State Building in Afghanistan

1.5 or 3 Credits · Level: Undergraduate

The State remains a key concept for the students of International relations and comparative politics, and states remain arguably key players in global politics, even as a variety of non-state actors and international organizations complicate the picture both at the global level and within states. State-building has become an ever more important topic in places where the coherence, capacity, performance, and stability of state institutions is in question, and has come to involve state and non-state actors as well as international organizations. After reviewing some of the main themes in state-building, this 1.5 credit course homes in on a case study of state-building experiences in Afghanistan. Part I provides a general overview of what states and state-building are. Part II covers the state-building process in Afghanistan in historical context. Part III discusses the possibilities for post-US state-building in Afghanistan: the contexts, modality, factors, state makers, opportunities, and challenges. We will address the following questions: how did modern Afghanistan emerge as a state? What have been the historical stages of state-building in Afghanistan? Why did Afghanistan remain a weak state until 2001? What was the US approach for state-building in post-2001 Afghanistan? What were the opportunities? What were the challenges? What went wrong and why did state-building fail in Afghanistan? And what are the opportunities for state-building after the end of the US presence?