The fragmentation of Afghanistan : state formation and collapse in the international system

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Bibliographic Information

The fragmentation of Afghanistan : state formation and collapse in the international system

Barnett R. Rubin

Yale University Press, c1995

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Note

Bibliography: p. 349-365

Includes index

Description and Table of Contents

Description

Afghanistan has long been a country in turmoil. For decades, imperial powers, Islamic fundamentalists, tribal warriors and communists have struggled for control of a nation that is geographically and ethnically fragmented. Their conflict reached its peak in the 14-year-long war that erupted in 1978, a war that resulted in the disintegration of Afghanistan as a state. This study is a complete analysis of the Afghan civil war, from the 1978 communist coup to the fall of Najibullah, the last Soviet-installed president, in 1992. Drawing on interviews and private and government documents, Barnett Rubin shows how both the communist regime and the Mujahidin (Islamic resistance) recruited leaders and mobilised resources for the conflict, and how international changes - from the election of Ronald Reagan to the collapse of the Soviet Union - affected the Afghan state. Rubin argues that the origins, conduct and resolution of the war were a function of Afghanistan's connections to the international community, for Afghanistan was incorporated into a state system not of its own making, and foreign financial and military assistance transformed both tribalism and fundamentalism to the point that they are as much creations of international conflict as the resurgence of local traditions. Using theories of state formation and breakdown and of revolution, Rubin provides a comparative framework that makes it possible to integrate this investigation with other studies of Cold War regional conflict and post-Cold War state breakdown.

Table of Contents

  • Part I The old Regime - State, Society, and Politics: Social Structure under the Old Regime
  • State, Tribe, and the International System: From Gunpowder Empires to the Cold War
  • Rentier State and Rentier Revolutionaries. Part 11: The PDPA in Power: From the Second Cold War to the Collapse of the USSR: Failure of Revolution from Above
  • Under Soviet Occupation: Party, State, and Society, 1980-85
  • Soviet Withdrawal, Political Retreat: State and Society, 1986-91. Part III: The Islamic Resistance: Mujahidin, Society, and the International System: Origins of the Movement of Jihad
  • International Aid, War, and National Organization
  • International Aid, War, and Local and Regional Organization
  • Mujahidin after Soviet Withdrawal
  • State Collapse after the Cold War: Afghanistan without Foreign Aid
  • Appendix A: Notes on Sources
  • Appendix B: Political Actors in Afghanistan, 1973-1994
  • Appendix C: Financing Government Expenditure, 1952-88
  • Notes
  • Glossary
  • Bibliography
  • Index.

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