After what some historians have called the "imperial peace of the Cold War?, there has been an explosion of "failed states? in the Third World. A "failed state? is a country where the national political authority is unable to fulfill its basic responsibilities, such as providing its citizens security and justice . This situation usually implies a certain degree of anarchy, fostering violent internal conflicts for the control of what remains of state power. Indeed, while state formation refers to an unavoidable historical phenomenon, state-building involves a voluntarist dimension and the conscious planning of state development. It is almost impossible to over-estimate the immensity of the task of rebuilding Afghanistan into something resembling a coherent state. After 22 years of civil war (1979- 2001), the physical and political infrastructures are completely destroyed and Afghanistan is now one of the poorest nations in the world, highly divided between different ethnic groups.
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Sommaire de l'exposé
The Historical Obstacles to State-Building in Afghanistan
The Fragmentation of Afghanistan: Factors of division and unity
The chaotic history of state formation in Afghanistan and its dependence on foreign assistance
Prospects for the New Afghan State in the Post-Taliban Era
Most of the preconditions for successful state-building are not yet matched
The role of the UN in state-building and the challenge of local ownership
Extraits de l'exposé
[...] For many Afghans, Karzai still looks more like the mayor of Kabul than the President of the country. The warlords often collect taxes in the area under their control, where they also administer justice. Because they deprive the state of its natural prerogatives, the ?local commanders?, as they like to call themselves, are undoubtedly the main obstacle to state-building. According to M. Ignatieff, will take years before the national government in Kabul accumulates enough revenue, international prestige and armed force to draw power away from the warlords?. [...]
[...] Rubin) The main thesis of Barnett R. Rubin in his book The Fragmentation of Afghanistan is that: from a manifestation of the persistence of ?traditional? or pre-capitalist society, contemporary Islamic militancy is largely a response by young Muslims with modern education to their encounter with the state and the international system in which it is embedded. Ethnic conflicts result from the integration of populations into a common territorial state, creating incentives to compete for control of the internationally recognized center. [...]
[...] Whenever foreign economic and/or military support was withdrawn, the fragile Afghan social order collapsed and the state was seriously weakened, if not threatened in its very existence. This why the rentier state model collapsed after end of Cold war. The disintegration of the USSR, as well as the U.S. disengagement, created a ?power vacuum? that was only partially filled by Pakistan. The power game then became more of a regional one with Russia and Iran supporting the Northern Alliance against the Taliban, supported by Pakistan. [...]
[...] large Pashtun minority in Pakistan). ( The result of permanent foreign interference was that the Afghan state was always largely autonomous from the society it ruled. It could only institute reforms in the parts of society under its control, usually a quite limited area, while the traditional rural communities were largely unaffected by state action. Today the challenge is to build a state that can for the first time penetrate into the tribal society. Afghanistan's encounter with modernity and its response to foreign influence The stability of the territorial state under the monarchy (1747-1973) The Afghan territorial state was stabilizied under the monarchy, from 1747 (Ahmad Shah Durrani) until 1973 (the last king, Muhammad Zaher Shah, ruled from 1933 to 1973)[5], with an overall relatively peaceful coexistence between the different ethnic groups (due in part to the non- interference of the central power with tribal institutions). [...]
[...] It would be more reasonable to take Afghanistan's recent history as the starting point in thinking the new state. Indeed, the Taliban's conception of the state was limited to the traditional functions of security and justice. Other domains like education or social affairs were ignored by the regime. Imagining a Western-style welfare state in the short term would not make sense. It would be more appropriate to accept a different definition of the state for Afghanistan, much ?narrower? than the one we know. [...]
Économie, administration & politique