Bradley, Miriam2024-05-132024-05-132022Bradley M. Five shades of grey: variants of ‘political’ humanitarianism. Disasters. 2022 Oc;46(4):1027-48. DOI: 10.1111/disa.125120361-3666http://hdl.handle.net/10230/60117Humanitarianism is a contested concept. Should humanitarian action seek to address only the symptoms of crises, or also their causes? Can humanitarian agencies best achieve their goals through a commitment to neutrality, or should they take a self-consciously political approach? This paper argues that debates about the desirability of more ambitious approaches to humanitarianism have been clouded by a lack of conceptual clarity. Showing that the perspective of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is not as apolitical as is often presented, and that so-called ‘political humanitarianism’ conflates four conceptually distinct ways of being political, the paper suggests that a black and white characterisation of approaches to humanitarianism as either political or apolitical is more accurately rendered as (at least) five shades of grey. Distinguishing the variants of ‘political’ humanitarianism matters, and the paper highlights how their conflation has marred normative debates on the desirability of different approaches.application/pdfengThis is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Bradley M. Five shades of grey: variants of ‘political’ humanitarianism. Disasters. 2022 Oc;46(4):1027-48. DOI: 10.1111/disa.12512, which has been published in final form at http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/disa.12512. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Use of Self-Archived Versions.info:eu-repo/semantics/articlehttp://dx.doi.org/10.1111/disa.12512Classical humanitarianismNew humanitarianismICRCNeutralityHumanitarian principlesPolitical humanitarianismConsequentialismDeontologySpeaking outState sovereigntyinfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess