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About the HUMANITY Project

Examining how states respond to international humanitarian assistance in situations of armed conflict — and why these responses vary.

19
Conflict-affected countries
6
Response patterns identified
2
Original datasets
Overview

Why Do States Respond Differently?

HUMANITY examines how states respond to international humanitarian assistance in situations of armed conflict.

Some governments cooperate with aid organizations, while others obstruct, restrict, or instrumentalize them. The project seeks to explain why these variations occur, by developing a comparative typology of state responses and identifying the conditions that shape them.

Research Objectives

T

Typology

Identify and classify distinct patterns of state response to international humanitarian assistance.

E

Explanatory Conditions

Analyse political, institutional, and diplomatic conditions associated with different response patterns.

C

Configurational Analysis

Examine how combinations of conditions produce cooperation, control, or confrontation.

Conceptual Framework

Sovereignty as a Dynamic Process

The project views sovereignty as a dynamic and socially constructed process rather than a fixed principle.

Through this lens, HUMANITY identifies recurring patterns of state engagement with humanitarian actors, including administrative gatekeeping, coercive control, symbolic cooperation, conditional partnership, normative regulation, and developmental integration.

Methodology

Mixed-Methods Comparative Design

HUMANITY adopts a mixed-methods comparative design combining:

  • Large-scale document analysis of UN and international NGO reports to identify recurring patterns
  • Fuzzy-Set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) across 19 ongoing non-international armed conflicts
  • Interviews with aid workers from UN agencies, international NGOs, and the ICRC
  • Original datasets including the Sovereign Rupture Index measuring political fragmentation and coercive governance in humanitarian action
Conceptual Framework

Patterns of State Engagement

Six recurring patterns identified through which states engage with international humanitarian actors

🚪

Administrative Gatekeeping

Bureaucratic control over access, registration, and operational permissions

⚡

Coercive Control

Direct interference through force, arrests, or expulsion of humanitarian actors

🤝

Symbolic Cooperation

Public endorsement of humanitarian principles without substantive engagement

📋

Delegated Implementation

State claims leadership while structurally delegating implementation and resources to international actors

⚖️

Normative Regulation

Moral or ideological regulation of humanitarian activities and personnel

🏛️

Developmental Integration

Embedding humanitarian functions within national development frameworks

Outputs

Expected Outputs

Monograph

Humanity and Sovereignty

Journal Articles

Peer-reviewed publications and a policy brief

Open Datasets

Shared via Figshare and this website

Conference

Convening researchers and practitioners

Impact

Advancing Understanding and Practice

The project's findings contribute to scholarship, policy, and frontline humanitarian operations.

📚

Academic Contribution

Advance understanding of the politics of humanitarianism and sovereignty in conflict settings.

📊

Policy & Operations

Inform strategies for humanitarian organizations and UN agencies working in contested environments.

🌍

Principled Action

Contribute to more effective and principled humanitarian action in conflict-affected areas.

Institutional Context
The University of Manchester

Hosted at HCRI, University of Manchester

Hosted at the Humanitarian and Conflict Response Institute (HCRI), University of Manchester, and supervised by Dr Miriam Bradley.

HUMANITY draws on HCRI's world-leading expertise in humanitarian studies and its network of partnerships bridging research and field practice.

Funding
Funded by the European Union

EU Funding Acknowledgement

HUMANITY is funded by the European Union's Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship (Grant Agreement No. 101206070).

Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Research Executive Agency (REA). Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.