Building Political Legitimacy in Afghanistan

On November 11th the South Asian Studies Council will host a roundtable, lead by Yale Research Associate Alessandro Monsutti, to address the issue of political legitimacy in Afghanistan. It will take place at 4:30pm in Luce Hall, room 203.

Afghanistan has long faced problems of political instability, lack of legitimacy and factional violence. A poor and marginalized country, it was swept sharply into the spot-light of international politics following the events of 9/11/2001. An international military coalition rushed into the country, leading to the fall of the Taliban regime, and establishing a new political order, centered in Kabul. The United States, their allies, and the United Nations proceeded to try their hand at creating political legitimacy by establishing democracy to the best of their abilities. Two loya jirga (constitutional assemblies) and the first free presidential and legislative elections in Afghanistan�s history resulted. However, the countries instability only increased. Allegations of fraud in the August 2009 elections have heightened the belief in some circles that the democratization process in Afghanistan only furthered destabilization.

Since the original hope for progress and stability kindled in 2001 was quickly extinguished, government mismanagement and corruption has flourished. Reconstruction projects have been slow and unsuccessful, the Taliban, once thought to be destroyed, has resurged with ever-increased violence, criminality runs rampant, and drug production and trafficking monopolizes the black market.

The Obama administration has recently committed itself to send 21,000 more troupes into the region to defeat the insurgency and establish rule of law in accordance to the values which the international political scene stands by. This troupe surge will bring the total number of troupes, both US and NATO, to over 100,000. This emphasis on military solutions to Afghanistan�s problems is not necessarily the most productive one, as has been proved in the past. Afghanistan faces a range of fundamental social and political problems stemming from a long economic, social and political history which is not well known. Since the Communist coup d��tat of 1978 Afghanistan had been dominated by local commanders and warlords, ethnic entrepreneurs and Islamic militants. After the establishment of democracy, these players did all they could to remain in possession of power. This isn�t to say that there is no possibility of progress. New players have entered the scene, supported by the transnational institutional networks which are now connected to Afghanistan and promote human rights, women�s empowerment, democracy and political accountability.

The roundtable will address the consequences of the current situation and the reasons for previous failures of political legitimacy. It will address the lingering legacy of colonialism, deep factionalism entrenched in the people of the country, profound economic problems and the lack of a coherent basis for public life.

At the roundtable, the five scholars, Anthropologists Charles Lindholm from Boston University, and David Edwards from Williams College, Political Scientist Gilles Dorroso who now works for the Carnegie Institute for International Peace, Historian Shah Hanifi from James Madison University and Yale�s own Alessandro Monsutti of the South Asian Studies Council will join for a few hours to share their collective knowledge and try and answer the questions which have long troubled scholars of Afghanistan. The most fundamental of these being: What baseline principals would the Afghan people accept as tenements of public life, and what process of achieving that goal will they see as legitimate?

Before the public roundtable begins, participants will present their short papers and discuss for several hours in private with the participation of a few students. This will be followed by the public roundtable between 4:30 and 6:00 where each participant will give a brief presentation on his paper, and then engage in a general debate over these key questions and issues.

Charles Lindholm conducted fieldwork, several decades ago, in the Swat Valley of Northern Pakistan on the relationship between social organization and emotion, as well as politics, kinship, and the role of religion. He is the author of numerous books on the Middle East, political charisma, and psychological anthropology, including Generosity and Jealousy: the Swat Pukhtun of Northern Pakistan (1982) and Frontier Perspectives: Essays in Comparative Anthropology (1996).

Gilles Dorronsoro does research focused on security and political development in Afghanistan, and particularly the role of the International Security Assistance Force. He searches for ways to foster conditions in Kabul which will be stable enough to enable the necessary withdrawal of international troupes from the region. He is the author of Revolution Unending: Afghanistan, 1979 to the Present (2005).

David Edwards has done his work primarily on the way in which ideology and moral structure has internally divided Afghanistan against itself. These divisions go deeper than ethnic differences, and span every group and every part of Afghan social and political life. He is the author of Heroes of the Age: Moral Fault Lines on the Afghan Frontier (1996) and Before Taliban: Genealogies of the Afghan Jihad (2002), as well as a documentary Kabul Transit (2006).

Shah M. Hanifi looks at Afghan issues historically, through the lens of its economic history and the legacy of colonialism. His work focuses on how those factors play a role in social, political and regional issues. He is the author of Connecting Histories in Afghanistan: Market Relations and State Formation on a Colonial Frontier (2008).

Alessandro Monsutti, who will lead the roundtable, has worked on the Afghan refugees transnational networks, and the wider diaspora. He focuses on the social and economic aspects of Afghan society and is currently doing research on the rural reconstruction of Afghanistan. Here at Yale he teaches State and Society in Afghanistan and Global Afghans. He is the author of War and Migration: Social Networks and Economic Strategies of the Hazaras of Afghanistan (2005).