Coming to terms with neopatrimonialism: Soviet and American nation-building projects in Afghanistan

Hess, Steve

doi:10.1080/02634937.2010.490677

Cited by 8 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 12 publications

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“…The fact that funds are not owned by the state but rather by foreign donors leads to a lack of legitimacy, often resulting in networks of corruption as governments try to use foreign funding to buy popular support. Identifying similar issues to those of Verkoren and Kamphuis' rentier state, Hess (2010) claims that the Soviet and United States interventions in Afghanistan led to the development of chronic neopatrimonialism. Following the definition of Bratton and van de Walle (1994), Hess defines the neopatrimonial state as one in which "the chief executive maintains authority through personal patronage, rather than through ideology or law, [while] relationships of loyalty and dependence pervade a formal political and administrative system and leaders occupy bureaucratic offices less to perform public service than to acquire personal wealth and status" (458; 175).…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 95%

State-Building in “the Graveyard of Empires”

Grass

2022

RIPP-en

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Both the Soviet and United States military interventions failed in their respective efforts to establish stable regimes in Afghanistan, whose reputation for resistance to foreign occupation and state-building operations has earned it a near-mythical moniker: “the graveyard of empires”. This study examines the history of regime development in Afghanistan with a focus on the perennial challenge of finding a balance between the degree of centralized power necessary to maintain security and perform state functions, on the one hand, and the threshold of tolerance for centralized power among the country’s tribal population, on the other. The analysis shows how the highly centralized communist regime established through the Soviet intervention as well as the excessively decentralized democratic regime established through the United States intervention represent just two chapters in Afghanistan’s historical struggle to establish legitimate and enduring sources of centralized state power.

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Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 95%

State-Building in “the Graveyard of Empires”

Grass

2022

RIPP-en

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“…However, Soviet economic and military support continued after 1989 and sustained the pro-Moscow regime of Mohammed Najibullah until his fall in 1992, which ironically coincided with the dissolution of the Soviet Union (Hess 2010).…”

Section: Decline After the Soviet Withdrawal And Destruction During Tmentioning

confidence: 99%

Persistence and change in Soviet and Russian relations with Afghanistan

Dörre

Краудзун

2012

Central Asian Survey

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This paper examines persistence and change in the Soviet Union's and then Russia's relations with Afghanistan with respect to development and security. First, a detailed analysis of the promise and reality of Soviet development assistance reveals conceptual shortcomings in their attempt to induce economic development in Afghanistan. The Soviet Union's heritage is then revealed in order to understand Russia's current perception of post-Taliban Afghanistan as well as Russia's emerging interests and commitment to Afghanistan's economic development. This paper argues that Russia will most likely replicate standard industrialization development approaches in contributing to Afghanistan's development. Therefore, Russia will probably run into problems similar to those that led to the failure of the Soviet modernization project, which consisted of large-scale development projects that were inappropriate to the country's institutions and the lives of most Afghans. It is questionable whether such reiteration will induce economic development now, in the complex setting of a fragmented and fragile state with a multitude of external players looking out for their own interests.

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“…Hess also emphasizes that the initial success of such a government is possible only because of the "neopatrimonial regime" of personal patronage, informal alliances and rental interests, which is the only possible solution for the conditions of the Afghan mentality and traditions. However, it does not seem necessary to completely ignore the importance of the military presence, since in the beginning of the implementation of the Soviet aid project, it was the military presence that laid the necessary foundation for the subsequent complete independence of the Afghan government in resolving issues of law, order and security [9].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Soviet Project of Nation-State-Building in Afghanistan

Nabat¹

2022

Vestnik SPbSU. Asian and African Studies

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The article examines the Soviet Union’s policy in Afghanistan during the period of its military presence there (1979–1989) as a set of measures corresponding to the modern interpretation of the concepts of nation-building and state-building. It also analyzes modern theories of nation- and state-building and highlights their main trends, forms, and problems. The author also proposes a unique approach that combines these two concepts as “nation-state-building” in relation to the Soviet project in Afghanistan. The article elaborates on the main tasks of the Soviet policy in the 1980s in Afghanistan as well as their implementation and results. Due to the combination of “nation-building” and “state-building” concepts in a complex structure of “nation-state-building”, the article draws conclusions, first, about the applicability of this approach to the specific Soviet project of state-building in Afghanistan, and, second, about the complexity of the project itself, which included ideological, political, economic, and military components. On the basis of archive documents, memoirs of military and diplomatic actors, and a wide scope of academic research, the author substantiates the idea of large-scale tasks of nation-state-building in Afghanistan in Soviet foreign policy, and also indicates that the implementation of the project encountered great difficulties from the unfolding civil war to the inability of the Afghan leaders to consolidate the political life of the country. Soviet leadership quickly realized the unreadiness of the Afghan society for the proposed systemic social transformations. Despite the fact that the goals of the Soviet project were not achieved, this does not diminish its scale and historical significance.

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Coming to terms with neopatrimonialism: Soviet and American nation-building projects in Afghanistan

Cited by 8 publications

References 12 publications

State-Building in “the Graveyard of Empires”

State-Building in “the Graveyard of Empires”

Persistence and change in Soviet and Russian relations with Afghanistan

Soviet Project of Nation-State-Building in Afghanistan

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