Neopatrimonialism in Afghanistan: Former Warlords, New Democratic Bureaucrats?

Abstract

An indispensable part of the liberal peacebuilding package is rebuilding effective and meritocratic administrative structures. This paper analyses building state institutions in Afghanistan with a focus on the role of warlords in the process. The findings are based on in-depth interviews conducted from 2012 to 2016 in five different provinces of Afghanistan. The paper uses neopatrimonialism as an analytical framework to shed light on our understanding of warlords’ influence on building state institutions in a war-torn country such as Afghanistan. The paper argues that warlords have played a major role in the formation of neopatrimonialism in the country, a system that has proven pervasive, flexible and resistant to change. Additionally, this paper contends that neopatrimonial networks centred on warlords have been relatively effective in delivering services to those within the network while excluding others, nonetheless creating enough legitimacy and support to survive. Overall, this neopatrimonial system excludes some segments of the population and is very difficult to reform to make it more inclusive.

Keywords:

• neopatrimonialism
• statebuilding
• warlords
• Afghanistan

Acknowledgements

The author wishes to extend her gratitude to the anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments and the editors of the journal for their painstaking review of different versions of this article.

Notes

1 Liberal peacebuilding in the aftermath of a conflict aims at political transformation from a war government (or the absence of it) to a post-war democratic government and from economies of war to an equitable and transparent market economy and post-war development (Mac Ginty 2010).

2 Statebuilding in this paper is approached as building state institutions.

3 http://mws.hsps.cam.ac.uk/pps/current/undergraduate/soc_erassessment.html

4 The term ‘entitlement’ is not used pejoratively here.

5 The topic of the MPs getting money from the ‘impeached ministers’ was also widely discussed in the Afghan media. For instance, the newspaper 8am reports that the ‘MPs Wednesday Syndrome’ did the trick, referring to announcing the impeaching on Wednesday in order to give the MPs time on Thursday and Friday to strike deals with the impeached ministers. Hasht-e Sobh’s article titled ‘Khana-e milat or manba-e tawled-e fisad’ [House of the people or source of corruption?] (April 5, 2013) particularly refers to the incident discussed above. https://8am.af/x8am/1392/01/18/corruption-house-of-nation-parliament-editorial/. http://8am.af/1392/01/18/corruption-house-of-nation-parliament-editorial/, accessed 12 November 2013.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Weeda Mehran

DR WEEDA MEHRAN works at the Global Studies Institute, Georgia State University. Her research takes a multidisciplinary approach to studying jihadi propaganda. Weeda completed her PhD degree titled ‘The Political Economy of Warlord Democracy in Afghanistan’ at the Department of Politics and International Studies, University of Cambridge in 2015.