Peace-building and democracy promotion in Afghanistan: the Afghanistan Peace and Reintegration Programme and reconciliation with the Taliban

Abstract

Democracy and peace are commonly promoted as concomitant objectives in war-torn societies; however, the underlying assumption of the convergence of these two goals often proves problematic in practice, leading to conflict and ineffective intervention. This contribution focuses on the connections between democracy and peace-building in Afghanistan, through the lens of the Afghanistan Peace and Reintegration Programme (APRP). It finds that in this case, the two aims have not always complemented one another, resulting instead in multiple trade-offs and disputes. The article demonstrates how a better understanding of the connections between democracy and peace can help improve the efficacy and legitimacy of interventions of this type. Some elements of the APRP strategy are context-appropriate and do enhance the potential for more substantive democracy and peace: for example, the National Community Recovery plan, centrepiece of the third stage of the process, which aims to enfranchise former insurgents and their communities through mechanisms of local government, emphasizing consultation and enhancing participation. However, the argument here is that the complexity of the insurgency, the lack of coherent communication within and between international and local actors, the ambiguity surrounding the meaning of democracy, and the failure to pursue genuine reconciliation have all served to undermine the dual objectives of the APRP initiative.