(Re-)Constructing Afghanistan?

425 Pages·2015·8.13 MB·English

by  Katja Manuela Mielke

(Re-)Constructing Afghanistan?
Rewriting rural Afghans’ Lebenswelten into recent
development and state-making processes

An analysis of local governance and social order

Inaugural-Dissertation
zur Erlangung der Doktorwürde
der
Philosophischen Fakultät
der
Rheinischen Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität
zu Bonn

vorgelegt von

Katja Manuela Mielke

aus
Grevesmühlen

Bonn 2015
Gedruckt mit Genehmigung der Philosophischen Fakultät
der Rheinischen Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn

Zusammensetzung der Prüfungskommission:

PD Dr. Aram Ziai
(Vorsitzender)

PD Dr. Conrad Schetter
(Gutachter)

Prof. Dr. Stephan Conermann
(Gutachter)

Prof. Dr. Christoph Antweiler
(weiteres prüfungsberechtigtes Mitglied)

Tag der mündlichen Prüfung: 12. Juni 2013
Zum Andenken an meine Brüder
Alexander Mielke & Mario Mielke
Abstract
Afghanistan has been in political turmoil since the late 1970s. The coup d’état in April
1978 was followed by Soviet intervention, civil war, Taliban rule and recent international
intervention. This dissertation identifies modalities of local governance by analyzing the
patterns of representation, conflict mediation, legitimacy, and power of Afghan rural
society in the second half of the post-2001 decade as well as changes in local governance
patterns over the past three decades. The study is based on more than 14 months of field
research, which was conducted between 2006 and 2009 in seven districts of three
provinces of northeastern Afghanistan: Kunduz, Takhar, and Baghlan.
Adopting a broad understanding of local governance as field-specific activities that
regulate the collective coexistence of social communities in different action arenas, this
study posits that local governance is more than local government. It enables a
comprehensive consideration of non-government-related influences, the life-worlds of
rural dwellers, and the everyday practices and underlying norms and experiences
(moralities) that structure self-conduct, intra- and inter-community governance processes,
local politics, and social order of rural society in northeastern Afghanistan. The dissertation
adopts natural resource user communities as a level of analysis in which a particular
environmental resource is used and access to it is negotiated between its actual and
potential users. The primarily qualitative analysis used in this study examines access
patterns, bundles of power resources, and legitimacy in three types of local resource user
arenas. Specifically, the study explores the negotiation of access to irrigation water in five
canal areas of the Kunduz oasis, the access to pastures and rangeland in two mountainous
districts of Takhar, and the access to wood and other non-woody fuel plants in selected
communities of Baghlan and Takhar. By considering the social differentiations within
resource user communities, the study outlines the ambitions and dilemmas of average local
resource users and their appointed caretakers in terms of their attempts to secure equitable
access amidst the competing interests of rural elites. Different types of local
representatives are shown to determine the fate of the rural population and to exert a key
role in rural development in terms of locals’ attitudes towards their government and the
international aid community. This work evaluates the implementation process of three
natural resource management projects under international guidance in the research area and
concludes that Afghanistan’s rural development and reconstruction processes establish an
image of reforms and state-building. Instead, negotiated state-making with highly uncertain
outcomes is manifest.
In conclusion, the key features of everyday politics in rural northeast Afghanistan and the
main concepts are revisited. It is argued that popular dichotomist notions such as the
distinction between state versus society or formal versus informal institutions are not
applicable, as structural-relational factors explain governance processes better than rights-
based approaches. The analysis presents bundles of power resources as an operational
concept of power. The author suggests that the disconnect between local social order and
the ordering ideal of the international community can only be bridged by acknowledging
local realities and designing programs and interventions accordingly. This recognition of
rural Afghans’ life-worlds and local realities is the precondition for a qualitatively different
engagement between the international community and Afghanistan, which would
presumably lead to sustainable reconstruction.
Outline of Chapters

