Jonathan P. Caulkins, Mark A.R Kleiman, and Jonathan D. Kulick
Publication Date:
06-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center on International Cooperation
Abstract:
Drug production and drug trafficking are effects as well as causes of political instability. They flourish under weak states and sustain that weakness by financing insurgency and warlordism and by intimidating or corrupting the officials of enforcement agencies and security forces. Afghanistan is a primary instance of this complex of social and political pathologies.
Topic:
Security, Government, War on Drugs, Counterinsurgency, Narcotics Trafficking, and Governance
This paper explores the linkages between the drugs economy, borderlands and 'post conflict' state-building in Afghanistan. It does this through a fine grained historical analysis of Sheghnan, a remote district on the Afghan-Tajik border in the north-east. The paper charts the opening and closing of the border; the movement of people, commodities and ideas across the border; the effects of changing political regimes; the role of resources and their effects on local governance; and the complex, multifaceted networks that span the border and are involved in the drugs trade. The paper argues that the drugs economy has been an important part of the story of borderland transformation in Sheghnan. Because of drugs, borderlands are no longer marginal, but have become a resource to be exploited by the centre. As such the paper argues that examining the frontier may throw light on processes of state formation, state collapse and 'post conflict' state-building. A focus on borderlands means taking seriously the 'politics of place' and examining the diffuse dynamics and localised projects that feed into and shape processes of state formation.
Topic:
Cold War, Economics, War, and Narcotics Trafficking