Mary Jane O’Leary
IBEI BARCELONA
Masters in International Relations
Islam and Politics
Prof. Fred Halliday
June 2009
Since the Taliban was removed from power in Kabul in 2001, the international community and the Afghan population have been struggling to fill the void with a functioning, centralised state apparatus. The challenge, although huge in and of itself, is made all the more difficult by a number of factors unique to Afghanistan. These problems include a diffuse and often illusive sense of nationalism, sometimes more potent than others, there is also the questions of ethnicity, religion, regional instability and the constant flow of displaced people. Problems of violence, unemployment and drug trafficking also compound the deadlock in the theoretical discourse. For this reason the so-called post-conflict period that supposedly provides the space to begin ‘re-building’ the state is in fact a ‘different phase in the long-term process of resolving state-building tensions’ (Cramer and Goodhand 2003:136). This essay seeks to examine the different tensions and challenges that characterise this phase and attempts to place them in a context of the history of state-formation in Afghanistan. In doing so the current programme is identified as one of a number of endeavours at modernisation of the state in 20th Century Afghanistan.
Three previous attempts at modernisation in Afghanistan, highlighted by Suhrke, point towards the risks in rushing through reforms, the centrality of a balance of power, and the importance of building up a central state (2007). Nonetheless all three also failed to set in motion any sings of an ‘irreversible process’ that may have later contributed to modern attempts to re-establish or rebuild an Afghan state, despite some social gains in education and development (Shurke 2007:1296). Most benefits were reversed at the hands of the ‘anti-modernity’ Taliban from the early 1990s, but the experiences do hold some lessons for the latest rounds of reconstruction and can be linked to the tensions caused by the rapid social changes they endeavoured to implement. Beginning in the 1920s with King Amanullah, later with President Daoud and later again with the communist People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan, each programme of modernisation met with contestation arising out of attempts to graft a central state system onto a ‘feudal-like dispersion’ of power (Shurke 2007:1296). The fledgling central state attempted to extract revenue, regulate public life and build a national army affecting the population right across tribes, classes and religion. And on this view Shurke says Afghanistan’s history can be seen as a series of conflicts emerging as by-products of these attempts at state formation.
The importance of the balance of power in previous experiences also contributes to the analysis of modern reconstruction. In earlier attempts to build an Afghan central state exclusion of groups representing different fissions emerging in society as a result of educational and development reforms led to critical polarisation in society. Failure to include communist and Islamist groups put a serious strain on the state and led to the overthrow of King Amanullah in the 1973 coup (Shurke 2007:1296). Modernisation continued under Doud’s presidential reforms and accelerated even further following the proclamation of the Democratic Republic in 1978. But tensions soon turned to bloodshed as the communists discovered even partial reforms set alarm bells ringing around the provinces (Shurke 2007:1296). In all three cases reformists and modernists were defeated by the traditional elements in society. Amanullah could not override religious rhetoric with his own brand of Afghan nationalism; his liberal reforms alienated the clerics from the beginning of his regime as he tried to lever them out of religion, women’s affairs and law. The speed with which he attempted to institutionalise his reforms also impeded the gradual coalescence of a broad political alliance that could have won over the interests of different tribal, religious, ethnic, or military factions in society.
One factor stands out in previous state formation projects; impatience and over extension blighted both Doud’s and the PDPA programmes. Doud neglected the all-important construction of a broad reform coalition or to include the emerging communist and Islamist forces in his political system, the former of which allied itself with the armed forces managed to capture the state in the Saur Revoltuion in 1978. While the PDPA’s reforms were not novel in themselves, the role of women had been emblematic to previous modernisation programmes, but the force with which they attempted to implement them resulted in violent clashes. When women failed to turn up to newly installed classes in the provinces party members went to the villages to physically take the women from their homes to the class rooms, such a hands on approach was met with anger in rural areas where regulation of family life was regarded as out of bounds for the state. Nonetheless, it was not just the rapid pace of reform that the communists tried to instigate that led to the collapse of the Democratic Republic. The violence that came to characterise their rule and later legitimacy of the Soviet invasion coupled with easy access to weapons and training by opposition groups led to the communist’s defeat, accused consistently of anti-national and anti-Islamic sentiment (Shurke 2007).
