Faculty Publications

In promoting and publicizing new work on humanitarian assistance, HAI aims to deepen understanding of this critical area of foreign policy among scholars, students, and the broader public. Our faculty publish in leading academic journals, prestigious presses, and contribute regularly to public commentary in notable media outlets.

Books

Deloffre, Maryam Z. and Sigrid Quack. (2025) A Relational Approach to NGOs in Global Politics: Beyond cooperation and competition. Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press.

Rafanelli, Lucia M. (2021) Promoting Justice Across Borders: The Ethics of Reform Intervention. New York: Oxford University Press.

Barnett, Michael N. (2020) Humanitarianism and Human Rights: A World of Differences?. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Potts A, Kolli A, Hedge E, Ullman C. Empowered Aid: Participatory Action Research with Refugee Women & Girls to Better Prevent Sexual Exploitation and Abuse—Uganda Results Report. Washington, DC: The George Washington University and Uganda.

Journal Articles

Deloffre, Maryam Z. (2025). “Brokering Localization: Country-based Pooled Funds in Humanitarian Assistance.” Public Administration and Development.

Feldman, Ilana, and Sarah L. Richardson. “Life-Making Under Humanitarian Law.” Annual Review of Law and Social Science 21 (2025).

Feldman, Ilana. “What UNRWA Teaches Us about Humanitarian Histories.” Jerusalem Quarterly 94 (June 1, 2023): 65.

Westendorf, Jasmine-Kim; Bian, Junru; Daigle, Megan; Potts, Alina; Jennings, Kathleen; Reddick, Moira; Cecil Massonneau, Carl; Gamhewage, Gaya; and Esam Mahmoud, Mohamed. (2024). "Sexual Exploitation, Abuse and Harassment in Humanitarian Contexts." Bulletin of the World Health Organization 102, no. 12 (2024): 888–894.

Deloffre, Maryam Zarnegar, (2022). “The Power of Doing: Constitutive Steering Practices and the Making of Steering Committees,” in The Why and How of Global Governors: Relational Agency in World Politics, International Studies Review, 24:4.

Rafanelli, Lucia, (2022). “Justice, Injustice, and Artificial Intelligence: Lessons from Political Theory and Philosophy,” Big Data and Society.

Potts, Alina with Loujine Fattal and Harriet Kolli (2022). “Engaging refugee women and girls as experts: co-creating evidence on sexual exploitation and abuse in humanitarian crises using creative, participatory methods” (2022: Evidence & Policy: A Journal of Research, Debate and Practice).

Barnett, Michael (2022). “Humanitarianism’s New Business Model.” Public Anthropologist 4, no. 2 (October 17, 2022): 233–259.

Deloffre, Maryam Zarnegar (2021). “Metagovernance Norms and Polycentricity in Global Humanitarian Governance.” International Studies Review.

Hor, Amoz JY (2021). “The everyday emotional lives of aid workers: How humanitarian anxiety gets in the way of meaningful local participation.” International Theory. 1-30.

Khardori, Amit (2021). “What Does the State Owe to Its People? Toward a ‘Responsibility to Develop,'” 46 BYU L. Rev. 1027 (2021).

Barada, R.; Potts, A.; Bourassa, A.; Contreras-Urbina, M.; Nasr, K. (2021) “I Go up to the Edge of the Valley, and I Talk to God”: Using Mixed Methods to Understand the Relationship between Gender-Based Violence and Mental Health among Lebanese and Syrian Refugee Women Engaged in Psychosocial Programming. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2021, 18, 4500.

Potts, Alina, Rassil Barada and Angela Bourassa (2021) “GBV and mental health among refugee and host community women in Lebanon,” Forced Migration Review, 66: March.

Pereira A, Peterman A, Neijhoft AN, Buluma R, Daban RA, Islam A, Kainja ETV, Kaloga IF, Kheam T, Johnson AK, Maternowska MC, Potts A, Rottanak C, Samnang C, Shawa M, Yoshikawa M, Palermo, T. (2020) “Disclosure, reporting and help seeking among child survivors of violence: A Cross-Country Analysis. BMC Public Health 20: 1051“.

Maternowska M.C., Fry D., Potts A., Casey T. (2020) “Beyond Risk Factors: Structural Drivers of Violence Affecting Children” In: Balvin N., Christie D. (eds) Children and Peace. Peace Psychology Book Series. Springer, Cham.

Rafanelli, Lucia (2020) “Toward an Individualist Postcolonial Cosmopolitanism,” contribution to a symposium on Adom Getachew’s Worldmaking After Empire: The Rise and Fall of Self-Determination (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2019), Millennium: Journal of International Studies.

Van Geldera N, Peterman A, Potts A, O’Donnell M, Thompson K, Shah N, Oertelt-Prigionea S. (2020) “COVID-19: Reducing the risk of infection might increase the risk of intimate partner violence“. EClinicalMedicine 21: 100348.

Rafanelli, Lucia (2019) “Promoting Justice Across Borders,” Political Studies.

Book Chapters

Barnett, Michael N. (2025) “Hierarchy in Humanitarian Governance,” Hierarchies and Exclusion in Humanitarianism, ed. Clara Egger, Manchester University Press: pp. 25-49.

Barnett, Michael N. (2025) “Humanitarianism.” In Elgar Encyclopedia of International Relations, edited by Beate Jahn and Sebastian Schindler, Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing: pp. 171-172.

