Jonathan Goodhand

Enduring Disorder and Persistent Poverty: A Review of the Linkages Between War and Chronic Poverty

Abstract This paper examines the relationship between chronic poverty and violent conflict. Three types of potential linkage are examined: (a) long-term conflict causes chronic poverty, (b) chronic poverty causes violent conflict (grievance-based analysis), (c) resource wealth (rather than chronic poverty) causes violent conflict (greed-based analysis). Research to date has analyzed poverty-war linkages but chronic poverty has not been a focus. It is hypothesized that long-term conflict is likely to be a “driver” and “maintainer” of chronic poverty but a relationship in the opposite direction is less likely i.e., the chronically poor are less likely to ferment violent conflict than the transiently poor. The paper highlights the fact that current knowledge on poverty–conflict links is contested and further research is required on chronic poverty and war.

Social Capital and the Political Economy of Violence: A Case Study of Sri Lanka

This article examines the links between militarised violence and social capital (trans)formation. It first maps out emerging theoretical and policy debates on social capital and violent conflict and questions a number of the assumptions underpinning these debates. This is followed by an empirical analysis of several war-affected communities in Sri Lanka. The case studies illustrate that the links between militarised violence and social capital are complex, dynamic and context specific. It is argued that social capital cannot be understood in isolation from political and economic processes, and the belief that violent conflict inevitably erodes social capital is questioned. Finally, the implications for external agencies are highlighted. Rather than focusing on engineering social capital, external agencies need to focus on understanding better the preconditions for social capital formation and how they can contribute to the creation of an enabling environment. This requires as a starting-point a rigorous analysis of political and economic processes.

Corrupting or Consolidating the Peace? The Drugs Economy and Post-conflict Peacebuilding in Afghanistan

This article examines how the drugs economy emerged, evolved and adapted to transformations in Afghanistans political economy. With a primary focus on the conflictual war to peace transition following the signing of the Bonn Agreement, the relationship between drugs and political (dis)order is explored. Central to the analysis is an examination of the power relationships and institutions of extraction that developed around the drug economy. Expanding upon a model developed by Snyder (2004), it is argued that joint extraction regimes involving rulers and private actors have tended to bring political order whereas private extraction regimes have led to decentralized violence and political breakdown. This model helps explain why in some parts of Afghanistan drugs and corruption have contributed to a level of political order, whereas in other areas they have fuelled disorder. Thus, there is no universal, one-directional relationship between drugs, corruption and conflict. Peacebuilding involves complex bargaining processes between rulers and peripheral elites over power and resources and when successful leads to stable interdependencies. Counter-narcotics policies have the opposite effect and are thus fuelling conflict.

From holy war to opium war? A case study of the opium economy in North Eastern Afghanistan

This paper examines the recent growth of the opium economy in north-eastern Afghanistan. A detailed analysis of one village in Badakshan Province reveals profound changes in the local economy and social institutions. The paper describes two major shifts in the local economy: first, the switch from wheat to poppy cultivation; and second, the shift from the livestock trade to the opium trade. It then examines the underlying causes and impacts of the opium economy on social relations in the village. Although a case study of a community living on the margins of the global economy, it is argued that these changes have important implications for international policymakers. The emergence of the opium economy in north-eastern Afghanistan is symptomatic of new and expanding forms of trans-border trade associated with the restructuring of the global political economy.

Bribes or Bargains? Peace Conditionalities and ‘Post Conflict’ Reconstruction in Afghanistan

This article focuses on the role of international aid donors in Afghanistan since the signing of the Bonn Agreement in 2001. Specifically, it explores the scope and utility of peace conditionalities as an instrument for peace consolidation in the context of a fragile war-to-peace transition. Geo-strategic and institutional concerns have generally led to an unconditional approach to assistance by international actors. It is argued that large inflows of unconditional aid risk re-creating the structural conditions that led to the outbreak of conflict. Aid conditionalities need to be re-conceptualized as aid-for-peace bargains rather than as bribes for security. Some forms of conditionality are necessary in order to rebuild the social contract in Afghanistan. This finding has wider relevance for aid donors and they should reconsider orthodox development models in ‘fragile state’ settings. Rather than seeing conditionalities and ownership as two ends of a policy spectrum, the former may be a necessary instrument for achieving the latter.

The Limits of Liberal Peacebuilding: International Engagement in the Sri Lankan Peace Process

Abstract This essay explores international engagement in the Sri Lankan peace process between 2002 and 2008. The internationalization of peacebuilding in Sri Lanka is analysed as part of a broader international shift towards a model of ‘liberal peacebuilding’, which involves the simultaneous pursuit of conflict resolution, liberal democracy and market sovereignty. The essay provides a detailed and disaggregated analysis of the various exporters, importers and resisters of liberal peacebuilding, with a particular focus on the contrasting ways in which the United National Front (UNF) and the United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA) regimes engaged with international actors. It is argued that an analysis of the Sri Lankan case provides a corrective to some of the core assumptions contained in much of the literature on liberal peacebuilding. Rather than viewing liberal peacebuilding as simply an hegemonic enterprise foisted upon countries emerging from conflict, the essay explores the ways in which peacebuilding is mediated through, and translated and instrumentalized by, multiple actors with competing interests – consequently liberal peacebuilding frequently looks different when it ‘hits the ground’ and may, as in the Sri Lanka case, lead to decidedly illiberal outcomes. The essay concludes by exploring the theoretical and policy implications of a more nuanced understanding of liberal peacebuilding. It is argued that rather than blaming the failure of the project on deficiencies in its execution and the recalcitrance of the people involved, there is a need to look at defects in the project itself and to explore alternatives to the current model of liberal peacebuilding.

