The power of the state is important when analyzing the interaction between humanitarian aid organizations and the state they are attempting to serve. There are numerous examples of how state power has the potential to limit or inhibit the roles of humanitarian agencies within a country. By having a secure, legitimate government in place, the state can facilitate an efficient aid effort by a non-governmental organization such as the Red Cross. On the other hand, a corrupt or ineffective state government can hinder the ability of a humanitarian organization to quickly access, assess, and allocate aid properly within a country.
For example, U.S. familiarity with the Red Cross, and ability to provide a secure arena for aid, meant that the aid efforts during the recent California fires were exceptionally streamlined. However, in many countries worldwide where the state is either weak or corrupt, there is often interference with aid efforts. In Afghanistan, the Red Cross is trying to help the large number of people who are being displaced to to spreading hostilities between security forces (both Afghan and international) and the armed opposition. This problem is aggravated by the intensely cold weather which is causing further displacement, especially in the mountains. However, the Red Cross has less access within the country than ever before and is finding it increasingly hard to assess displaced people in order to help them. Since Afghanistan is currently struggling with two of the components which characterize a strong state, a stable population and a government to which the population shows allegiance, it is unable to facilitate the humanitarian aid which the Red Cross wishes to offer. The same problem is occurring in Kenya after the January post-election crisis. The extreme impact of the state’s power and stability on the workings of the Red Cross seems to support the realist perspective that the state is truly an autonomous actor in the international system, and without its support humanitarian organizations cannot hope to be effective.
A different kind of problem is occurring in North Korea, where the government controls food distribution and will not allow humanitarian agencies to moniter or evaluate relief efforts within the state. The government does not want citizens whom it considers disloyal to receive aid, and therefore it will not allow NGO’s to assess who is most in need. For this reason, the United States is no longer providing food aid to North Korea until the regime complies with the same distribution and monitering standards used elsewhere in the world. Providing food aid through the World Food Programme was a form of diplomacy between the U.S. and North Korea, but it seems that the world’s superpower has abandoned that diplomacy in an effort to uphold humanitarian principles. The corruption of the North Korean government made it impossible for relief agencies to effectively follow these principles within the state. According to realists, the government’s power is the main determinant of whether or not humanitarian aid efforts within that state will be successful. These examples of the problems relief agencies have in dealing with corrupt or unstable governments seem to provide evidence for that perspective.