List of Figures
List of Tables
List of Maps
List of Photographs

Kurzfassung

Acronyms
Acknowledgements
Notes on transliteration

PART I INTRODUCTION
1 INTRODUCTION
2 CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
3 METHODOLOGY

PART II LITERATURE REVIEW
4 LOCAL GOVERNANCE IN NORTHEASTERN AFGHANISTAN: STATE OF RESEARCH

PART III EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS
5 WHERE IS THE LOCALE? SEEKING UNITS AND LEVELS OF OBSERVATION
6 THE SCOPE OF RESOURCE-GOVERNED RURAL LIFE-WORLDS
7 MODALITIES OF LOCAL GOVERNANCE IN AFGHANISTAN’S RURAL SOCIETY
8 INTERVENTION LOGIC MEETS LOCAL SOCIAL ORDER

PART IV CONCLUSION
9 CONCLUSION: (RE-)CONSTRUCTING AFGHANISTAN?

APPENDICES

A1 – Documents
A2 – Glossary and Afghan solar calendar
A3 – References
Table of Contents

LIST OF FIGURES ........................................................................................................................ v
LIST OF TABLES ......................................................................................................................... v
LIST OF MAPS ...........................................................................................................................vi
LIST OF PHOTOGRAPHS .............................................................................................................vi

Kurzfassung .............................................................................................................................vii

Acronyms .............................................................................................................................. xvii
Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................. xix
Notes on transliteration ............................................................................................................ xx

PART I: INTRODUCTION
1 – INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................................................... 1

2 – CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK.................................................................................................... 8
2.1 Framing the meta-concept: Social order ................................................................................ 8
2.1.1 Social order as distinct from binary notions of orderliness versus chaos ......................... 9
2.1.2 Unpacking social order: Towards a post-institutionalist perspective on politics ............ 13
2.2 The political and the social: Power relationships and legitimacy ......................................... 17
2.2.1 The political and the social .......................................................................................... 17
2.2.2 Social order is structured by power relations ................................................................ 19
2.2.3 Forms of legitimacy ..................................................................................................... 25
2.3 Social action and Lebenswelten .......................................................................................... 28
2.3.1 Rationality bounded… by moralities ............................................................................ 30
2.3.2 Understanding deviance and the persistence of social inequalities ................................ 36
2.3.3 Lebenswelten as subjectively experienced arenas of practice ........................................ 45
2.4 Local governance in societies ............................................................................................. 48
2.4.1 Governance as the exercise of power in specific social action arenas ............................ 50
2.4.2 Local governance is more than local government ......................................................... 53
2.5 Summary and guiding research theses ................................................................................ 56

3 – METHODOLOGY .................................................................................................................... 62
3.1 Approach to data collection and modifications in the process .............................................. 65
3.2 Fieldwork in increasingly insecure environments ................................................................ 76
3.3 Data analysis ...................................................................................................................... 79

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PART II: LITERATURE REVIEW
4 – LOCAL GOVERNANCE IN NORTHEASTERN AFGHANISTAN: STATE OF RESEARCH ............... 83
4.1 Governance-related academic writing accounting for the period before 1978 ...................... 84
4.1.1 Multiple social identities and qawm versus ethnicity .................................................... 86
4.1.2 Dependency and patron-client relations versus class .................................................... 88
4.1.3 Traditional political culture and folk Islam versus ideology .......................................... 92
4.2 Interpretations of the ‘revolution’, war and development(s) until 2001 ................................ 95
4.2.1 Initial mobilization at local level and ensuing militarization of rural society ................. 95
4.2.2 Social transformation within the realms of an evolving war economy until 1992 .......... 99
4.2.3 Dwindling knowledge about local dynamics in the context of civil war and Taliban rule
.......................................................................................................................................... 101
4.3 Focus on state-building and governance in the post-Taliban period ................................... 105
4.4 Conclusion ....................................................................................................................... 110

