Potential questions

Question 1

What is sovereign state?

Answer 1

• Westphalian sovereignty:
• external sovereignty: no authority above state (De jure)
• internal sovereignty: exclusive authority on territory and population (de facto)

Question 2

Montevideo convention on Rights and Duties (1933)
The state as a person of international law should possess the following qualifications:

Answer 2

• a permanent population
• a defined territory
• government, and capacity to enter into relations with other states

Question 3

Webers different definitions of authority

Answer 3

Traditional: the eternal yesterday, it always has been there (monarchies)

Charismatic authoity: personal gift of gaqce, qualities locagted in individual.
He/she leads, people follow.
(in Afghanistan: warlords: if they go, it is very hard to institutionalize their power)

Legal/ rational authority: the virute of legality (rules)
* Weberian state, the goal in Afghanistaqn between 2000-2021

Question 4

What is a state (Weber)

Answer 4

The state is a** human community **that (succesfully) claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory.

Question 5

How do power holders maintain thei domination

Answer 5

1. control personal executive staff
2. control material means of administration
3. end of indirect rule

Question 6

Charles Tilly: Modern state formation is about:

Answer 6

1. Statemaking
2. Warmaking
3. Protection
4. Extraction

Question 7

Tilly Statemaking

Answer 7

eliminating or neutralizing their rivals inside a territory

Question 8

Tilly Warmaking

Answer 8

Eliminating or neutralizing their rivals outside their territories

Question 9

Tilly protection

Answer 9

Eliminating or neutralizing the enemies of their clients

Question 10

Tilly extraction

Answer 10

Acquiring the means that of the first 3 activities. (means for state bujilding,war making and protection)

Question 11

Charles tilly neglects external relations

e

Answer 11

external relations shape every nation state
1. Flows of resources (loans + supplies)
2. competition among states stimulates warmaking
3. Coalition of state forces states into certain forms + positions within international system

Question 12

Mann: modern state formation is about territorizaltion + centralisation.
Two kinds of power

Answer 12

Infrastructural power:
The capacity of a state to actually penetrate within civil society and to implement actions across its territories.

Despotic power:
The range of actions that state elites are empowered to make without consultation with civil society groups. Autonomous power

Question 13

What is the great game

Answer 13

Between 1839-1842.
What: rivalry taking place between Russian and British empires: the struggle for international influence.
When: beginning and middle 19th century.

Great

Question 13

issues Musahiban dynasty : no process of state formatin 1929-1978

Answer 13

No infrastructural power: mann
No traditional authority weber
no state-making by war-making (Tilly)

Question 14

Why were Afghan warlords not able to prevent Taliban from taking power?

Answer 14

3 levels of causation
macro-level (geopolitical context) = societies, economies and states
= due to Cold War + regional environment (New Great Game)

Meso-level (groups, territorial subunits)
= Fall of Communist regime, State collapse

Micro-level- individuals
Power struggles, ethnic politics

Question 15

What is a Warlord

Answer 15

A warlord is a leader of an** armed band, possibly numbering up to several thousand fighters, who can hold territory locally** and at the same time act financially and political in the international system without interference from the state in which he is based (Duffield)

A warlord plays critical roles in peoples access to the** political arena and economic opportunities, **and sometimes even acts as the principal suppliers of governnance to people in the arenas he controls

Warlords thrive in weak + failed states.

Question 16

Rise of Taliban

Answer 16

1. Product of Civil War + state failure
2. power vacuum:
   - disintegration of communist structures
   - elemination of traditional leadership
   - failure of Mujahidin to concentrate power in South (tribal structures)
3. A response to chaos and anarchy in the South
4. expession of (perceived) Pashtun marginalization
5. AFghanistan is not chaos: warlords create some kind of order
6. claim to bring back order + Islamic values

Question 17

Who were the first Taliban

Answer 17

Real taliban: Madrassa youth (grew up in refugee camps in Pakistan)
Former Mujahideen
- might not be close in ideology
- Taliban brings order

Former officers of Commuist Regime
- maybe not into ideology of Communists
- maybe not care about ideology of Taliban

Question 18

Ideology Taliban

Answer 18

• Mix of most conservative village Islam and Deobandi doctrines, with a stress on the importance of ritual and modes of behaivour (Giustozzi)
• Reduction of penal and criminal laws to a very narrow interpretation of Sharia
• Reinventing old traditions (not fully in line with Afghan practices)
• Politics reduced to an orthodox application of Sharia, based on a rigid interpretation of the Sunnah
• Opposition to West based on cultural model (not strategy oppositon)

Question 19

What does Taliban want

C

Answer 19

• Capture state (secular goal)
• Impose their own Islamic order (Sharia)

Question 20

Organizaton reality Taliban

Answer 20

myths: anarchy + chaos, only popular adulation and no fighting
But,
reality:
* a military organization
- cheaper, more flexible and more effecient organisation
- richer organisation (support of business community)
- pakistan support: friendly neigbour (for them support against india)

Question 21

Conquest Afghanistan main cities

Answer 21

Kandahar, Herat, Jalalabad, Kabul Mazar

Question 22

Taliban Legitmate state (Weber)

