Nation, Ethnicity and the Conflict in Afghanistan

Nation, Ethnicity and the Conflict in Afghanistan PDF Author: Raghav Sharma
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317090136
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 199

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Book Description
Ethnic and tribal loyalties in Afghanistan provided the lethal cocktail for the violent conflict that engulfed the country following the collapse of the Soviet backed government in 1992. The ensuing fighting between mujahideen groups paved the way for the tectonic social and political shifts, which continue to shape events today. What accounts for the emergence of ethnicity, as the main cause of conflict in Afghanistan? What moved people to respond with such fervour and intensity to calls for ethnic solidarity? This book attempts to make sense of ethnicity’s decisive role in Afghanistan through a comprehensive exploration of its nature and perception. Based on new data, generated through interviews, field notes and participant observations, Sharma maps the increased role of ethnicity in Afghan national politics. Key social, political and historical processes that facilitated its emergence as the pre-dominant fault-line of conflict are explored, moving away from grand political and military narrative to instead engage with zones of conflict as social spaces. This book will be of interest to students and scholars working in politics, ethnic studies and security studies.

Nation, Ethnicity and the Conflict in Afghanistan

Nation, Ethnicity and the Conflict in Afghanistan PDF Author: Raghav Sharma
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317090136
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 199

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Book Description
Ethnic and tribal loyalties in Afghanistan provided the lethal cocktail for the violent conflict that engulfed the country following the collapse of the Soviet backed government in 1992. The ensuing fighting between mujahideen groups paved the way for the tectonic social and political shifts, which continue to shape events today. What accounts for the emergence of ethnicity, as the main cause of conflict in Afghanistan? What moved people to respond with such fervour and intensity to calls for ethnic solidarity? This book attempts to make sense of ethnicity’s decisive role in Afghanistan through a comprehensive exploration of its nature and perception. Based on new data, generated through interviews, field notes and participant observations, Sharma maps the increased role of ethnicity in Afghan national politics. Key social, political and historical processes that facilitated its emergence as the pre-dominant fault-line of conflict are explored, moving away from grand political and military narrative to instead engage with zones of conflict as social spaces. This book will be of interest to students and scholars working in politics, ethnic studies and security studies.

Nation, Ethnicity and the Conflict in Afghanistan

Nation, Ethnicity and the Conflict in Afghanistan PDF Author: Raghav Sharma
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317090128
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 289

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Book Description
Ethnic and tribal loyalties in Afghanistan provided the lethal cocktail for the violent conflict that engulfed the country following the collapse of the Soviet backed government in 1992. The ensuing fighting between mujahideen groups paved the way for the tectonic social and political shifts, which continue to shape events today. What accounts for the emergence of ethnicity, as the main cause of conflict in Afghanistan? What moved people to respond with such fervour and intensity to calls for ethnic solidarity? This book attempts to make sense of ethnicity’s decisive role in Afghanistan through a comprehensive exploration of its nature and perception. Based on new data, generated through interviews, field notes and participant observations, Sharma maps the increased role of ethnicity in Afghan national politics. Key social, political and historical processes that facilitated its emergence as the pre-dominant fault-line of conflict are explored, moving away from grand political and military narrative to instead engage with zones of conflict as social spaces. This book will be of interest to students and scholars working in politics, ethnic studies and security studies.

Afghanistan

Afghanistan PDF Author: Nassim Jawad
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 40

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Book Description
This report covers the ethnic complexity of Afghanistan, which reflects its position between Persian- and Turkish-speaking peoples to the north and west, and the various South Asian peoples of the east. The way in which the USSR invasion has further polarized the population is also examined.

Recovering the Frontier State

Recovering the Frontier State PDF Author: Rasul Bakhsh Rais
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 0739137026
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 251

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Book Description
This book examines the prospects for rebuilding state and nation in Afghanistan with regard to 'Operation Enduring Freedom' carried out by the international coalition. It starts off by delineating the conceptual basis of Afghanistan's status as a frontier state. Looking at geo_strategic aspects Afghanistan's position as an historical buffer between empires and its internal characteristics-_weak authority structure, internal conflicts, interventions by neighbors, legitimacy of internal conquest, and trans-national ethnicities, the book provides insights into the unique geo-political context of Afghanistan. Whilst the author deems the legacy of the previous intervention for containment as a major contributing factor to the disorder in Afghanistan's state and society, he draws on lessons from the past intervention to assuage current obstacles and stalemate that is hindering political, social, and economic development in Afghanistan. Focusing on the impediments to development in Afghanistan, the background against which the problem needs to be analyzed, and consequently countered, is effectively set out. Incessant war and insurgency has led to mobilization along ethnic and religious lines in Afghanistan and has had profound effects on the kinds of intuitions that have perpetuated over time. Ethnic and religious groups have applied constant pressure on the state and this dissonance has had enduring negative consequences on nation building, social cohesion, and state-society relationships. Pre-emptive and reactive intervention by neighboring states and their links to ethnic groups inside Afghanistan is another dimension which is analyzed. An extensive exploration into the geo-political history of social groups of Afghanistan with an intensive account of the rise of various power contenders as a function of their history, their links with external actors, and their traditional position in the indigenous vertical hierarchy are made. Unconventional war and counter-insurgency operations funded by foreign and local elements are examined and policy guidelines for negotiations and conflict resolution are discussed. The work provides fresh insights into the rise of the Taliban, and adds further to the scholarly debate about the causes for the consolidation of Taliban power. It traces the history of the Afghan crisis, and critically evaluates the roles played by different national and international actors. A major contribution of the work is the articulation of the need for an integrated nation and state building strategy which takes into account the sensitivities of the Afghanistan experience instead of treating it like other post-conflict zones.

