Published online by Cambridge University Press: 19 October 2009
Many theories of international relations contain a narrative of progress and explain that progress with reference to evolutionary imagery. This article examines critically: the relevance of Darwinian and Lamarckian models of international relations to the evolution of international ethics and institutions; and the possibility that the ethics and norms are likely to be more consistent with existing world orders than challengers to it. Specifically, this article draws from evolutionary social science and organizational theory to develop a framework to explore the initial diversity of the meaning and practices of humanitarianism; how the combination of environmental mechanisms and organizational culture led many humanitarian agencies to adapt to their environment in ways that incorporated politics; and the subsequent countermovement by some agencies who wanted to purify humanitarianism. I then apply this framework to explain the recent history of four international aid agencies. I conclude with several observations regarding how the model as applied to these cases allows us to examine critically the selection mechanisms that do and do not account for ethical change and how scholars of international norms, ethics, and progress should be attentive to how principled actors are creatures of the world they want to transform.
To send this article to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about sending to your Kindle. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save this article to your Dropbox account, please select one or more formats and confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you used this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your Dropbox account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save this article to your Google Drive account, please select one or more formats and confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you used this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your Google Drive account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.