Beyond the Taliban? The Afghan conflict and United Nations peacemaking

The start of military action on 7 October 2001 by the ??-led ‘coalition against terrorism’ has had a profound impact on the con?ict in Afghanistan. This article examines the roots and dynamics of the war, charting its evolution from a Cold War con?ict to a hybrid con?ict (part regional proxy war, part civil war). Past e?orts by the United Nations (??) to resolve the war are examined—Afghanistan has been described as a ‘graveyard for ?? negotiation’.1 While there are many reasons for the ??’s lack of success in peacemaking over the past 20 years, part of the problem is that thinking and practice has been, and remains, heavily coloured by classic models of con?ict resolution and diplomacy. In light of the renewed military, diplomatic and humanitarian attention being devoted to Afghanistan, this paper seeks to trace the events that have led to the current situation and re?ect on possible ways forward. What lessons can be learned from the past, and how can they inform current and future ??-led peacemaking initiatives?

From holy war to opium war? A case study of the opium economy in north-eastern Afghanistan.

This paper examines the recent growth of the opium economy in north-eastern Afghanistan. A detailed analysis of one village in Badakshan Province reveals profound changes in the local economy and social institutions. The paper describes two major shifts in the local economy: first, the switch from wheat to poppy cultivation; and second, the shift from the livestock trade to the opium trade. It then examines the underlying causes and impacts of the opium economy on social relations in the village. Although a case study of a community living on the margins of the global economy, it is argued that these changes have important implications for international policymakers. The emergence of the opium economy in north-eastern Afghanistan is symptomatic of new and expanding forms of trans-border trade associated with the restructuring of the global political economy.

Contested boundaries: NGOs and civil–military relations in Afghanistan

In recent years there has been a growing focus in academic and policy circles on the changing roles of military and civilian actors in the context of multi-mandate peace and stabilization operations. This focus on ‘civil–military cooperation’ (CIMIC) and the related notion of the ‘security–development nexus’ reflect changed thinking about the causes of (and solutions to) to wars and insecurity, the role of external actors, and the balance between ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ forms of intervention. This article explores the civil–military interface in Afghanistan, focusing on the changing role of NGOs and specifically their growing but troubled relationship with externally promoted statebuilding and counterinsurgency. A recurring theme in the article is that of contested boundaries; CIMIC has been the site of intensive ‘boundary work’ in which NGOs and the military seek to negotiate or contest where boundaries are drawn and who has the power to draw (and police) them.

Rethinking liberal peacebuilding, statebuilding and transition in Afghanistan: an introduction

This special issue coincides with a period of large-scale international troop withdrawals from Afghanistan, with a scheduled transition to ‘Afghan ownership’ in 2014. This latest ‘transition’ in Afghanistan’s protracted conflict represents an interesting juncture at which to analyse and assess the record of statebuilding efforts in the country and their wider implications. In many respects, the changing narratives around intervention and statebuilding in Afghanistan resonate with and reflect wider shifts in thinking and policies related to security, peacebuilding, and statebuilding. The US-led intervention was initially shaped by a minimalist doctrine related to narrow objectives of the war on terror, but it subsequently expanded to encompass a maximalist agenda related to statebuilding and democratization. However, interveners fell victim to their own hubris and to many of the familiar pathologies of colonialism, including dependency, domination, and defiance (Gregory 2012). This led to a more limited, pragmatic, and illiberal engagement, aimed at expediting a hasty exit. The legacies of this latest international intervention will, like the earlier Anglo-Afghan wars and Soviet intervention, continue to shape and inflect processes of statebuilding within the country and the wider region for decades to come. It will also inform wider international debates and policies on the efficacy and legitimacy of exogenous statebuilding. To what extent will Afghanistan be seen as the high point and the subsequent dénouement of liberal peacebuilding? Will it be the last of the ‘new protectorates’ (Mayall and de Oliveira 2011)? Could it trigger a retreat from donor-supported transformational statebuilding? Liberal peacebuilding (which we discuss below), with its vast social-engineering ambitions, has become more difficult to sustain and defend. This special issue examines the varied reasons behind the mixed and often perverse effects of exogenous statebuilding and reflects upon their implications for wider theory and practice. The starting point of the various contributions is a serious engagement with empirical realities, drawing upon extended experience and field research. Their explorations of the unfolding dynamics and effects of external intervention raise fundamental questions about the core premises underlying the statebuilding project. In this introductory article, before looking at the contributions, we briefly reflect upon how the Afghan experience informs wider debates on liberal peacebuilding and statebuilding.