Afghanistan is often characterised as a 'failed' or 'fragile' state in terms of state 'functionality', lacking in capacity to provide security and wellbeing to its citizens and failing to prevent violent conflict and terrorism. Since 2001, education has become a major victim of Afghanistan's protracted crisis that involves international military interventions, fragile democracy and growing radicalisation. Drawing upon qualitative interviews with educational officials and practitioners in Afghanistan and critically examining the literature in education and conflict, we argue that Afghanistan's education is caught in the nexus between deteriorating security conditions, weak governance and widespread corruption, resulting in rebel capture of educational spaces for radicalisation and violent extremism. More broadly, we contend that education faces the risk of capture for radicalisation in contexts where state fragility and fundamentalism intersect. Finally, we highlight some critical issues relating to educational programming in conflict-affected contexts.
Ethnic politics and political violence in post-2001 Afghanistan: The 2014 presidential election This article evaluates the political dynamics of 2014 presidential election to explore the sense of nationhood that could have formed in post-2001 Afghanistan and to gauge its strength. It examines frontrunner candidates-Mohammad Ashraf Ghani and Abdullah Abdullah's-campaign rhetoric and processes they utilised to manipulate ethnic identities for political ends. Ethnic identities sharpened by ideological and political polarisation during the civil war (1978-2001), continue to play a critical part in the political economy dynamics of post-2001 era. With the popular patriotic idea of citizenship remaining weak, the abundance of ethnic identities provides a paradigm around which power contenders articulate their messages that easily feed into popular perceptions of 'us' and 'other'. The article contextualises representative and consociational democracy exploring whether these models of democracy offer any solution to social cleavages in Afghanistan. It argues that elites' manipulation of ethnic identities and distribution of resources through ethnic shares (Bonn Conference 2001, National Unity Government (NUG) 2014) might reinforce ethnic boundaries, leading to deeper consolidation of ethnic divisions.
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