7/21/2019 1503E Politics and Governance in Afghanistan

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/1503e-politics-and-governance-in-afghanistan 1/41Researching livelihoods and services affected by conict

Brieng Paper 9

January 2015

SLRC Brieng Papers present information,analysis and key policy recommendations onissues relating to livelihoods, basic services andsocial protection in conict-affected situations.This and other SLRC Brieng Papers are availablefrom www.securelivelihoods.org. Funded by DFID,Irish Aid and EC.

The views presented in this paper are those of theauthor(s) and not necessarily the views of SLRC,DFID, Irish Aid and EC. ©SLRC 2015 

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Politics andgovernance in

Afghanistan: the caseof Nangarhar provinceKey messages

 ■ Initiatives to build genuinely improved and sustainable

governance in Afghanistan have faltered in large part due to a

failure to understand of informal power relations.

 ■ The process of renegotiation and reconsolidation of the existing

order through new institutions and practices has taken place on

the terrain of formal government structures.

■ The process of renegotiation and reconsolidation of the existing

order through new institutions and practices has taken place on

the terrain of formal government structures.

The Secure Livelihoods Research Consortium (SLRC) is a researchprogramme which aims to generate a stronger evidence base on how peoplein conicted-affected situations, make a living, access basic services (likehealthcare, education and water) and perceive and engage with governanceat local and national levels. This is in the hope of informing future policy andprogramming that will ultimately have better outcomes for people livingin conict-affected situations. SLRC’s Afghanistan research programmeseeks to generate robust practice-relevant evidence on livelihoods, servicedelivery and social protection that will inform better modes of internationalengagement in Afghanistan.

What is this study about?

Afghanistan’s government is often described as fragmented and fragile.In many instances, the central government is viewed as failing to functioneffectively, particularly beyond the capital. This does not mean that thereis disorder at the regional or provincial level. To date, the international

community’s governance agenda has consistently failed to consider andadequately address the more informal, relationship-based reality of howAfghan government institutions function.

Further complicating matters is the fact that subnational governance-building

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Brieng Paper January 2015

Politics and governance in Afghanistan: the case of

Nangarhar province

efforts have been confused and contradictory. There isa persistent lack of clarity about the role and mandateof formal institutions, including key institutions likethe Provincial Governor and Provincial Council. At both

provincial and district level, the lack of clarity has meantthat more informal networks continue to dominate localaffairs and access to resources.

The rst of three case studies, this paper has soughtto comprehend the local context and highlight theshortcomings of development and governanceinterventions. In an effort to understand the powerrelations at play, it explores subnational governanceand access to public goods. A number of decidingfactors inuenced our choice of the Nangarhar provinceas a focus case for the study. With a large US military

presence, Nangarhar has received signicant aid fundingsince 2001. Other factors include its centrality to easternpolitics; its unique identity as a regional centre of power;its critical geopolitical importance and its close linkageswith Pakistan.

The inquiry was driven by three core questions:

 ■ What regional social orders have emerged in Afghanistan,

and what are the conditions that have generated them?

 ■ How do these vary in the extent to which they provide core

public goods and what are the incentives that drive this?

 ■ How can international actors inuence these orders to

deliver more widely and effectively, and limit rent seeking

practices?

What did we do?

This brieng paper draws on ndings emerging fromqualitative data collected in Nangarhar and Kabul.Between June and December 2013, 75 interviews wereconducted in both the capital and the Eastern province.Most interviews were semi-structured. Interviewees werekey informants comprising of parliamentarians; provincialcouncil members; governors and district governors;

ministers; civil servants, government employees andbroader civil society actors; youth and human rightsactivists; as well as business people and aid workers.

The interviews focused on building an understanding ofthe following:

 ■ The role that key actors play, both within formal government

structures and outside of them.

■ The role of the formal state.

■ The role of individual power brokers in limiting or enhancing

access to public goods and economic opportunities.

Additionally, semi-structured focus group discussions andinterviews were conducted in Jalalabad and the Torkhamborder, as well as in three Nangarhar districts (Sukhroad,Rodat, and Dari Noor). These were selected for closer

examination, with an aim to understand: how the de factoand de jure state functions in Afghanistan’s districts; therelations between districts and the provincial governmentin Jalalabad; and how the above are linked, through line

ministries or other means, to the central government inKabul. The study also draws on a wide array of secondarydata and analysis, including ofcial statistics, newsarticles, eld reports, historical materials and greyliterature.

What did we nd?