Organizations at War in Afghanistan and Beyond

Organizations at War in Afghanistan and Beyond PDF Author: Abdulkader H. Sinno
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 0801459303
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 353

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Book Description
"After we had exchanged the requisite formalities over tea in his camp on the southern edge of Kabul's outer defense perimeter, the Afghan field commander told me that two of his bravest mujahideen were martyred because he did not have a pickup truck to take them to a Peshawar hospital. They had succumbed to their battle wounds. He asked me to tell his party's bureaucrats across the border that he needed such a vehicle desperately. I double-checked with my interpreter that he was indeed making this request. I wasn't puzzled because the request appeared unreasonable but because he was asking me, a twenty-year-old employee of a humanitarian organization, to intercede on his behalf with his own organization's bureaucracy. I understood on this dry summer day in Khurd Kabul that not all militant and political organizations are alike."—from Organizations at War in Afghanistan and Beyond While popular accounts of warfare, particularly of nontraditional conflicts such as guerrilla wars and insurgencies, favor the roles of leaders or ideology, social-scientific analyses of these wars focus on aggregate categories such as ethnic groups, religious affiliations, socioeconomic classes, or civilizations. Challenging these constructions, Abdulkader H. Sinno closely examines the fortunes of the various factions in Afghanistan, including the mujahideen and the Taliban, that have been fighting each other and foreign armies since the 1979 Soviet invasion. Focusing on the organization of the combatants, Sinno offers a new understanding of the course and outcome of such conflicts. Employing a wide range of sources, including his own fieldwork in Afghanistan and statistical data on conflicts across the region, Sinno contends that in Afghanistan, the groups that have outperformed and outlasted their opponents have done so because of their successful organization. Each organization's ability to mobilize effectively, execute strategy, coordinate efforts, manage disunity, and process information depends on how well its structure matches its ability to keep its rivals at bay. Centralized organizations, Sinno finds, are generally more effective than noncentralized ones, but noncentralized ones are more resilient absent a safe haven. Sinno's organizational theory explains otherwise puzzling behavior found in group conflicts: the longevity of unpopular regimes, the demise of popular movements, and efforts of those who share a common cause to undermine their ideological or ethnic kin. The author argues that the organizational theory applies not only to Afghanistan-where he doubts the effectiveness of American state-building efforts—but also to other ethnic, revolutionary, independence, and secessionist conflicts in North Africa, the Middle East, and beyond.

Afghanistan's Endless War

Afghanistan's Endless War PDF Author: Larry P. Goodson
Publisher: University of Washington Press
ISBN: 0295801581
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 282

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Book Description
Going beyond the stereotypes of Kalashnikov-wielding Afghan mujahideen and black-turbaned Taliban fundamentalists, Larry Goodson explains in this concise analysis of the Afghan war what has really been happening in Afghanistan in the last twenty years. Beginning with the reasons behind Afghanistan’s inability to forge a strong state -- its myriad cleavages along ethnic, religious, social, and geographical fault lines -- Goodson then examines the devastating course of the war itself. He charts its utter destruction of the country, from the deaths of more than 2 million Afghans and the dispersal of some six million others as refugees to the complete collapse of its economy, which today has been replaced by monoagriculture in opium poppies and heroin production. The Taliban, some of whose leaders Goodson interviewed as recently as 1997, have controlled roughly 80 percent of the country but themselves have shown increasing discord along ethnic and political lines.

Afghanistan and Its Neighbors

Afghanistan and Its Neighbors PDF Author: Marvin G. Weinbaum
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Afghanistan
Languages : en
Pages : 20

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Book Description


Afghanistan

Afghanistan PDF Author: Thomas J. Barfield
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691154414
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 408

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Book Description
Traces the political history of Afghanistan from the sixteenth century to the present, looking at what has united the people as well as the regional, cultural, and political differences that divide them.

Constitutionalism in Context

Constitutionalism in Context PDF Author: David S. Law
Publisher:
ISBN: 110842709X
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 611

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Book Description
A broad-ranging, interdisciplinary, and context-rich exploration of the fields of constitutional studies and comparative constitutional law for research and teaching.

The Hazaras and the Afghan State

The Hazaras and the Afghan State PDF Author: Niamatullah Ibrahimi
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 1849049815
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 305

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Book Description
The Hazaras of Afghanistan have borne the brunt of many of the destructive forces unleashed by the establishment of the Afghan monarchy in 1747. The history of their relationship with the Afghan state has been punctuated by frequent episodes of ethnic cleansing, mass dispossession, forced displacement, enslavement and social and economic exclusion. Mostly Shia in a country dominated by Sunni Muslims, and identifiable because of their Asian features, the Hazaras became Afghanistan's internal 'Other'. They look different and practice a different school of Islam in a country that is prone to internal conflict and the machinations of external powers. The history of the Hazaras therefore offers a unique perspective into the deep contradictions of Afghanistan as a modern state, and how its ethnic and religious dynamics continue to undermine the post-2001 political process. This volume provides a fresh account of both the strategies and tactics of the Afghan state and how the Hazaras have responded to them, focusing on three key phenomena: Hazara rebellion and resistance to the intrusion of the Afghan state in the nineteenth century; the incorporation of the Hazara homeland into Afghanistan in the 1890s and their subsequent marginalization and exclusion; and the Hazaras' ethnic mobilization and struggle for recognition in recent decades.