Past experiences thus raise pertinent questions for latter-day would-be modernisers. Namely, can such comprehensive reforms as proposed in the Bonn Agreement actually profess broad-based support throughout Afghanistan? Can any reforms be sustainable without the support of all sections of society including the Taliban? Is the continued presence of foreign forces the only thing propping up the fledgling state and thus is it viable to stand alone? And importantly, how can reconstruction reconcile traditional, religious and cultural sensitivities with justice and human rights reforms especially in the case of the role of women in society?
Is the present project of modernisation legitimate and can it work?
The latest modernisation venture was framed in the Bonn Agreement in December 2002 and aspires to sew the seeds for the eventual institutionalisation of democracy, pluralism and social justice. The agreements revolve around four main challenges in rebuilding the state. Firstly, the design of a new state, including the development of a new constitution and administrative structures, secondly, ensuring the new state is deemed legitimate by the widest possible cross-section of the population. Thirdly, attracting funding for the programmes and finally, transforming the aims and objectives to practice. While a constitution was successfully passed in 2004 there are some criticisms as to the suitability of installing a presidential system in a country with such diverse socio-cultural underpinnings (Maley 2004: 10). Also, designing new administrative structures has proved problematic. Ministries have been more or less created to ensure all representatives at the Bonn Agreement are included as a patronage system perpetuates at the expense of a rational distribution of government ministries (Maley 2004: 10).
This issue points to another challenge common to countries where disorder has prevailed for a long period of time. Maley calls this challenge ‘reconstituting trust’. Trust, defined in terms of citizenship and not based on face-to-face interaction, he says, is a key feature in consolidated democracies and for stability more generally (Maley 2004: 10). It is to be expected then that a breakdown of state structures and a dependence on local networks in times of conflict shatters this broader sense of ‘anonymous’ trust, and furthermore that this is most problematic at the elite level of politics in times of reconstruction. It is this feature that generates the prevailing sense that the state is an asset to be appropriated and controlled, or even attacked should it fall into the hands of a rival group (Maley 2004: 10).
Decades of upheaval in Afghanistan have left both political elites and the wider population doubtful of the possibilities that power and privileges bestowed by a new democratic regime can be equally distributed. Violent conflict has widened divisions and consolidated bonds on ethnic and linguistic grounds. For example, the Hazara minority find it difficult to trust Abdul Rab al-Rasul Sayyaf, who plays an important role in assuring supporting Karzai’s government; his militia is widely regarded as responsible for the Afshar massacre in 1993 as well as violent intimidation of minorities outside Kabul (Maley 2004:11). The problem of trust is compounded by the lack as yet of a coherent justice system capable of trying and punishing human rights abuses.
These examples reflect other power struggles and fractions within the new Afghan government. Essentially a tug of war took place within the government that ended up re-establishing the traditionalist agenda and undermining the modernisation envisioned in the Bonn documents. Early on there existed a divide between mondernisers and those nominated purely on ethnic and political grounds and by 2006 it became increasingly evident that the latter was gaining ground as Karzai sought to co-opt potential rivals by appointing them to special positions and redistributed sought-after offices such as police chief positions in the provinces (Maley 2004:11). Importantly, Karzai, prompted by US policy, also began to recognise militias as forms of official state entities. Eventually as the co-opt-and-placate tactic out-weighs a merit-based system in the state-building project a broader divide became more apparent in the international coalition.
The role of transnational actors, foreign governments and non-governmental organisations in the reconstruction project in Afghanistan is a well debated topic, especially in terms of local ownership and in the wider literature on the critical analysis of the liberal, Western, one-size-fits-all, state-restructuring approach. Astri Suhrke highlights the increasingly negative effects of foreign state intervention from the invasion to reconstruction, and pragmatically, to the drop off of foreign concern when attention turned towards Iraq in 2003. In terms of the approach to reconstruction key institutions in the international community such as the World Bank, the OECD and the UN Development Programme have lent their support to a broad standardisation of programmes since the 1990s that reflect a coalescence around a set of general principles developed through past experiences. More recently new objectives of good governance and institution building have been added to this approach yet certain attitudes persist in the Western dominated post-conflict agencies.
In many was it is an inherently Weberian and western model and is so comprehensive in its objectives that it tends to crowd out traditional ‘knowledge and practices’ (Suhrke 2007: 1293). There seems to be little room for genuine participation or choice for recipients in the form of reconstruction and sacrifices slower paced more sensitive programmes for efficiency and effectiveness. In other words the model of reconstruction proceeding on every front as it usually attempts to do is in fact another form of Western dominance and could be more detrimental in the long term compromising sustainability linked to ownership. Suhrke argues that the key to this flaw is the major and defining role played by the ‘external agent’ (2007:1293).
