Warlord survival : the delusion of state building in Afghanistan / Romain Malejacq.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Malejacq, Romain, Author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Warlordism--Afghanistan--History.

Warlordism.

Warlordism and international relations--Afghanistan.

Warlordism and international relations.

Nation-building--Afghanistan.

Nation-building.

Political culture--Afghanistan.

Political culture.

Afghanistan--Politics and government--1989-2001.

Afghanistan.

Afghanistan--Politics and government--2001-2021.

Physical Description:

1 online resource

Place of Publication:

Ithaca, NY : Cornell University Press, [2019]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

How do warlords survive and even thrive in contexts that are explicitly set up to undermine them? How do they rise after each fall? Warlord Survival answers these questions. Drawing on hundreds of in-depth interviews in Afghanistan between 2007 and 2018, with ministers, governors, a former vice-president, warlords and their entourages, opposition leaders, diplomats, NGO workers, and local journalists and researchers, Romain Malejacq provides a full investigation of how warlords adapt and explains why weak states like Afghanistan allow it to happen.Malejacq follows the careers of four warlords in Herat, Sheberghan, and Panjshir—Ismail Khan, Abdul Rashid Dostum, Ahmad Shah Massoud, and Mohammad Qasim Fahim). He shows how they have successfully negotiated complicated political environments to survive ever since the beginning of the Soviet-Afghan war. The picture he paints in Warlord Survival is one of astute political entrepreneurs with a proven ability to organize violence. Warlords exert authority through a process in which they combine, instrumentalize, and convert different forms of power to prevent the emergence of a strong, centralized state. But, as Malejacq shows, the personal relationships and networks fundamental to the authority of Ismail Khan, Dostum, Massoud, and Fahim are not necessarily contrary to bureaucratic state authority. In fact, these four warlords, and others like them, offer durable and flexible forms of power in unstable, violent countries.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Acknowledgments

Map of areas of relevance

Map of Afghanistan provinces

Introduction: Why Warlord Survival?

1. Warlords, States, and Political Orders

2. The Game of Survival

3. Ismail Khan, the Armed Notable of Western Afghanistan

4. Dostum, the Ethnic Entrepreneur

5. Massoud and Fahim: The Mujahid and the Violent Entrepreneur

Conclusion: Beyond Warlord Survival

Notes

Index

Notes:

Also issued in print: 2020.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 26. Mai 2020)

ISBN:

9781501746437

150174643X

OCLC:

1091237918