Informal governance and strongmen

The Afghan government appears centralized onlyon paper; in reality, power is highly decentralized

and concentrated in Afghanistan’s regional centres.Following decades of conict, regional strongmen andex-commanders were able to assert their authority in thevacuum left behind by the displacement of old rural elites.Their monopoly on violence in the early years after thefall of the Taliban allowed them to assert their authority,capture resources and appoint themselves to the defacto government. By the time the rst round of electionsoccurred in 2004 and 2005, their role was established. Insuccessive Provincial Council and Parliamentary electionsin 2009, 2010 and 2014, many were elected to ofce andcame to dominate provincial politics.

Strongmen and their networks of inuence havedeeply penetrated the state at all levels. They haveoverwhelmingly subverted government institutions andultimately undermined the ability of nascent institutionsto serve the needs of Afghans. Furthermore, Kabulhas used governor appointments as a means of co-opting regional strongmen. For the Karzai government,for example, the appointment of provincial governors,ministers and other key positions was an important tooltowards cultivating the secondary political settlementsintegral to creating a viable state. So the establishedorder is consolidated rather than contested. Some

technocratic appointments were made but this was onlyfeasible in provinces (such as Bamiyan) where thereare few resources to capture and where the overridingpriorities of the international community are of lessconcern.

In fact, there is a signicant overlap between provincesthat most strongly exhibit these dynamics and theavailability of resources (which have been co-opted bystrongmen with relative ease.) Many of these provinceshave international borders. They have heavy cross-border trade, and continue to have high levels of foreign

troops. This means a signicantly higher distribution ofaid money. It also means a host of other opportunitiesfor revenue generation, ranging from construction to theoutsourcing of security and logistics. The licit and illicitextraction of revenue and resources is central to political

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bargaining processes.

Monopolising public goods and resources

The appointment of Gul Agha Sherzai as governorof Nangarhar in 2005, provides a useful case inunderstanding the role that public good provision playsin enabling strongmen to consolidate their base. It is alsoa special case that shows the tactics an outsider usedto prevail over an established local order. Hailing fromKandahar, Sherzai was forced to cultivate support amongNangarhar’s population and gain decisive internationalsupport.

For a time, he cultivated support providing for the publicgood through various public works projects and other

means. He cultivated relationships with commanders,including Hazrat Ali, as well as elders and tribes, likethe Shinwari, that had been excluded from the politicalorder. In particular, he worked to generate support inthe southern loop districts, historically marginalizedand where much of Nangarhar’s poppy is cultivated, bynegotiating poppy eradication schemes with internationalforces. The southern loop tribal leadership was forced togive up some of their cultivation and in return, tribal eldersreceived cash, in-kind goods and development projectsin exchange for publicly pledging to eradicate poppy.Sherzai’s brokering of eradication schemes was seen asvaluable by international forces and donors, reinforcingthese relationships and his access to internationalresources, with Nangarhar declared ‘poppy-free’ by 2008.

In Nangarhar, the provision of public goods was rarelypursued for its own sake. In instances where Sherzaispearhead some improvement to governance, goods orservices, it was driven by self-interest. Ultimately theyare reinforcing the dependence on relationships to thedetriment of the development of institutions. If roads werebuilt, for example, the primary motivating factor is not theroads themselves. It is the support they will bring and therevenue generation through contracting companies linked

to or controlled by strongmen and their proxies.

Legitimacy and power is almost always derived fromthe coercive control or capture of state and non-stateresources. Illegal taxation and capture of the revenuesfrom the Torkham border crossing were central toSherzai’s governance strategy. The Sherzai ‘tax’ nettedthe governor an estimated $1.5 million to $4 millionper month. Sherzai redistributed a small portion ofthis through the Sherzai Fund, which supported localdevelopment initiatives. However, resorting to tactics thatappear to be public goods provision is limited to instances

where the means of providing support is mutuallybenecial, or where the individual has few other options(as with Sherzai). In other words, public goods provision ismerely an unintended side effect.

A ‘government of relationships’

More often than not, international interventionsin Afghanistan to reform governance have been

characterised by a process of ‘institutional bricolage’(Stark and Bruszt, 1998). This has meant that thatinstead of bringing about institutional and socialtransformation, reforms and policies have merely led tothe renegotiation and reconsolidation of the existing orderthrough new institutions and practices. This is not due tolack of ambition but a failure to understand the incentivesand relationships that drive the existing social order.

