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Book Informal Order and the State in Afghanistan

Download or read book Informal Order and the State in Afghanistan written by Jennifer Brick Murtazashvili and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2016-04-21 with total page 365 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite vast efforts to build the state, profound political order in rural Afghanistan is maintained by self-governing, customary organizations. Informal Order and the State in Afghanistan explores the rules governing these organizations to explain why they can provide public goods. Instead of withering during decades of conflict, customary authority adapted to become more responsive and deliberative. Drawing on hundreds of interviews and observations from dozens of villages across Afghanistan, and statistical analysis of nationally representative surveys, Jennifer Brick Murtazashvili demonstrates that such authority enhances citizen support for democracy, enabling the rule of law by providing citizens with a bulwark of defence against predatory state officials. Contrary to conventional wisdom, it shows that 'traditional' order does not impede the development of the state because even the most independent-minded communities see a need for a central government - but question its effectiveness when it attempts to rule them directly and without substantive consultation.

Book Land  the State  and War

Download or read book Land the State and War written by Jennifer Brick Murtazashvili and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2021-09-09 with total page 231 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although today's richest countries tend to have long histories of secure private property rights, legal-titling projects do little to improve the economic and political well-being of those in the developing world. This book employs a historical narrative based on secondary literature, fieldwork across thirty villages, and a nationally representative survey to explore how private property institutions develop, how they are maintained, and their relationship to the state and state-building within the context of Afghanistan. In this predominantly rural society, citizens cannot rely on the state to enforce their claims to ownership. Instead, they rely on community-based land registration, which has a long and stable history and is often more effective at protecting private property rights than state registration. In addition to contributing significantly to the literature on Afghanistan, this book makes a valuable contribution to the literature on property rights and state governance from the new institutional economics perspective.

Book Warlords  Strongman Governors  and the State in Afghanistan

Download or read book Warlords Strongman Governors and the State in Afghanistan written by Dipali Mukhopadhyay and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2014-02-13 with total page 387 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Warlords have come to represent enemies of peace, security, and 'good governance' in the collective intellectual imagination. This book asserts that not all warlords are created equal. Under certain conditions, some become effective governors on behalf of the state. This provocative argument is based on extensive fieldwork in Afghanistan, where Mukhopadhyay examined warlord-governors who have served as valuable exponents of the Karzai regime in its struggle to assert control over key segments of the countryside. She explores the complex ecosystems that came to constitute provincial political life after 2001 and exposes the rise of 'strongman' governance in two provinces. While this brand of governance falls far short of international expectations, its emergence reflects the reassertion of the Afghan state in material and symbolic terms that deserve our attention. This book pushes past canonical views of warlordism and state building to consider the logic of the weak state as it has arisen in challenging, conflict-ridden societies like Afghanistan.

Book The Politics of Order in Informal Markets

Download or read book The Politics of Order in Informal Markets written by Shelby Grossman and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2021-06-24 with total page 167 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book introduces a theory for how the state shapes private governance, leveraging data from informal markets in Lagos, Nigeria.

Book Land  the State  and War

    Book Details:
  • Author : Jennifer Brick Murtazashvili
  • Publisher : Cambridge University Press
  • Release : 2021-09-09
  • ISBN : 1108493416
  • Pages : 231 pages

Download or read book Land the State and War written by Jennifer Brick Murtazashvili and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2021-09-09 with total page 231 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first detailed study of institutional economics and public choice traditions in Afghanistan.

Book Games without Rules

    Book Details:
  • Author : Tamim Ansary
  • Publisher : Public Affairs
  • Release : 2014-03-04
  • ISBN : 1610393198
  • Pages : 418 pages

Download or read book Games without Rules written by Tamim Ansary and published by Public Affairs. This book was released on 2014-03-04 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By the author of Destiny Disrupted: an enlightening, accessible history of modern Afghanistan from the Afghan point of view, showing how Great Power conflicts have interrupted its ongoing, internal struggle to take form as a nation

Book Political Networks Power and the State in Afghanistan

Download or read book Political Networks Power and the State in Afghanistan written by Timor Sharan and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-06-07 with total page 376 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book maps out how political networks and centres of power, engaged in patronage, corruption, and illegality, effectively constituted the Afghan state, often with the complicity of the U.S.-led military intervention and the internationally-directed state-building project. It argues that politics and statehood in Afghanistan, in particular in the last two decades, including the ultimate collapse of the government in August 2021, is best understood in terms of the dynamics of internal political networks, through which warlords and patronage networks came to capture and control key sectors within the state and economy, including mining, banking, and illicit drugs as well as elections and political processes. Networked politics emerged as the dominant mode of governance that further transformed and consolidated Afghanistan into a networked state, with the state institutions and structures functioning as the principal marketplace for political networks bargains and rent-seeking. The façade of state survival and fragmented political order was a performative act, the book contends, sustained through massive international military spending and development aid, obscuring the reality of resource redistribution among key networked elites and their supporters. Overall, the book offers a way to explain what it was that the international community and the Afghan elites in power got so wrong that brought Afghanistan full circle, and the Taliban back to power.

