State-Building in Afghanistan

Résumé du document

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.

Extraits

[...] 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. [...]

[...] Rubin, Barnett. The Fragmentation of Afghanistan: State Formation and Collapse in the International System. New Haven: Yale University Press Shankar, Uma. “Challenges of Conflict Resolution and State-building in Afghanistan”, article for the Journal of the University of Dehli, India Smith, Daniel, Rachel Stohl and Reyko Huang. Afghanistan: The Re- emergence of a State. Washington D.C.: Center for Defense Information, December 2001. WEBSITES Afghanistan Online: http://www.afgha.net and http://www.afghan- web.com Institute for Afghanistan Studies: http://www.institute-for-afghan- studies.org Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA): http://www.rawa.org Women's Alliance for Peace and Human Rights in Afghanistan (WAPHA): http://www.wapha.org ANNEX 1 Timeline From the Soviet intervention to the rise of the Taliban Timeline The Re-building of a state after September 11th ANNEX 2 Who exactly were the Taliban? [...]

[...] In May 2002, its mandate was extended to 6 more months by the SC. However, UNAMA has regional offices in other cities than Kabul (Herat, Jalalabad, Kandahar, Kunduz, Mazar-i-Sharif This extension is notably favored by Chairman Hamid Karzai and Lakhdar Brahimi. According to Michael Ignatieff, American air power makes up for the lack of sufficient police and peacekeeping forces. However, there has been some substantial help in training the Afghan forces, by individual countries. For example, the UK helped train counter- narcotics forces while Germany trained the police and the US the military. [...]

[...] Furthermore, a state should be characterized by the rule of law. Besides the problem of private justice already mentioned (today, local commanders still impose their rules to the people under their control), democracy and human rights are seen as key elements in rebuilding the state on healthy bases. Fighting against corruption[11] and creating an unbiased justice system are clear priorities but they are made difficult by the absence of a tradition of a national justice as well as the excesses of the Taliban's interpretation of Islamic law (the Shari'a). [...]