Informal Order and the State in Afghanistan

Jennifer Brick Murtazashvili is an Assistant Professor of Public Policy at the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Pittsburgh. She earned her Ph.D. in Political Science and M.A. in Agricultural and Applied Economics from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Her research focuses on state building, public administration, social institutions, and governance in fragile states.

• 1. Introduction; Part I. The Politics of Customary Governance: 2. The Afghan state in historical perspective; 3. The architecture of village governance; Part II. Customary Governance and Public Goods Provision: 4. The political economy of village governance; 5. Cooperation among communities; Part III. Customary Governance and the State: 6. Customary organizations and support for the state; 7. Federalism, Afghan style; 8. Conclusion.

'We often assume that customary order and the modern state are fundamentally at odds. Rolling up her sleeves to conduct in-depth fieldwork in rural Afghanistan, Jennifer Brick Murtazashvili questions this assumption by examining how the state and governance are in fact experienced at the local level. The result is a triumph of well-grounded empirical work, theoretical insight, and clear argumentation. Our understanding of how public goods are provided in weak-state contexts will never be the same.' Edward Schatz, University of Toronto