Book The State Building Dilemma in Afghanistan

Download or read book The State Building Dilemma in Afghanistan written by Haqmal Daudzai and published by Verlag Barbara Budrich. This book was released on 2021-09-27 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nach fast zwei Jahrzehnten Krieg unterzeichnete die Trump-Regierung im Februar 2020 ein Abkommen mit den Taliban, wonach die Truppen der USA und ihrer NATO-Verbündeten Afghanistan innerhalb der nächsten Monate verlassen müssen. Dieses Abkommen ebnet auch den Weg für innerafghanische Gespräche zwischen der von den USA unterstützten Islamischen Republik Afghanistan und der militanten Gruppe der Taliban. Dieses Buch bietet einen kritischen Überblick über die militärische, friedens- und staatsbildende Interventionen der USA und der NATO seit 2001 in Afghanistan. Darüber hinaus stellt es auf der Grundlage gesammelter Feldinterviews die afghanische Wahrnehmung und den afghanischen Diskurs zu Themen wie Demokratie, Islam, Frauenrechte, formelle und informelle Regierungsführung, ethnische Teilung und die staatliche demokratische Regierungsgestaltung auf nationaler und subnationaler Ebene dar.

Book Afghanistan

    Book Details:
  • Author : Tim Bird
  • Publisher : Yale University Press
  • Release : 2011-01-01
  • ISBN : 0300154585
  • Pages : 410 pages

Download or read book Afghanistan written by Tim Bird and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2011-01-01 with total page 410 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examines why the West has failed to achieve its objectives in Afghanistan, discussing the country's drug trade, political corruption, troubled relations with Pakistan, and harsh terrain, and the lessons about nation building that can be learned from the experience.

Book Informal Order and the State in Afghanistan

Download or read book Informal Order and the State in Afghanistan written by Jennifer Brick Murtazashvili and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2016-04-21 with total page 365 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite vast efforts to build the state, profound political order in rural Afghanistan is maintained by self-governing, customary organizations. Informal Order and the State in Afghanistan explores the rules governing these organizations to explain why they can provide public goods. Instead of withering during decades of conflict, customary authority adapted to become more responsive and deliberative. Drawing on hundreds of interviews and observations from dozens of villages across Afghanistan, and statistical analysis of nationally representative surveys, Jennifer Brick Murtazashvili demonstrates that such authority enhances citizen support for democracy, enabling the rule of law by providing citizens with a bulwark of defence against predatory state officials. Contrary to conventional wisdom, it shows that 'traditional' order does not impede the development of the state because even the most independent-minded communities see a need for a central government - but question its effectiveness when it attempts to rule them directly and without substantive consultation.

Book Humanitarian Invasion

    Book Details:
  • Author : Timothy Nunan
  • Publisher : Cambridge University Press
  • Release : 2016-01-26
  • ISBN : 1107112079
  • Pages : 341 pages

Download or read book Humanitarian Invasion written by Timothy Nunan and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2016-01-26 with total page 341 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Humanitarian Invasion provides a history of international development and humanitarianism in Cold War Afghanistan.

Book No Good Men Among the Living

Download or read book No Good Men Among the Living written by Anand Gopal and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2014-04-29 with total page 319 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Told through the lives of three Afghans, the stunning tale of how the United States had triumph in sight in Afghanistan--and then brought the Taliban back from the dead In a breathtaking chronicle, acclaimed journalist Anand Gopal traces in vivid detail the lives of three Afghans caught in America's war on terror. He follows a Taliban commander, who rises from scrawny teenager to leading insurgent; a US-backed warlord, who uses the American military to gain personal wealth and power; and a village housewife trapped between the two sides, who discovers the devastating cost of neutrality. Through their dramatic stories, Gopal shows that the Afghan war, so often regarded as a hopeless quagmire, could in fact have gone very differently. Top Taliban leaders actually tried to surrender within months of the US invasion, renouncing all political activity and submitting to the new government. Effectively, the Taliban ceased to exist--yet the Americans were unwilling to accept such a turnaround. Instead, driven by false intelligence from their allies and an unyielding mandate to fight terrorism, American forces continued to press the conflict, resurrecting the insurgency that persists to this day. With its intimate accounts of life in war-torn Afghanistan, Gopal's thoroughly original reporting lays bare the workings of America's longest war and the truth behind its prolonged agony. A heartbreaking story of mistakes and misdeeds, No Good Men Among the Living challenges our usual perceptions of the Afghan conflict, its victims, and its supposed winners.

