A Systems Approach to Explaining the Movement of International Finance in Support of Humanitarian Action in Pakistan and Vanuatu 2007–2019
Creators: name: Hallwright, Joshua
Publisher: name: RMIT University
Year: 2024
Subjects: classificationCode: 440603
subject: Economic geography
classificationCode: 380110
subject: International economics
classificationCode: 440703
subject: Economic development policy

description: Humanitarian crises are increasing in both scale and complexity. Climate change is exacerbating the frequency and intensity of natural hazards, overexploitation of resources and expanding populations are placing intense pressure on ecosystems, compounding social tensions. Despite historical global humanitarian needs, there is significant evidence that we should expect more disasters, crises, and conflicts in the coming years. To be able to provide assistance to the millions of people affected by these humanitarian crises requires substantial funds; it is this humanitarian financing that is the subject of my research project.

The research problem pertains to those countries and contexts in which finances available domestically are insufficient to provide such assistance. Actors within such contexts then turn to resources available outside the national borders. A research problem is then how to explain the provision of such international resources, or lack thereof, in these lower-middle income countries.

My research question centres on the underlying causal mechanisms that can explain who provides the relevant international finance, through which mechanisms, to whom. I have focussed my research on the contexts with greater diversity in funding instruments, providers of finance, and receivers of the same finance: the lower-middle income countries which experience multiple disasters triggered by natural hazards. Specifically, the question I have sought to address through this research project is:

What explains the movement of the international finance used to resource responses to disasters triggered by natural hazards in lower-middle income countries?

I approach the research question by first establishing philosophical and theoretical underpinnings to ground my conceptual framework. This enables me to take a specific approach to the research problem and to defend the choices I made in doing so. After weaving critical realism with social systems thinking and understandings of social power, I defend the use of case study research as an appropriate method. Subsequently, I select two relevant cases to study based on specific criteria: Pakistan and Vanuatu between 2007 and 2019. The use of archival and financial data augmented with primary data collected through semi-structured interviews was chosen to ensure alignment between the nature of the objects studied and the methods used to study them

My principal argument is that the most appropriate explanation for the movement of international finance used to resource disaster responses in the two cases studied is one centred on different yet related aspects of social power. Noting that social power is a relation, systems thinking approaches help to reveal the importance of power as a relation in the analysis of humanitarian financing. This then suggests a secondary claim in that the international humanitarian and disaster risk financing system should
be re-framed in a new concept that encompasses the novel perspectives I elucidate: ‘financing for post-disaster assistance’.

I argue how the different ‘social power’ family members can help explain different aspects of the movement of international finance intended to support humanitarian action and disaster response activities. This includes hidden, invisible, and visible power, agency power, the exercise of power - power to and over - and the possession of power. Furthermore, I demonstrate the explanatory utility of episodic, dispositional, and systemic conceptions of social power.

In my principal argument, I show how the tension between different foundational ideologies of the international humanitarian and national disaster management systems impacts the movement of relevant international finance. I reveal how the systemic power of the humanitarian system embeds dispositional power with traditional actors and how notions of resistance power can help explain the emergence of non-traditional actors. Furthermore, I illustrate how the systemic power of the international financial system enables differential dispositional power, in part explaining the newer actors and relationships in both cases. Finally, I propose the influence of the 2007-08 Global Financial Crisis as a significant disruptor of the path dependency and equilibria of the established international humanitarian and disaster risk financing system.

There is both academic and policy significance to this thesis. This research contributes to new knowledge in four domains:
• Firstly, in positioning different yet related concepts of social power as the causal mechanisms shaping the movement of finance across national borders to enable assistance to communities affected by disasters in lower-middle income countries.
• Secondly, by the development of a specific critical realist and social systems conceptual framework, demonstrating their synergies and integrating the two parallel notions of social power.
• Thirdly, uniquely applying social systems concepts to the evolution of international humanitarian action in contrast to the established trend of treating its evolution as a sector rather than as a social system.
• Finally, in proffering novel insights into the development of the disaster management and financing systems of Pakistan and Vanuatu.

In addition to the academic contributions I have made, there are significant policy implications emerging from my research. These include opportunities to further explore non-grant based financial instruments used in the international financial system to resource responses to disasters. In addition, this thesis suggests a policy shift to redraw the boundaries of the humanitarian system, acknowledging the many local and informal actors that do respond to crises but are unable to receive appropriate financial support. I conclude with suggested areas for further research, based on some of the identified limitations of this thesis as well as research areas that would extend some of the claims I make throughout the thesis.