Governing Humanitarians from Afar: Organizational Professionalism as a Disciplinary Mode of Control
Abstract
For many international humanitarian organizations (IHOs), the conduct of frontline professionals is central to their image and legitimacy. But how do IHOs control the behaviour of faraway staff? Drawing on sociology of professions and Foucauldian theories of power, this article analyses professionalization as a disciplinary means of governing staff through normalization, judgement, and observation. Offering a historical case study of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) based on archival research, it traces the emergence of professionalization reforms in the postwar period that hierarchized intra-organizational power relations while producing a gendered, racialized, nationalist, and classist internal professional order.
Fields of Study & Subjects
Global and Cross-Cultural Management
Peacebuilding and International Security
Management and Organizational Studies
Publication details
- Journal / source
- Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding
- Publisher
- Informa UK Limited
- Volume
- 20
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 502–523
- Publication date
- 3 February 2026
- Language
- EN