Book Afghanistan  Politics  Elections  and Government Performance

Download or read book Afghanistan Politics Elections and Government Performance written by and published by DIANE Publishing. This book was released on 2009 with total page 31 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the context of a review of U.S. strategy in Afghanistan during September-November 2009, the performance and legitimacy of the Afghan government figured prominently. In his December 1, 2009, speech announcing a way forward in Afghanistan, President Obama stated that the Afghan government would be judged on performance, and "The days of providing a blank check are over." The policy statement was based, in part, on an assessment of the security situation furnished by the top commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, which warned of potential mission failure unless a fully resourced classic counterinsurgency strategy is employed. That counterinsurgency effort is deemed to require a legitimate Afghan partner. The Afghan government's limited writ and widespread official corruption are believed by U.S. officials to be helping sustain a Taliban insurgency and complicating international efforts to stabilize Afghanistan. At the same time, President Hamid Karzai has, through compromise with faction leaders, been able to confine ethnic disputes to political competition, enabling his government to focus on trying to win over those members of the ethnic Pashtun community that support Taliban and other insurgents.

Book Waiting for Dignity

Download or read book Waiting for Dignity written by Florian Weigand and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2022-09-20 with total page 417 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In August 2021, Taliban fighters entered the presidential palace in Kabul, ending twenty years of international efforts to build a democratic state in Afghanistan. Did the Taliban’s success rest on coercion and violence alone, or did they win the battle for public support through ideology and better services? Or did most people in the country not believe in the idea of the state at all, trusting only local elders and traditional councils? What is the source of legitimacy during armed conflict? In Waiting for Dignity, Florian Weigand investigates legitimacy and its absence in Afghanistan. Drawing on hundreds of interviews, he examines the perspectives of ordinary people in Afghanistan as well as those of rival claimants to authority: insurgents, warlords, members of parliament, security forces, and community leaders. By exploring how different types of authority attempted to legitimize their rule, Waiting for Dignity challenges common assumptions about how to build legitimacy, such as by delivering services, holding elections, or adopting traditional institutions. Weigand shows that what matters in conflict zones is what he terms interactive dignity: Citizens judge authorities on the basis of their day-to-day experiences with them. People want to be treated with dignity. The extent to which people perceive interactions to be fair, inclusive, and respectful is vital to the construction of lasting order. Combining theoretical originality with in-depth and compelling empirical detail, this book offers timely new insights into recent developments in Afghanistan and the challenges facing conflict-torn areas more widely.

Book The Rule of Law in Afghanistan

    Book Details:
  • Author : Whit Mason
  • Publisher : Cambridge University Press
  • Release : 2011-04-14
  • ISBN : 1139495526
  • Pages : 367 pages

Download or read book The Rule of Law in Afghanistan written by Whit Mason and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2011-04-14 with total page 367 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How, despite the enormous investment of blood and treasure, has the West's ten-year intervention left Afghanistan so lawless and insecure? The answer is more insidious than any conspiracy, for it begins with a profound lack of understanding of the rule of law, the very thing that most dramatically separates Western societies from the benighted ones in which they increasingly intervene. This volume of essays argues that the rule of law is not a set of institutions that can be exported lock, stock and barrel to lawless lands, but a state of affairs under which ordinary people and officials of the state itself feel it makes sense to act within the law. Where such a state of affairs is absent, as in Afghanistan today, brute force, not law, will continue to rule.

Book After We Kill You  We Will Welcome You Back as Honored Guests

Download or read book After We Kill You We Will Welcome You Back as Honored Guests written by Ted Rall and published by Hill and Wang. This book was released on 2014-09-02 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An unflinching account—in words and pictures—of America's longest war by our most outspoken graphic journalist Ted Rall traveled deep into Afghanistan—without embedding himself with U.S. soldiers, without insulating himself with flak jackets and armored SUVs—where no one else would go (except, of course, Afghans). He made two long trips: the first in the wake of 9/11, and the next ten years later to see what a decade of U.S. occupation had wrought. On the first trip, he shouted his dispatches into a satellite phone provided by a Los Angeles radio station, attempting to explain that the booming in the background—and sometimes the foreground—were the sounds of an all-out war that no one at home would entirely own up to. Ten years later, the alternative newspapers and radio station that had financed his first trip could no longer afford to send him into harm's way, so he turned to Kickstarter to fund a groundbreaking effort to publish online a real-time blog of graphic journalism (essentially, a nonfiction comic) documenting what was really happening on the ground, filed daily by satellite. The result of this intrepid reporting is After We Kill You, We Will Welcome You Back as Honored Guests—a singular account of one determined journalist's effort to bring the realities of life in twenty-first-century Afghanistan to the world in the best way he knows how: a mix of travelogue, photography, and award-winning comics.