Ce travail vise à la construction d'un modèle d'intervention sociale qui prend comme base conceptuelle des éléments de la théorie des systèmes sociaux développée par Niklas Luhmann. La prédominance d'une différenciation sociale fonctionnelle, caractéristique d'une société moderne, suppose un monde hétérarchique et acentrique qui oblige à abandonner les principes structurels hiérarchiques des sociétés précédentes. À cet égard, l'intervention sociale ne peut être conçue que si elle s'éloigne du modèle hiérarchique associé au contrôle social, pour ainsi aller vers des stratégies de coordination qui conduisent les systèmes vers une autorégulation. Dans ce contexte, nous proposons une intervention sociale systémique caractérisée par sa contextualité et sa réflexivité, mais aussi par son improbabilité et optionnalité, compte tenu de la clôture opérationnelle qui caractérise les systèmes sociaux. Dans ce sens, l'intervention sociale est présentée comme une offre communicationnelle qui, pour avoir lieu, doit d'abord irriter l'autoréférence des systèmes vers lesquels elle dirige sa stratégie pour ainsi être sélectionnée par ces systèmes. Ainsi, elle permettra d'établir des relations intersystémiques, fondées sur l'hétérarchie, au moyen des couplages structurels. À partir de ces caractéristiques, le cycle de l'intervention se constitue comme un processus réflexif caractérisé par sa récursivité. Il comporte les phases de l'intervention où les systèmes participants convergent dans la définition de la stratégie. Ce travail propose finalement d'observer un programme social chilien, le programme Puente [Pont], afin d'observer s'il est possible d'y identifier des éléments d'une intervention sociale systémique. / The present research aims to the construction of a social intervention model considering, as a conceptual background, a number of elements from the theory of social systems developed by Niklas Luhmann. The predominance of a functional social differentiation, typical of modern societies, supposes an acentric and heterarchical world that compels to abandon the hierarchical structural principles of the former societies. To this regard, social intervention can only be conceived if it keeps away from the hierarchical model associated with social control, in order to favor coordination strategies that lead systems toward self-regulation. Consequently, we propose a systemic social intervention characterized by its context and reflexivity, and also by its improbability and optionality, in view of the operational closure that characterizes social systems. To this end, social intervention is presented as a communicational offer which, in order to occur, must at first irritate the autoreference of the systems to which it aims its strategy, in order to thus be selected by those systems. This will allow establishing intersystem relationships through structural couplings based on heterarchy. Stemming from these characteristics, the cycle of intervention is constituted as a reflexive process marked by its recursivity. It includes the intervention stages where the participating systems converge in the definition of its strategy. Finally, this research proposes to observe a Chilean social program, in order to examine if some elements of a systemic social intervention can be identified.

The outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in 1936 and the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937 triggered many responses amongst the American public, including a number of private initiatives in medical aid that occupied a borderland between traditional humanitarian relief and political activism. This study is interested in the stories of three organisations arising in this tradition: the American Medical Bureau to Aid Spanish Democracy (AMBASD), the American Bureau for Medical Aid to China (ABMAC), and the China Aid Council (CAC). While three separate initiatives in terms of who was responsible for their creation in the United States, and the communities they sought to help abroad, all three demonstrate parallels in their foundation and development that merit a joint historical consideration. Emerging from the backdrop of isolationism in U.S. foreign policy, the AMBASD, ABMAC, and CAC became a means of voicing both political and humanitarian ideals through the medium of medicine. In many ways, this thesis becomes a study of lost causes. As political campaigns, none of the organisations in this study succeeded in changing U.S. policy, although the ABMAC and CAC benefitted from interests that overlapped with larger changes in U.S. military alliances. As humanitarian organisations, only one (the ABMAC) lived past the conflict to which it owed its foundation. Their story, however, retains its historical interest in challenging both the way in which we examine the mythology of humanitarian idealism, and our understanding of the balance between internationalism and isolationism in the 1930’s United States. For the medical activists of these organizations, medical aid offered both a tangible outlet for personal ethical and political beliefs, but also promised an alternative means of diplomacy that brought greater agency to more popular levels.

This thesis examines the role and relationship of standardization and advocacy in humanitarian aid planning processes within the emergent field of education and instability. Standardization refers to the aid industry’s increasing emphasis on establishing ‘universal’ principles and normative frameworks. Advocacy refers to transnational-policy-network activities that move forward the global standardization agenda. The study focuses on the purposes and practices of knowledge creation by an education-and-instability ‘epistemic community’: the Inter-Agency Network for Education in Emergencies (INEE). Drawing on global-level interviews with key figures, participant observations, and documentary analysis, the research explores how this epistemic community promotes its core tenets: that education is an inherent human right and that educational provision should be a frontline humanitarian response on par with food distribution and shelter construction. The thesis analyzes the consensus-making process that resulted in the publication of the 2004 INEE Minimum Standards handbook, the then-epitome of the epistemic community’s knowledge. Next, the thesis examines the local application and adaptation of such global standardization processes in post-conflict Uganda. The case study presents the relationships among international and local ‘development partner’ institutions concerned with educational planning as a complex and contradictory story of power dynamics and knowledge circulation. These ‘partnerships’ are characterized by a shared quest for adherence to the knowledge encapsulated within standardized global frameworks and their normative principles. For Ugandan institutions, fluency in this discourse is a powerful tool to appropriate for their own ends. For international institutions, the knowledge is at once a technical resource and a means to bring ever more stakeholders into the wider epistemic community concerned with humanitarian aid. I argue that, through judicious use of standardization and advocacy mechanisms, INEE seeks to legitimize the education sector’s existence within the humanitarian aid industry and expand support for (or ‘conversion’ to) the education-and-instability epistemic community’s core beliefs.