PART III: EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS
5 – WHERE IS THE LOCALE? – SEEKING UNITS AND LEVELS OF OBSERVATION ...................... 113
5.1 Background of the research area ....................................................................................... 114
5.1.1 Geographic characteristics ......................................................................................... 116
5.1.2 Population and settlement history .............................................................................. 117
5.2 Locating social order: the fuzziness of place ..................................................................... 120
5.2.1 Empirical evidence of place-based locales in the research region................................ 121
5.2.2 Previous attempts at territorializing Afghanistan’s rural areas .................................... 126
5.2.3 Villagization in the framework of NSP implementation ............................................. 129
5.3 Conclusion: The stance for user communities in local governance arenas .......................... 132

6 – THE SCOPE OF RESOURCE-GOVERNED RURAL LIFE-WORLDS ............................................ 136
6.1 Irrigation water and irrigated land in the oasis of Kunduz ................................................. 138
6.1.1 Kunduz Markaz: Asqalān canal ................................................................................. 140
a. Genesis and characteristics of Asqalān ........................................................................ 140
b. Irrigation water governance ........................................................................................ 147
c. Fazl Jān’s life-world ................................................................................................... 156
6.1.2 Chārdara: Sofi-Qarayatim irrigation system ............................................................... 161
a. Features of water management along the Sofi and Qarayatim water courses ................ 163
b. The land-water rights nexus: conflicts over irrigable-land ........................................... 171
c. Hāji Jum’a Khān’s muysafēdi and a preliminary differentiation of elders .................... 181
6.1.3 Qal’a-ye Zāl: Tarboz Guzar and Qal’a-ye Zāl irrigation canals ................................... 194
a. Proving the diversity of water management arrangements ........................................... 195
b. Water management reforms (not) touching ground ...................................................... 205
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6.1.4 Summary of cross-cutting issues related to irrigation water governance...................... 217
6.2 Mountainsides in the foothills of Takhār and Baghlān ....................................................... 222
6.2.1 Rangelands in Farkhār and Warsaj district ................................................................. 223
a. The socio-economic and political context in Farkhār and Warsaj................................. 223
b. Land use of mountainsides and access to pastures ....................................................... 230
c. Conflict case studies: Pyu, Wēghnān, Khuram Āb....................................................... 244
6.2.2 Fuel resources in the foothills of Burka and Eshkamesh ............................................. 253
a. Case study: The fuel economy of Fulol valley ............................................................. 255
b. The normative idea and observed practices to access and use rangeland ...................... 268
6.2.3 Summary: The (micro-) political ecology of mountain resources ................................ 274

7 – MODALITIES OF LOCAL GOVERNANCE IN AFGHANISTAN’S RURAL SOCIETY .................... 278
7.1 A comparative analysis of access patterns to natural resources .......................................... 278
7.2 Mechanisms for conflict mediation ................................................................................... 286
7.3 Representation: Interfaces between community members and ‘authorities’ ....................... 289
7.3.1 The representation of ordinary community members .................................................. 291
7.3.2 The mediation of local-state relations ......................................................................... 299
7.4 The ambiguity of legitimacy: Norm pluralism, forum shopping, uncertainty ..................... 306
7.5 Conclusion: On the moralities of everyday politics ........................................................... 315

8 – INTERVENTION LOGIC MEETS LOCAL SOCIAL ORDER ........................................................ 319
8.1 State-building through community-driven reconstruction and the definition of property rights
.............................................................................................................................................. 320
8.2 Case study: The Kunduz River Basin Program.................................................................. 322
8.2.1 The community-based management paradigm: WUGs, CCs, WUAs, NRMCs ........... 324
8.2.2 Perceptions of aid intervention components in northeastern Afghanistan .................... 329
8.3 State-making as a dual process: The construction of the image of a state ........................... 337
8.3.1 Construction of counterparts, communities and target groups ..................................... 338
8.3.2 Negotiated and appropriated state-making instead of state-building ............................ 343

