| State building has become a dominant mode of ensuring international security, but has achieved only mixed results in stabilizing failed states. This thesis explores the literature on state building to determine whether missing factors can explain the failure to produce a stable Afghanistan. The dominant institutionalist methodology defines state stability according to the presence of functioning institutions, overlooking the role that developing coherent and popular political movements plays in stabilizing a state. Using a legitimacy-based model, I argue that division amongst its politicians, not the absence of institutions, explains Afghanistan's instability. Protracted civil war has encouraged the Mujahedeen and Taliban to seek power at the expense of others and to challenge historical sources of authority embedded in the community. This pattern has continued under the United States and NATO-backed government and manifests itself in Hamid Karzai's inability to rein in wayward Mujahedeen politicians. |