Answer 22

Traditional authority: king/ emir + Islam
Charismatic authority: Mullah omar (1996-2001)
legal rational autority: state institutions, bureaucracy (more than Mujahedeen)

Question 23

Why 9/11

Answer 23

1. Carry out a damaging strike against the US in retaliation for its perceived aggression in the Islamic world
2. Signal and support the emergence of new virtuous leadership (vanguard of an international islamist movement)
3. Prompt the US to come out of its hole (Massoud 9/9)

Question 24

What makes the War on terror so radical

Answer 24

* Us blaimed the whole country: justification of attack instead blaming Al Qaida * The idea that the US could shape the Middle East * The idea that you had to follow the US, or became against them (and peace) * That spiriti of a highly emotional mind

Question 25

Failed states

Answer 25

are not able to control territory Breeding ground for terrorism no strong state control

Question 26

Rogue state

Answer 26

Actually solid state not optimally established, but are solid

Question 27

War on Terror Speech Bush

Answer 27

We will make **no distinction between the terrorists** who commited these actions and **those who harbor them** 11/09 America, and our friends and allies join with all those who want peace and security in the world, and we stand together to win **the war against terrorism** 11/09 The deliberate and deadly attacks which were carried out yesterday against our country were more than acts of terror, the**y were acts of war**. 12/09 2001 The war against terrorists of global reach is a **global entreprise of uncertain duration**

Question 28

Liberal state building efforts: strategy of institutionalization 2002-2004

Answer 28

* New institutions built * progress on legislations, institutions, automation * women taking more space within government (1/3 parliament) * freedom of media, speech.. * tens of billions of dollars for aid for reconstruction * rfeturn many diaspora + growin g optimism

Question 29

A system of authority thats sustainable outside the 2-side paradigm

Answer 29

State formation as state/society struggle state formation as bagaining

Question 30

How do warlords manage to surviein spite of increasing international pressure for centralization?

Answer 30

* Warlords are **astute political entrepeneurs** with a **proven ability to organize violence **and **control territory**, who **exert** and** transform authority** across **different** **spheres** (ideological, economic, military, social, and political) and at **different levels of political affairs **(local, national and international) * Warlord survival is a **function** of an individuals **ability** to make himself **indespensable** at **different levels op politics **(local, national and international) and **exploits** the **gaps** and **interactions** between them. * The story of warlordism is therefore one that combines **structure** and **agency**: Certain individuals at any time in human history may be **psychologically** **disposed** to become** self-interested specialists in violence: **weak states provide those individuals with opportunity to become warlords.

Question 31

5 Myths about the Taliban

Answer 31

1, Pakistan controls Taliban 2. Taliban fragments easily 3. Taliban has a plan for running Afghanistan 4. Taliban will bring back Al Qaida 5. Taliban does not reflect AFghanistans diversity

Question 32

2 sets of challenges to survival of regime

Answer 32

State capacity: unprecedent crisis (economic, financial, humanitarian) + organisational and political challenges State legitimacy: Violent, and non-violent regime

Question 33

5 Common mistakes negotiate with Taliban

Answer 33

1. Misjudge diplomacy of Pariahs 2. Commit exclusively to Human Rights discourse 3. Fail to interpret discourse of Jihadists 4. Assume rigidity in disources equals rigidity in policy making - goes back to two-level game, most moderate one should be the one with most power. 5. Avoid establishment of clear international roadmap of engagement.

Question 34

Should World engage with Taliban: NO

Answer 34

Moral arguments: * form of symbolic support to Afghan population * As a way to avoid legitimatization of Talibans actions international praqctical arguments: * will not achieve anything: Taliban has been consistent in their demands, ideas, values * Taliban always been very vague about human rights and woman rights * never make concessions * Engaging strengthen the regimes hardliners * will weaken those who domestically ae pressuing them (civil society actors) * engvaging strengthen regime politically+ economically

Question 35

Should world engage with Taliban: Yes

Answer 35

Things will get worse for Afghan population and the world... * if taliban reamains isolated internationally * if Taliban regime collapses * unlikely to get better, ever get concessions Engagement is needed: * For better, more effecicient humanitarian effort * fruitful counterrorism * flexibility +ad hoc arrangement local level * Reducing the misunderstandings and mistrusts

Question 36

* Counterinsurgency

Answer 36

is military, paramilitary, political, economic, psychological, and civic actions taken by a government to defeat insurgency. * Afghanistan’s counterinsurgency strategy o Population centric (not terrain centric nor enemy centric)  Winning hearts and minds (WHAM): emotive and cognitive

Question 37

* Definition insurgency

Answer 37

o An insurgency is an organised movement aimed at the overthrow of a constituted government through the use of subversion and armed conflict.

Question 38

* Five shifting policies war on drugs

Answer 38

o 2001-2002: Hands-off Approach o 2002-2009: Hands-On Approach o 2009-2016: Alternative likelihood o 2017-2019: Intensive airstrike o 2019-2021: End of War on Drugs

Question 39

Afghanistan 3 comparaqtive advantages for poppy production

Answer 39

1. physcial condition: high yield of the crops, welcoming climate. Temperate, warm and less humid weather. 2. Political condition: insecurity & poor institutional weakness & absense of rules and regulations. 3. Economic condition: rural poverty prevented development of alternative licit livelihood