PART IV: CONCLUSION
9 – CONCLUSION: (RE-)CONSTRUCTING AFGHANISTAN? ....................................................... 347
9.1 Everyday politics in rural northeastern Afghanistan .......................................................... 349
9.2 Revisiting categories and analytical concepts .................................................................... 353
9.2.1 Power, authority and legitimacy ................................................................................. 353
9.2.2 Politics, local governance and social order ................................................................. 357
9.3 Outlook: Implications for development practice and further research ................................ 359
9.3.1 Lessons for development practice .............................................................................. 359
9.3.2 Future research programs ........................................................................................... 362
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APPENDICES
A1 – Documents ........................................................................................................................ 364
A1-a: Translation of Letter of major local commanders in Chārdara, 1989.............................. 364
A1-b: Translation of Announcement of the Kunduz Irrigation Department, 2006 .................... 366
A2 – Glossary & Afghan solar calendar ..................................................................................... 367
A3 – References......................................................................................................................... 372

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1 Selective overview of local family cum commander ties 191
Figure 2 Intersection of roles of rural elites in Sofi-Qarayatim and Asqalān 194
Figure 3 River basin institutional arrangement 207
Figure 4 Woodland cover change, Takhar and Kunduz provinces, 1977 and 231
2002
Figure 5 Venn-diagram of stakeholders in rangeland usage 241
Figure 6 Micro-political ecology of mountain resources 276
Figure 7 Political actors’ relations in Afghanistan 2006-2009 290
Figure 8 Changing role of main rural authorities 1977-2007 293
Figure 9 Main actors‘ relationships in Farkhār and Warsaj district 2006-07 302
Figure 10 Levels of interaction in Afghanistan’s envisaged state-building and 311
development template 327
Figure 11 Afghan post-intervention state-making 345

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1 Transliteration of Dari letters xx
Table 2 Overview of the different notions of locality and community in 134
rural settings
Table 3 Number of returning refugees, Kunduz Markaz, 2002-2006 145
Table 4 Number of returning refugees, Chārdara district, 2002-2006 173
Table 5 Number of returning refugees, Qal’a-ye Zāl district, 2002-2006 201
Table 6 Individual motivations of acting mirāb in irrigation season 2006 205
(1385)
Table 7 Overview of WUGs and CC leaders as of late summer 2007 214
(1386)
Table 8 Annual fuel use amounts calculated for Fulol valley 255
Table 9 Characteristics of governance and advancing fuel resource 260
depletion throughout Fulol valley
Table 10 Overview of factors underlying access mechanisms to natural 285
resources
Table 11 Access of natural resources user communities to government 300
offices
Table 12 Change in legitimacy of different local governance actors over 308
time
Table 13 Examples of locally appointed positions and payment rates 336
(Taresht)

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LIST OF MAPS

M1 Northeastern Afghanistan with provinces of field research 2006-09 2
M2 Field sites overview in seven districts 71
M3 Field study sites in irrigation canal areas of Asqalān, Sofi- 139
Qarayatim, Tarboz-Guzar and Qal’a-ye Zāl
M4 Kunduz river basin and irrigated areas 139
M5 Asqalān canal 142
M6 Sofi-Qarayatim irrigation system 164
M7 Tarboz Guzar and Qal’a-ye Zāl irrigation network 195
M8 Farkhār 224
M9 Warsaj 224
M10 Pasture migration sites in Pyu manteqa 234
M11 Fulol valley with side-valleys 257

LIST OF PHOTOGRAPHS

P1 Flooded intake of Tarboz Guzar and Qal’a-ye Zāl irrigation canals 196
P2 Canal bank erosion Qal’a-ye Zāl 198
P3 Erosion in Farkhār mountainsides with few Pistachio trees 232
remaining
P4 View of pasture camp Kamandek (Tagaw-e Wār, Warsaj) 236

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