Deloffre, Maryam Zarnegar (2025) “SCHR and Humanitarian Standard-setting: How field dynamics produce coordination and hierarchy,” Hierarchies and Exclusion in Humanitarianism, ed. Clara Egger, Manchester University Press: pp. 88-112.

Deloffre, Maryam Zarnegar (2025). “Teaching Non-governmental Organizations,” in Teaching International Organizations, ed. Kent Kille. Edward Elgar Publishing, (2025). pp. 105-121.

Potts, Alina (2024).  "Empowered Aid: Transforming Gender and Power Dynamics in the Distribution of Humanitarian Aid," in Sexual Exploitation and Abuse in Peacekeeping and Aid: Critiquing the Past, Plotting the Future, ed. Jasmine-Kim Westendorf and Elliot Dolan-Evans Bristol University Press, 2024, 207–220.

Barnett, Michael. (2023) “Neoliberalism, Philanthropy, and Humanitarianism: Pragmatic or Faustian Bargains?” In The Routledge International Handbook of Critical Philanthropy and Humanitarianism, edited by Ben Huval and Katharyne Mitchell, 9–25. Abingdon, UK: Routledge

Deloffre, Maryam Zarnegar (2022) The Sphere Project: Imagining Better Humanitarian Action through Reflective Accountability Institutions and Practices in Imagining Pathways for Global Cooperation, Katja Freistein, Bettina Mahlert, Sigrid Quack, and Christine Unrau (editors). Edward Elgar.

Deloffre, Maryam Zarnegar (2020) “Non-governmental Organizations and the Peace, Security, and Development Nexus” in Routledge Handbook of Peace, Security, and Development Fen Osler Hampson, Alpaslan Ozerdem, Jonathan Kent (Eds.). Taylor and Francis, pp. 420-432.

Feldman, Ilana (2020) “Reckoning with Time: Vexed Temporalities in Human Rights and Humanitarianism,” in Michael Barnett (ed.) Humanitarianism and Human Rights: A World of Differences?. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, pp. 203-218.

Commentaries

Deloffre, Maryam Z. and Chen Reis. “Defending humanitarian aid in terms of national security obscures its real purpose.” The Conversation, March 21, 2025.

Deloffre, Maryam Z. (2023). “How Germany can make a more ambitious commitment to localization in its humanitarian strategy.” Berlin: Centre for Humanitarian Action (CHA).

Potts, Alina (2022). “Engaging women and girls as safeguarding experts, using creative and participatory methods,” Evidence and Policy Blog, August 10, 2022.

Hor, Amoz JY (2022). “Aid worker emotions can obstruct meaningful local humanitarianism,” LSE Africa, June 13, 2022.

Hor, Amoz JY (2022). “NATO was founded to protect ‘civilized’ people. That means White,” The Monkey Cage, Washington Post, April 12, 2022.

Summers, Katherine (2022). “Temporary Protected Status Policy Needs Reform,” International Policy Digest, April 5, 2022.

Jachimowicz, Adam (2021). “Operation Medical Surge: Expanding hospital and bed capacity in Washington DC in response to COVID-19,” Constructor Magazine, September 30, 2021.

Barnett, Michael (2021). “Humanitarian organizations won’t listen to groups on the ground, in part because of institutionalized racism,” The Monkey Cage, The Washington Post, June 8, 2021.

Deloffre, Maryam Zarnegar (2021). “An Independent Commission for Voices in Crisis: Changing the referee instead changing the game,” Humanitarian Practice Network (HPN) Blog, April 26.

Kaisi, Jihan, Rosy Haddad, Loujine Fattal and Alina Potts (2021) “Localizing knowledge generation during a pandemic to make distributions safer,” in Localization and Local Humanitarian Action, Humanitarian Exchange: No. 79, May, pp. 105-109.

Barnett, Michael (2020). “The Humanitarian Global Colour Line,” (Blog) ALNAP, July 28.

O’Donnell M, Peterman A, Potts A. (2020) “A Gender Lens on COVID-19: Pandemics and Violence against Women and Children.” Blog post. Washington, DC: Center for Global Development.

Potts A. (2020) “Pandemics in Crisis-Affected Settings: Ensuring Women & Girls Are Not Forgotten.” Global Women’s Institute Blog, April 1, 2020.

Peterman A, Potts A, O’Donnell M, Thompson K, Shah N, Oertelt-Prigionea S, Van Geldera N. (2020) “Pandemics and Violence Against Women and Children“. Washington, DC: Center for Global Development.   

Book Reviews

Barnett, Michael, (2025) “Review of Feeding the Mind: Humanitarianism and the Reconstruction of European Intellectual Life, 1919–1933, by Tomás Irish.” The American Historical Review 130, no. 2 (June 2025): 925–926.

Barnett, Michael (2023) Review of Emily Baughan eds., Saving the Children: Humanitarianism, Internationalism, and Empire Journal of Interdisciplinary History 53, no. 4 (Spring 2023): 639–642.

Rafanelli, Lucia (2020) Review of C.A.J. Coady, Ned Dobos, and Sagar Sanyal eds., Challenges for Humanitarian Intervention: Ethical Demand & Political Reality (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), Journal of Moral Philosophy, 17, 2: 229-32.