Publications
The Ex-Taleban on the High Peace Council: A renewed role for the Khuddam ul-Furqan?
AAN's latest discussion paper by Thomas Ruttig provides a first analysis of the former Taleban members on the newly-established Afghan High Peace Council (HPC), of what their possible role may be in this body, their political and historical background as well as the development of their positions vis-à-vis a possible process of negotiations.
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Who Controls the Vote? Afghanistan's Evolving Elections
AAN's latest report, by Martine van Bijlert, provides the first in-depth analysis of the 2009 provincial council elections and presents important clues on what the parliamentary vote on 18 September will look like. It argues that, contrary to what some internationals hope, the upcoming vote will again be messy, fiercely contested and manipulated at all levels.
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How Tribal Are the Taleban? Afghanistan’s Largest Insurgent Movement between its Tribal Roots and Islamist Ideology
The Taleban in Afghanistan should be treated as a primarily political movement with political aims, and not as a tribal one, concludes Thomas Ruttig, author of the new report ‘How Tribal Are the Taleban? Afghanistan’s Largest Insurgent Movement between Tribal Roots and Islamist Ideology,’ published today by AAN.
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The Northern Front: The Afghan Insurgency Spreading beyond the Pashtuns
One of the key developments in Afghanistan during the last year is the expansion of insurgent activity in the northern region. The latest AAN briefing paper analyses this expansion and points to the crucial fact that the Taleban are expanding their constituency into non-Pashtun areas. The paper is authored by Antonio Giustozzi, prominent scholar of Afghanistan politics and the Taliban, and Christoph Reuter, country-based journalist and an expert on the situation in the northern provinces.
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Local Defence in Afghanistan: A Review of Government-backed Initiatives
In this latest AAN report, Mathieu Lefèvre unpacks the myths about local defense initiatives in Afghanistan. His analysis of three local defense initiatives shows the contradictions in the claimed successes and points at possible long-term security challenges posed by these initiatives.
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Nation-Building Is Not for All; The Politics of Education
In this AAN report Afghanistan scholar Antonio Giustozzi explores the deeply political and contentious history of education in Afghanistan. The report discusses the development of state education over the last 90 years in the context of nation-building, and touches on a series of crucial issues, including the role of religion; the priority of government concerns over community concerns; the importance attributed to universal education; the weight placed on female education; and the use of the curricula for the purpose of indoctrination.
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Golden Surrender: The Risks, Challenges, and Implications of Reintegration in Afghanistan
The reintegration of former fighters is one of the main pillars in the unfolding counterinsurgency strategy. It is however more complex and difficult to accomplish than is commonly appreciated.
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Two Interventions: Comparing Soviet and US-led state-building in Afghanistan
Although there is a broad consensus that building a capable and legitimate state is key to success in Afghanistan, there has been little systematic comparison between the current US-led intervention and the Soviet state-building intervention that took place between 1979 and 1989. This paper aims to remedy that by analysing the trajectories of both interventions. It focuses on three sectors of state-building: the security sector, fiscal policy, and state legitimation, and explores how issues of ownership and sequencing have influenced the outcomes of both efforts.
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The AfPak Strategy: Reactions in Pakistan
Viewing Pakistan in a historical and geostrategic context, this paper by eminent Pakistan and India expert Karl Fischer highlights those aspects of the new United States strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan (formerly termed ‘the AfPak Strategy’) that are more relevant for Pakistan and shows predominant Pakistani reactions to these issues. The selection is limited to the responses of government and political leaders, representatives of the military as well as some prominent members of the media and academia. The material also offers some basic conclusions and policy recommendations.
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Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: Pakistan in 2010
While the world is discussing strategies to exit Afghanistan, the crisis in neighbouring Pakistan is deepening. What the silent majority of Pakistanis voted for in the elections of February 2008 – a secular democracy – is proving elusive. The army has since reemerged as a major political actor and the Taleban are gaining ground. This paper by Ann Wilkens, former Swedish Ambassador to Pakistan and Afghanistan (2003-07), current President, Swedish Committee for Afghanistan (SCA) and member of the AAN Advisory Board, addresses this deficit in attention.
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Governance in Afghanistan in Regional Perspective
In discussions about governance and reforms in Afghanistan, the regional dimension – and in particular Afghanistan’s relative position in comparison with its neighbouring countries – is often neglected. In this paper Dr. Christian Wagner, head of the Asia Research group at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (Berlin), compares Afghanistan to other South Asian countries to assess what can realistically be expected.
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The State of the Afghan State
In this paper, Anders Fänge, AAN member and Country Director of the Swedish Committee for Afghanistan, gives his views on where Afghanistan stands, what went wrong and what can be done - in this third attempt of government-driven ambitious and wide-ranging national reform programmes within a hundred years that caused a major armed rebellion.
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Polling Day Fraud in the Afghan Elections
Journalists, observers and diplomats have caught on to the fact that all was not well with last month’s Afghan elections, but it is not always clear what exactly happened and why that is a problem.
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How to Win an Afghan Election; Perceptions and Practices
In its second report the Afghanistan Analysts Network (AAN) holds the magnifying glass to the Afghan elections, exploring the impact of high-level deals, local-level decision-making processes, and electoral manipulation.
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The Other Side. Dimensions of the Afghan Insurgency: Causes, Actors - and Approaches to Talks
In this first Afghanistan Analysts Network (AAN) report “The Other Side: Dimensions of the Afghan Insurgency. Causes, Actors and Approaches to Talks”, author Thomas Ruttig – an Afghanistan expert working on and in the country since 25 years – seeks to unpack the complexities of the insurgency in Afghanistan and develop a sophisticated approach to ‘talks with the Taliban’.
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