical Issues. Bloomfield: Kumarian Press, 2007, pp. 27-49.