The exclusion of society

For obvious reasons, the idea of introducing democracy to a country
by excluding its society from all relevant decision-making
processes seems absurd. So does the idea of building a state by
taking over its responsibilities. Nevertheless, this is exactly
what has been happening in Afghanistan over the last years. Not, as
I claim, because of corrupt or colonial intentions on the part of
international actors, but because it seemed the only possible way
to move ahead with the reconstruction and statebuilding agenda at
all. It is the concern of this study to describe and explain this
paradox. The study divides into two parts. Part A provides detailed
case studies on the practice of statebuilding in post-Taleban
Afghanistan through an analysis of the aid infrastructure. Part B
challenges the idea of statebuilding from three perspectives: (i)
from a local perspective the statebuilding effort is analysed
within the specific historic and socio-political context of
Afghanistan; (ii) this is followed by a critical analysis of the
ideological foundations of the statebuilding agenda; and (iii) the
study looks at the organisational practice of statebuilding and in
how far the political economy of aid can explain the failure of the
international effort.