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Browsing Faculty by Subject "Afghanistan -- Politics and government -- 2001-"

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    Connecting with Kabul: The Importance of the Wolesi Jirga Election and Local Political Networks in Afghanistan
    (Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit (AREU), 2010-05) Coburn, Noah
    There is a renewal of interest in the lower house of Afghanistan’s parliament, known as the Wolesi Jirga, taking place in both Afghan domestic politics and international discussion about governance in Afghanistan. This is particularly in the wake of the house’s rejection of a significant number of ministerial nominees, its opposition to President Hamid Karzai’s recent election decree and its initial refusal to ratify the national budget. With an evolving relationship with the executive branch, and elections currently scheduled for 18 September 2010, there are many questions about the role of the Wolesi Jirga in national and local politics that have not been considered carefully enough. And despite widespread concern about fraud and corruption during the 2009 presidential and provincial council elections, there is little consensus on what lessons were learned from those elections or what parliamentary elections mean for politics in Afghanistan.
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    The International Community and the 'Shura Strategy' in Afghanistan
    (International Development Law Organization, 2011) Coburn, Noah
    The international community in Afghanistan has increasingly come to realize that the failure of the Afghan state to provide citizens with predictable access to justice has contributed significantly to the insurgency in much of the country. As a result, funders, policy makers and the international military have increasingly looked to alternative approaches to justice that rely on informal, non-state actors. While this acknowledgement of legal pluralism in Afghanistan has been an important step in attempting to understand the local context for both rule of law and governance challenges, whether international programs aimed at engaging the informal justice sector are actually effective remains an open question.
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    Justifying the Means: Afghan Perceptions of Electoral Processes
    (United States Institute of Peace, 2013-03) Coburn, Noah; Larson, Anna
    This report focuses on local perceptions of the 2014 presidential elections in Afghanistan. It situates the elections within growing concerns about the political uncertainty of the upcoming transition and explores what Afghans might consider to be a “free and fair” poll in this context. The report details the findings from over fifty interviews conducted with respondents from three different regions of the country, both male and female, and representing all of the major ethnic groups. This research, funded by the United States Institute of Peace, builds, in particular, on earlier in-depth studies of the 2009 and 2010 elections conducted for the Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit.
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    Losing Legitimacy? Some Afghan Views on the Government, the International Community, and the 2009 Elections
    (Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit (AREU), 2009-11) Coburn, Noah
    Table of Contents No Single Opinion; Elections and Legitimacy; Has the Karzai Government been “Delegitimised?”; Have Elections in Afghanistan been “Delegitimised?”; The International Community: The Real Culprits?; Outcome as Opposed to Process; The Road from Here?
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    Myths and Misconceptions in the Afghan Transition
    (United States Institute of Peace, 2012-04-09) Coburn, Noah; Miakhel, Shahmahmood
    The coming period of transition to Afghan control of national security will require greater cooperation and understanding between all parties. Cooperation between the international community, the Afghan government and local communities is currently being undermined by a series of myths and assumptions which stem from the unstable conditions, a perceived lack of shared interests and a handful of highly publicized incidents. The international community often underestimates local capacity for governance in Afghanistan and ignores the success that Afghanistan did have with self-rule for much of the 20th century. Local Afghan communities are skeptical of the aims of both counterinsurgency and state-building measures, as projects, such as internationally sponsored elections, have failed to yield anticipated results despite the continued presence of international troops. There is an urgent need to rethink some of the assumptions on both sides of the table which threaten to undermine the long-term prospects for peace in Afghanistan.
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    Parliamentarians and Local Politics in Afghanistan Elections and Instability II
    (2010) Coburn, Noah
    This paper is primarily an ethnographic description of parliamentary political culture at the local level in three provinces in Afghanistan. It is part of a wider research project on representative governance in Afghanistan that the Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit (AREU) has been conducting since 2008.1 The study focuses on the districts of Ahmadaba and Gardez City in Paktia Province; the districts of Kaldar, Dihdadi and Balkh in the province of Balkh; and Qara Bagh in the province of Kabul.
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    The Politics of Dispute Resolution and Continued Instability in Afghanistan
    (United States Institute of Peace, 2011-08) Coburn, Noah
    This report argues that the assumed formal–informal dichotomy between justice systems in Afghanistan misdescribes the way in which most cases in the country are resolved. In fact, analysis in late 2010 of data from ongoing research and pilot projects sponsored by the United States Institute of Peace shows that most disputes have been handled by a combination of the two justice systems, with actors in each assuming different roles depending on the location and context of the dispute as well as on the parties involved, which has serious implications for many of the international programs recently created to engage the informal sector. Furthermore, this report suggests that the greatest barrier to local dispute resolution in Afghanistan is the current lack of security and political stability, which has made it more difficult for those involved in either formal or informal dispute-resolution systems to interact effectively.
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    Promoting Stability and Resolving Provincial Disputes in Afghanistan: USIP’s Dispute Councils Program
    (United States Institute of Peace, 2011-06-10) Coburn, Noah; Miakhel, Shahmahmood
    Currently numerous disputes at the local level are unresolved in Afghanistan, leading to local instability, a growing distance between the government and people and encouraging communities to turn to the Taliban. In March 2010, USIP began working with local elders, government officials (particularly governors and officials from the Ministry of Tribal Affairs) and religious figures to address a range of disputes in Nangarhar and Kunar provinces in eastern Afghanistan. These networks of elders, working closely with government officials and, in some cases, the international military, have addressed conflicts that include land disputes, criminal cases, and disputes involving the Taliban. Since 2010, USIP’s Dispute Resolution Project has participated in and recorded the resolution of over 120 cases. The project suggests several methods for facilitating dispute resolution that rely on flexible networks of locally legitimate political figures which will strengthen the government, promote rule of law and decrease the appeal of the Taliban.
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    Undermining Representative Governance: Afghanistan’s 2010 Parliamentary Election and Its Alienating Impact
    (Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit (AREU), 2011-02) Coburn, Noah; Larson, Anna
    This paper analyses the 2010 election as it happened in three provinces (Kabul, Balkh and Paktya), providing insight into the preparations, process and results in these areas. It situates the election in its political and historical context, drawing on an extensive two-year study by the Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit (AREU) of Afghan perspectives on elections.
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    Youth Mobilization and Political Constraints in Afghanistan: The Y Factor
    (United States Institute of Peace, 2014-01) Larson, Anna; Coburn, Noah
    Youth and young political leaders are reshaping Afghan politics, even as they and ostensibly Western-style civil society groups operate in a political system dominated by commanders and other power brokers from an earlier generation. Drawing on over a hundred interviews, this report examines the potential space for youth in Afghanistan’s political landscape, highlighting some of the major issues confronting young people that are likely to be common in other parts of Afghanistan. The work builds on several initiatives by the United States Institute of Peace and will be complemented by a broader, national-level study.