Source: AREU
In this newly published research, titled “Politics and Governance in Afghanistan: The case of Kandahar,” AREU’s Ashley Jackson provides an overview of sub-national governance in the southern province of Kandahar.
This research focuses on understanding the power relations at play, attempting to separate how government actually functions in reality from the narratives on government functionality created by the international community.
Key government officials in Kandahar after 2001 derived their power, at least initially, from outside the formal system. After the fall of the Taliban, they leveraged their influence to capture international resources. These strongmen and their networks have penetrated the state at all levels, overwhelmingly subverted government institutions and ultimately undermined the functioning of nascent institutions.
State institutions and formal rules overlay the networks of access that form the bedrock of the social order in Kandahar, providing a thin veneer of government authority and legitimacy. Line ministries’ provincial departments and other government bodies are governed by prevailing interests rather than formal rules, which helps explain how the role of the Provincial Council as well as the degree to which the role and influence of government bodies have varied so significantly over time. The real power does not lie with state institutions but with the men at the centre of the networks of access that regulate political and economic life in the province.
Since 2001, the international community has had a profoundly contradictory and ultimately self-defeating strategy with regard to governance in Kandahar. While donors have spent significant energy and resources on improving governance, foreign militaries have nurtured and sustained a system that has profoundly weakened and corrupted emerging sub-national government institutions.
“Politics and Governance in Afghanistan: the Case of Kandahar”, is available for download at:
