interventionism is actually difficult to define and you will have different
definitions based upon who it is they were talking to so a lot of people when
they hear the term intervention they immediately think about military
interventions so they think about something like war or another type of
military intervention but intervention is actually a lot broader than that so
in addition to military actions things that are undertaken with the idea of
being a humanitarian action so things undertaken with humanitarian
aims in mind or other types of interventions can count as well so
things like short-term disaster relief things like long-term development aid
all of those things can be categorized as interventions one of the things that
all of these and others have in common are that they typically fall under the
umbrella of what we could refer to as state-sponsored
intervention so the idea of governments intervening in some way to try to shape
a variety of outcomes in a different population so whether that's a political
outcome economic social or otherwise that's the typical impetus or the drive
behind a variety of types of intervention frequently we see people
making the cases for more intervention and they will point to a variety of
cases to make this point so people will say things like well governments didn't
intervene in Sudan and look what happened or they'll point to Rwanda in
the 1990s or they'll even point to European Jews in the Holocaust in the
1930s in the 1940s and make the case for more expanded intervention frequently on
humanitarian grounds and we can debate the merits of those types of
interventions and certainly there may be some cases where interventions are
justifiable and perhaps necessary but the impetus is really on the individuals
pushing for the intervention to make the case that they are not only should
intervene are actually able to achieve the goals
that we have set out to achieve so one of the things that the literature in
economic development literature international relations and political
science and elsewhere has pointed to is that oftentimes the stated goals of
intervention are not achievable particularly within the case of
economics we see that there are a couple of very serious problems when discussing
the feasibility of foreign intervention in particular we can look more intensely
at what are referred to as planner problems or issues of knowledge and then
also issues related to incentive compatibility so are the incentives of
the individuals engaged in the intervention actually aligned with
achieving the goals of the intervention there are a variety of different dangers
or unintended consequences that we might think about with foreign intervention
and a lot of these unintended consequences are things that have to do
with issues or problems that arise within the countries themselves that the
intervention is taking place so a primary example of this would be
something like Libya in 2011 after a coalition with the United States and
other forces went and overturned Muammar Gaddafi which initially seemed to be
successful but had a number of unintended consequences one of those is
that it created a power vacuum within Libya something which was not easy to
correct you have a variety of militias who are fighting with each other trying
to obtain and then maintain power but it also had the effect of having negative
spillover effects within the region so within Mali for example a Mali had
experienced a civil war several years prior the leave 2007 and several of many
of the rebels had sought refuge in Libya where they were subsequently employed by
the Gaddafi regime once the Gaddafi regime fell those same rebel forces then
returned to Mali only this time they were properly equipped with military
weapons and then had also had military training so we think about those Thai
of unintended consequences and there are certainly lots of other examples so if
we're looking at intervention in the Middle East if we're looking at
humanitarian intervention and say Latin America or in Africa or if we're looking
at let's say domestic programs so things like the Appalachian Regional Commission
or the Tennessee Valley Authority those are also types of interventions when
we're looking at any such activity we should be asking questions related to
most importantly things like knowledge and incentives so do the individuals
engaged in the intervention possess the knowledge necessary in order to craft
and implement the intervention what are the potential unintended consequences of
these interventions both for the individuals receiving the intervention
but then also for the individuals providing the funds for the intervention
or just everyday citizens who might not know that the intervention is happening
at all other questions that we could ask importantly have to do with issues
related to incentive alignment so what are the incentives of the individuals of
undertaking the intervention so the bureaucratic institutions involved what
are the incentives of the bureaucratic institutions in the countries that are
receiving the intervention in the case that the intervention is international
and what are the incentives of the individuals faced on a grassroots level
so how does the intervention change the constraints that they face with respect
to their everyday life with respect to business practices and also with respect
to a variety of other arenas in their lives