EFSAS Study Paper: Governance and Insurgency in Afghanistan
August 9, 2022
Complex social relationships do not inevitably breed crises as protracted and violent such as the one Afghanistan finds itself in, and the present paper therefore argues that, instead of cultural characteristics or social identity, conflict in Afghanistan is best explained by reference to political dynamics with the most salient fault line dividing Afghanistan’s population being between those who wanted to modernize the State in line with some external (Soviet or Western) blueprint, and those who favoured a return to an imagined Islamic past.
