On 23 September 2016, Lukas Schemper defended his PhD dissertation in International History, entitled “Humanity Unprepared: International Organization and the Management of Natural Disaster (1921–1991)”, at the Graduate Institute. Assistant Professor Amalia Ribi Forclaz presided the committee, which included Professor Davide Rodogno, Thesis Director, and Professor Bertrand Taithe, from the University of Manchester. Mr Schemper finds that in terms of funding and political will, disaster management and in particular disaster prevention have always got the short end of the stick in the history of humanitarianism. When there was indeed urgency to act, states often preferred bilateral over multilateral forms of disaster management, and international organisations preferred to remain in charge of their relief operations rather than being coordinated from above. These dynamics contributed to the emergence of an international governance of natural disaster that is uneven and fragmented.
What made you choose your research topic?
I was startled by the fact that virtually after every large international relief operation for victims of disaster, such as the ones after the 2010 Haiti earthquake or the 2015 Nepal earthquake, negative reports about the shortcomings of international aid – regarding its delivery and coordination – make the headlines. As soon as relief workers return to their headquarters, their organisations reflect on the way they delivered aid and ask themselves if their action was as efficient as they, but also even more importantly their donors, expected it to be. Since times as early as the Messina earthquake of 1908, the need to improve the coordination of disaster relief has become a true mantra. Coordination with the government of the stricken state, coordination with local communities, coordination with international and national NGOs, coordination of units and staff within the same organisation, coordination between the emergency and the reconstruction phases, and so on. So when I began my project, I started off with a rather naive question: If international humanitarian actors keep referring to “better coordination” after disasters and if there seems to be consensus that coordination is “good”, why are there still obstacles to implementing their ideas and recommendations? This is how I became interested in the history of this issue. Of course, a crisis situation implies unforeseen elements, so one can safely assume that something like “perfect disaster management” does not exist. From a sociology-of-organisation point of view, there will always be room for improvement as well.
So why is coordination so hard to achieve?
One important conclusion that I draw is that disaster management is a field of international governance that was only slowly put into place over the twentieth century. The origins of ideas for better coordination and preparation both in international disaster relief and disaster prevention were variably of local, national, transnational, colonial or postcolonial nature. Thematically, they could relate to developments in humanitarianism, science/expertise or politics/diplomacy. To give but one example, the International Relief Union can be analysed in connection with the humanitarian and rights-based developments of the post–World War I period. However, it also can be linked to the history of geography in the first quarter of the twentieth century and the aspiration to master the earth scientifically through standardisation, the establishment of observatories and the normalisation of its instruments in form of bibliographies and inventories.
Despite a great number of theoretical ideas on how to improve international disaster management, the internationalisation and institutionalisation of this issue was an irregular process. For example, between 1945 and 1971 no international organisation for disaster relief existed, because the focus was first on war-related reconstruction and later on development work, to which disaster was at best considered a nuisance. At times, when organisations did put disaster management on their agenda, collaboration with other organisation was often difficult due to programmatic and bureaucratic divergences. Different conceptions of humanitarianism (chauvinist versus internationalist, charity versus governmental, faith-based versus neutral) made collaborations difficult; so did inter-agency competition and problems of organisational hierarchies. Governments also frequently refused to participate in multilateral forms of disaster management. While some states such as Italy, Japan, Turkey or Switzerland were usually supportive of such schemes – either because of their humanitarian tradition or because of their exposure to natural disaster – the United States, the Soviet Union or the United Kingdom tended to be more sceptical. They claimed to be able to deal with disasters on their own, both nationally and internationally.
Can you give us an example showing the applicability of your research?
My research is not policy oriented. Its purpose is not, for example, to tell humanitarian actors how to improve disaster relief coordination. However, there is a deficit of historical consciousness in the humanitarian world. This deficit is even bigger when institutions have been disbanded or underwent transformations, as it is the case in my thesis. Communities of knowledge tend to be limited and staff turnover is often high, making the creation of collective memory difficult. Thus, when humanitarian organisations or “entrepreneurs” come up with “new” ideas, such as global disaster insurance or “relief armies”, they often are not aware that these ideas already have a history. If they were, they might be able to put into place more informed policies. This is an aspect to which my thesis can potentially contribute.
Tell us about your doctoral experience.
Scientifically, the greatest difficulty of the PhD project was to cover such a large historical period and a variety of themes. If you write a transnational history of international organisations, it takes time to understand the national contexts of each period from which ideas and individuals emanate. Archives of international organisations also pose specific challenges. Very often documents are anonymous and it is hard to read them “against the grain”. At times, the risk exists of writing a boring institutional history.
On a personal level, a PhD project requires both enthusiasm and discipline. You are easily misled by the idea that the more you work, the sooner you will have a final result, when in truth non-stop work benefits neither your wellbeing nor the quality of your work. It is important to keep a balance between your academic and your private life. But done rightly, writing a PhD can be a fascinating, creative and enriching process. The Graduate Institute is an intellectually stimulating environment and Geneva was the perfect place to write a thesis on this particular topic as most relevant international organisations are based here. I also benefited from visiting fellowships at Columbia University, Oxford University and Sciences Po Paris to carry out research related to the thesis.
Is there a continuity between your research and what you now plan to do?
The advantage of writing history spanning several decades and issues is that in my postdoctoral career I will be able to build on that. I have several ideas for articles dealing with specific aspects of the thesis such as disaster insurance or the “right to relief”. I do not feel that my PhD topic is “exhausted”, which is quite good news.
Full citation of the thesis: Schemper, Lukas. “Humanity Unprepared: International Organization and the Management of Natural Disaster (1921–1991)”. PhD thesis, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, 2016.