Читать книгу The State-Building Dilemma in Afghanistan - Haqmal Daudzai - Страница 12

This dissertation is divided into 3 main parts and 10 chapters. Part one includes 4 chapters; the introduction, concepts, theories, and components of state-building. Chapter 1 of this thesis follows the standard academic procedure of opening the discussion with an introduction, the rationale, research questions, literature review, and methodology. This chapter provides the reader with a first glance at what the thesis is about, how it is conducted, why it is significant, and finally, its relevance to the academic and practical field. This thesis is intended not only for the academic researchers of this field but also to the policymakers and readers interested in the subject of Afghanistan. Therefore, efforts have been made to use basic language terminology.

Chapter 2 defines the blurred term of state-building and its relevant concepts including its historical evolution and overlapping relations with peace and nation-building. This chapter also briefly discusses state from the Western or Weberian and the Third World statehood perspective. The attempt is to provide a foundation for the mega theories and approaches discussed in the following chapter.

Chapter 3 dwells on state-building relevant theories, approaches, and strategies. This chapter begins with reviewing first the classical and dialectical or clientelistic modernization theories that provide the base for the nation and state-building approaches. Though both theories are outdated among social scientists, ironically, in practice, they still have a dominant influence over many policy approaches. The post 9/11 U.S. and its western allies’ nation and state-building approach in Afghanistan could be a perfect [37] example for this claim discussed in chapter four. Classical modernization theories are followed by political modernization, international intervention, and new-institutionalism theories; each providing fundamental backgrounds and perspectives on state-building strategies and approaches.

Chapter 4 of this dissertation is allocated for some state-building components including state-intuitional design at the central and local level that are relevant to the case study of Afghanistan. This chapter reviews the key democratic state governmental models including Parliamentarism, Presidentialism, and Semi-Presidentialism. Taking the post-conflict and social segmental conditions into account, it also brings into discussion the consociational democracy of Arend Lijpart and federalism. Chapter 4 concludes with the decentralization approach, based on which the case of sub-national governance in Afghanistan is analyzed in the following chapters.

Part 2 of this dissertation discusses Afghanistan’s state-building history in two chapters. In part 2, chapter 5, I discuss the Afghan state, society, and political transformation from its foundation as a tribal federation in the mid-18th century until the Taliban Islamic Emirate at the beginning of the 21st century. The reader will find that Islam, tribalism, and ethnicity are the critical influential phenomena, or tools, in shaping the Afghan state and society relations, gaining political power and resistance against modernization and external invasions. Islam, as the dominant faith and ideology, has evolved along with various versions including mysticism, traditionalism, the political Islam of Mujahidin, and the recent traditional extremism of Taliban in Afghanistan. Short-lived experiments with democracy and communism are also briefly discussed in this chapter. Due to its geopolitical location, state-building in Afghanistan has been heavily subjected to great-powers’ regional interests, a battleground and a buffer zone throughout its nearly 300 years of modern history. The overall aim of chapter three is to provide its reader with a sharp sociopolitical contextual picture of modern-day Afghanistan.

Chapter 6 analyzes the U.S. post-9/11 military and subsequent state-building intervention in Afghanistan. The interventionist theory and state-building approaches are contextualized in the post-Taliban Afghanistan. It attempts to highlight the U.S., the U.N., and the Afghan players’ roles regarding the institutional achievements and drawbacks of the 2001 Bonn agreement. Freeing Afghans from the oppressive authoritarian regime of the Taliban and the formation of a constitution that not only secures women and minority rights but for the first time in its history introduced Afghanistan to a [38] fully democratic system are among the great achievements discussed in this chapter. Whereas ignoring peace-making before state-building is one of the key flaws of the whole intervention. Empowering Afghan warlords and mafia groups, endemic corruption, the de-facto formation of an ethnolinguistic based government despite de-jure support for a strong unitary centralized state system, and the underestimation of the regional powers’ (Pakistan, Iran, Russia, and India) interests by the U.S., its western allies, and the U.N. are highlighted as key failures of the state-building process in Afghanistan. Chapter 6 concludes with case studies of prominent warlords around six researched provinces. The case studies serve to inform the reader about the power-struggle and co-option between formal (elected PC members) and informal state actors in the Afghan sub-national politics. The overall aim of this chapter is to prepare its reader with the security and sociopolitical context of the country during the past decade. This background knowledge is imperative for discussing the central questions of the dissertation in the following chapters.

Part 3 of this dissertation is divided into 4 chapters that discusses the key findings of the field research regarding the Afghan state governmental design at the national and sub-national level. Chapter 7 addresses one of the central questions of this thesis, namely, state institutional design at the central/ national level. It begins with an analysis of the 2004 Afghan constitution regarding its controversial topics including the role of Islam, the right of women, the electoral system and ethnic identity. It then turns to the state-institutional design discourse during and in the aftermath of the Bonn process. Adding the field research findings of this dissertation, it then brings forward the Afghan perception of key terms and concepts, including democracy, presidential, parliamentary, and federal systems, as well as centralization and decentralization. It tests the hypotheses of the Afghan ethnopolitical divide over state-institutional design through field interviews with elites, as well as through the support of the second-hand data. This thesis hypothesizes that Afghan political elites are divided along ethnolinguistic lines, in which Pashtuns propagate the existing presidential centralization, whereas non-Pashtun (Tajik, Hazara, and Uzbek) advocate for a sort of parliamentary decentralization.

Chapter 8 focuses on the Afghan sub-national administrative and governance structures. To provide the reader with a full picture, it begins by introducing the entire Afghan formal and informal sub-national administration [39] structure, including provincial and district administrations, and the informal governance mechanism of Jirgas and Shuras. Chapter 9 is allocated to the Afghan elected provincial councils (PCs). Based on the field interviews, this chapter explicitly introduces the Afghan PCs, and discusses their role, and responsibility at the sub-national governance sector since their creation in 2005.

Chapter 10 provides the reader a conclusion of the discussion in part 3. Looking at possible future scenarios for Afghanistan, it proposes alternative government models at the national and sub-national level.