To (or not to) intervene: social constructivist approach to US humanitarian intervention in Libya and non-intervention in Syria

Munawar Hussain; Taimur Khan; Shabir Mohsin Hashmi

doi:10.47264/idea.lassij/6.1.13

Authors

Munawar Hussain Area Study Center for South-North America and Africa, Quaid-e-Azam University (QAU), Islamabad, Pakistan.
Taimur Khan Area Study Center for South-North America and Africa, Quaid-e-Azam University (QAU), Islamabad, Pakistan | National Institute of Pakistan Studies (NIPS), Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad, Pakistan. https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0456-5220
Shabir Mohsin Hashmi BRI Research Centre, Yancheng Institute of Technology, Yancheng, Jiangsu, China. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3718-4777

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.47264/idea.lassij/6.1.13

Keywords:

R2P, responsibility to protect, international community, non-intervention, social constructivism, institutional structures, international actors, real politic

Abstract

The significant development in international relations after 1991 and the end of the Cold War is humanitarian intervention. It symbolizes the self-driven evolution of a state's normative structure and conducts in the global system. Theoretical framework, which educates us about the structure and actors of the international system, has been used by international relations experts to attempt to provide an explanation. As a theory of international relations, social constructivism does an excellent job of describing and explaining the phenomenon of humanitarian intervention in world politics. To comprehend humanitarian interventions, this study first grasps how nations' changing interests impact their conduct when intervening in humanitarian causes. It provides information about US engagement in the situations of Libya and Syria. Although the two situations were of a similar type, the US's reasons for intervening were very different. The same is true for the responses of the global community, which varied as a result of various identities and interests. For instance, we see Russia actively opposing US influence in Syria and responding only lukewarmly to US influence in Libya. Why do they behave differently? Constructivists hold that identity influences a state's interests and can also change perception, which results in altered behaviour

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