In similar cases of post-conflict reconstruction in Japan and Thailand the projects were characterised by a self-conscious selectivity in terms of which areas should be reformed and in what way, especially in terms of maintaining national control in the face of perceived potential for Western dominance. In contrast, donors and aid agencies have taken the controlling role in reconstruction programmes since the early 1990s usually under the supervision and coordination of the UN. This raises the question of internal legitimacy, will the lack of endogenous programming weaken the utilitarian activities of foreign agents? What political or ideological force could over come rivalry and rebellions within Afghan society if national control over the state is perceived weak and of fluctuating loyalties?
On a more practical level, foreign actors can be divided into subgroups of interests and coalitions. As part of the regional landscape the national interests of Iran, Pakistan and Russia have played a more central role in their decision-making and policy formation than their original commitments made at the Bonn conference. The USA was also criticised for deciding to build up local militias and alter for lacking commitment as it turned to the invasion of Iraq. Inside Afghanistan the reaction to foreign participation in reconstruction is divided, but most groups vying for some share of control and aid can quickly mobilise the general sense of antipathy to both foreign troops and aid agency workers (Suhrke 2007: 1300). There were many reasons for this discontent, namely Karzai’s dependence on foreign aid and military offended many people’s sense of nationalism especially considering it is defined primarily by the country’s historical resistance to colonial conquest, the presence of ‘infidels’ was an issue for Islamists, the US’s support continued support for Israel as well as the lifestyle of foreign aid workers and consultants. Together with the failure to fulfil promises of employment and security these factors combined to produce the low turn out in the 2005 elections and a deepening sense of animosity across all sectors of society (Suhrke 2007: 1300).
By the time of the US invasion in 2001 Afghanistan was already one of the poorest, most conflict torn countries of the world. The Taliban represented some semblance of a centralised state although they relied on violence for enforcement of laws and resistance to their rule persisted in the northern parts of the country. Since their displacement comprehensive efforts to build a centralised, functioning state apparatus has been central to proving the legitimacy of the foreign invasion. However, the obstacles to such a project have proved almost insurmountable. Resting on the assertion by Cramer and Goodhand that the success to state-formation in the past has been the ability of the nation-state to intervene to provide “reciprocal benefits”, that the instruments of the state could be strong enough to collect revenue and redistribute it fairly and provide public goods (Cramer and Goodhand in Milliken 2003: 136). The authors also point out that for the state to be able to do this it must attain a credible monopoly of violence (Cramer and Goodhand in Milliken 2003: 136). This process, they say, inevitably, and historically has involved violence as certain sectors will find themselves losing out in the shift of power and resources towards the state. But to reduce the harmful effects of attaining such grand objectives the state must mobilise different legitimising forces such as nationalism, religion and as mentioned, will depend very much on the establishment of a social contract between the population and the central authority. The challenges facing policy makers in Afghanistan as we have seen are many. Regional instability is becoming a more central factor, but religious and ethnic differences are still important in the distribution of power within the state. Other problems from unemployment to the question of legitimacy surrounding the presence of foreign troops, not to mention individual human security, persist. But even an honest acknowledgement of the huge challenges before them may prove helpful to those seeking to contribute to the formation of a just and fully functioning democratic state in Afghanistan.
Bibliography
Cramer, C. and Goodhand, J. 2003, ‘Try Again, Fail Again, Fail Better? War, the State, and the 'Post-Conflict' Challenge in Afghanistan’ in State Failure, Collapse and Reconstruction, Milliken, J. ed. Blackwell Publishing, USA.
Maley, W. 2004, ‘Political Transition in Afghanistan: The State, Religion and Civil Society,’ Asia Program Special Report, no 122, Woodrow Wilson Centre for Scholars.
Olesen, A. 1995, Islam and Politics in Afghanistan, Curzon Press.
Suhrke, A. 2007, ‘Reconstruction as Modernisation: the post-conflict’ project in Afghanistan’, Third World Quarterly, vol. 28, no. 7, pp1291 – 1308.
Chesterman, S. 2002, ‘Tiptoeing Through Afghanistan: The Future of UN State-Building,’ International Peace Academy, New York.
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