Deteriorating Proximity between Liberal Peacebuilding and Counterinsurgency: Warlordism and Corruption in Afghanistan

Abstract

This essay aims at a critical analysis of liberal statebuilding efforts in Afghanistan as a counterinsurgency strategy. It interrogates the consequences of recent statebuilding policies of the counterinsurgency campaign in reproducing and perpetuating, rather than ameliorating, unequal sociopolitical relations in Afghanistan. Since statebuilding is a very broad area to analyze in a single article, this essay focuses on warlordism and corruption as two important issues that illustrate the failure of statebuilding efforts as a strategy of counterinsurgency. The biggest criticism posed by the research is the ignorance of local people’s needs and expectations due to the hubris and arrogance of western interveners vis-à-vis their own technological and cognitive “superiority.” Thus, this essay has a local population-based approach which enables that ignored local population to explain their perspectives and evaluate efforts in the country.