Race and the Responsibility to Protect

• In Event: Race and the Crisis of the Liberal International Order

Abstract

The Responsibility to Protect (R2P), a collective commitment to atrocity prevention, is selectively applied toward African societies. Despite this pattern, little is known about how race shapes international intervention. I argue that invocation of R2P betrays an anti-Black bias wherein state capacity—not crime or human casualty —explains the decision to intervene. Perceptions of race and capacity for self-rule are bidirectional. That is, implicit associations between the two concepts occur when one evokes the other within the larger social context of which they are a part. The stereotype of Black populations as “deficient” and in need of assistance or corrective action is so embedded within the doctrine of intervention that mere mention of capacity as a condition of R2P activates this underlying trope. I demonstrate my argument by comparing deliberations over South Sudan with those concerning Myanmar. I show that while perceptions of both crises were racialized, the UN Security Council cited R2P over abuses in South Sudan, attributing its failure to protect with a lack of will and capacity. To address empirical differences between cases, I examine R2P cross-nationally by matching R2P- treated and control groups on characteristics that likely shape intervention. Using UN resolutions and existing data, I measure the relationship between state capacity and the decision to intervene. The results suggest that R2P is more likely invoked when state capacity is low and when a country is perceived majority-Black. This study holds implications for understanding race and the rhetoric of responsibility in international intervention.

Author

• Bianca Freeman, University of California, San Diego