Above the Fray:

The Red Cross and the Making of the Humanitarian NGO Sector

The University of Chicago Press, January 2020

Available on the University of Chicago Press website and on Amazon

• Outstanding Published Book Award Honorable Mention, American Sociological Association Altruism, Morality, and Social Solidarity Section
• Marvin B. Sussman Prize, Yale University 
• Theda Skocpol Best Dissertation Award Honorable Mention, American Sociological Association Comparative-Historical Sociology Section

From Lake Chad to Iraq, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) provide relief around the globe, and their scope is growing every year. Policymakers and activists often assume that humanitarian aid is best provided by these organizations, who are generally seen as impartial and neutral. In Above the Fray, Shai Dromi investigates why the international community overwhelmingly trusts humanitarian NGOs by looking at the historical development of their culture. With a particular focus on the Red Cross, Dromi reveals that NGOs arose because of the efforts of orthodox Calvinists, demonstrating for the first time the origins of the unusual moral culture that has supported NGOs for the past 150 years.

Drawing on archival research, Dromi traces the genesis of the Red Cross to a Calvinist movement working in mid-nineteenth-century Geneva, showing that the organization’s founding members were convinced by their faith that an international volunteer program not beholden to the state was the only ethical way to provide relief to victims of armed conflict. After illustrating how Calvinism shaped the humanitarian field, he argues for the key role preexistent belief systems played in establishing social fields and institutions. Ultimately, Dromi shows the immeasurable social good that NGOs have achieved, but also suggests that alternate models of humanitarian relief need to be considered.

Review quotes

“Above the Fray is a major effort to analyze the development of a distinct humanitarian field animated by the religious worldview of the nineteenth Calvinist milieu of Geneva, which connects a network of philanthropists, pacific activists, and religious actors concerned with addressing human tragedies. In telling the story of the emergence of this institutional field, Dromi innovates by bringing meaning-making into Bourdieusian field analysis in a non-reductivist fashion. Thus, he makes a brilliant contribution to historical sociology, and offers a much-needed addition to the sociological theory of fields. His book will be a crucial point of reference for several fields of research in the years to come.”

Michèle Lamont, Professor of Sociology and African and African American Studies, Harvard University

“Humanitarianism is not just an ethical orientation, but a whole sector of social institutions and practical actions. Dromi’s Above the Fray superbly illuminates both the history of this field since the founding of the Red Cross and its increasingly difficult challenges today.”

Craig Calhoun, University Professor of Social Sciences, Arizona State University

"The book makes major and thought-provoking contributions to a surprisingly wide range of fields. It could make a perfect addition to an organizational theory book, since it shows how an organizational form arises as well as how a new form seeds a whole field. A course on professions would benefit from this book. As one brilliant chapter shows, this new “humanitarian logic” was quickly copied by other professions: law, nursing, and journalism. The book could be used to good end in courses on international law, cultural sociology, social movements, sociology of religion, cosmopolitanism and secularism, and political sociology."

Nina Eliasoph, Professor of Sociology, University of Southern California

"I promise... that anyone interested in humanitarianism’s past and future will enjoy this read. Considering how the humanitarian movement is rooted in specific historical contexts of faith, war, and political upheaval challenges our assumptions about the universality of humanitarian principles today"

Dorothea Hilhorst, Professor of Humanitarian Studies, International Institute for Social Studies of Erasmus University, The Hague