US military presence and the international communityhas played a large role in cultivating a ‘rentier politicalmarketplace’ (de Waal 2009) in Afghanistan, wherein

elites jockey for favour with international actors. Acompetition among government ofcials and informalpower brokers vying for access to those resourcesprovided for the purpose of bolstering security anderadicating opium. The US military, and the massive inuxof money it brought, has created a system of winnersand losers in eastern politics. For the winners, accessto these resources has enabled the establishment ofprivate construction and security rms that bring wealthand power to key brokers. Access to these resources isenabled only through patronage relationships, whetherthey are based on tribe, family or economic ties. Formalrules and systems exist only on the surface. Accessto resources ranging from economic opportunities togovernment jobs and access to a place at university aregoverned by more informal rules.

International interventions themselves have alsobeen marked by competition, with overlapping andcontradictory reforms implemented by various aid actors(donors, aid agencies and the UN). The continuing lack ofclarity, oversight and consistency has unwittingly enabledthe capture of state institutions for personal gain.Furthermore, the lack of coordination among donors andinitiatives has allowed them greater reign to manipulate

international support and capture revenue streams. Thisis true both among major power holders, as well as at thelocal level among village rivals or competing tribes.

What does this mean for policy makers?

In Afghanistan, formal government institutions andprocesses are allowed to function according to therules so long as they do not threaten the interests of thepowerful. Combined with the highly centralised controlof government budgets and authority that underminesthe effectiveness and responsiveness of subnational

government institutions, those who ‘play by the rules’have effectively been disempowered. Relative tothose who have an external power base and access toresources outside the system, the former do not standa chance. And the capture of formal institutions for

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Brieng Paper January 2015

Politics and governance in Afghanistan: the case of

Nangarhar province

References

De Waal, A. (2009) ‘Mission withoutend? Peacekeeping in the Africanpolitical marketplace.’InternationalAffairs 85(1).

Stark, D. and Bruszt, L . (1998)Postcolonial pathways: Transformingpolitics and property in East CentralEurope. Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press.

personal gain has been enabled by the lack of clarityregarding subnational governance institutions.

Perhaps much of this confusion could have been

avoided through genuine donor coordination but theproblem runs much deeper than that. Many of thesegovernance programmes seemed to assume that nothingexisted beyond the provincial capital. When in reality,sophisticated systems of local governance have longbeen in place. In the east, these customary institutionsand the network of relationships are relatively strongand carry legitimacy. Simply imposing structures fromthe outside, without sufcient understanding of the localcontext, was unlikely to work from the outset.

In order to craft effective governance, such initiativeswill have to employ a sophisticated understanding of

the processes of ‘bricolage’ that are likely to occur. Theymust ensure that provincial and district bodies are bothrepresentative and sufciently empowered to full theirmandate. Policy discussions of ‘formal’ and ‘informal’governance often see them as separate systems, whichcan obscure the interdependent relationship between thetwo. Existing power relationships and systems must beconsidered together with the formal government.

The drawdown of US troops and the decline in theresources they provide is already having an impacton the local economy and political dynamics of

Afghanistan. This is as true of those power holders whohave benetted from US military support, as it is oftheir rural constituencies. With dwindling internationalresources and attention, it may be that such powerholders are less motivated to provide for the publicgood. Previously, the rural elite was able to negotiatebenets for themselves through the monetary benetsof opium eradication projects. Now, the drawdown andconsequent disappearance of this funding has weakenedtheir position within their communities. This is evidencedby Sherzai’s downfall in the east, as well as the fact thatmany have already returned to poppy cultivation.

The political landscape in Nangarhar is already changingwith Sherzai’s resignation and replacement, as well asthe 2014 elections. Whether the old social order will bereinforced through appointments and electoral processesremains to be seen. Nonetheless, transformativemoments such as these allow an opportunity to re-

examine the ways in which the international communityhas intervened. Evidence from Nangarhar suggeststhat a new approach that leads to genuinely improved,sustainable governance outcomes for Afghans is urgently

needed.

Written by Ashley Jackson (ashley.a.jackson@gmail.

com)

This Brieng Paper is based on the following SLRC Working Paper: Politicsand governance in Afghanistan: the case of Nangarhar province (http://securelivelihoods.org/publications_details.aspx?resourceid=310&Page=2)written by Ashley Jackson. Readers are encouraged to quote or reproducematerial from SLRC Brieng Papers for their own publications. As copyrightholder, SLRC requests due acknowledgement and a copy of the publication.