Built to Fail: How Bureaucratic and Institutional Origins Undermined State Building in Afghanistan
Announced by the University of Pittsburgh:
Cornell University’s Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies and South Asia Program Presents
Built to Fail: How Bureaucratic and Institutional Origins Undermined State Building in Afghanistan
Jennifer Brick Murtazashvili
The speaker presents evidence from Afghanistan to illustrate how failure to break from Soviet-era centralized public administration undermined the massive state-building project and perpetuated a wedge between Afghan civil society and a state that failed to deliver on its promise. Books to use in the classroom (this will come in the mail). Liberal state building continues to fall short of its promise of political order and economic development. The persistence of bureaucratic legacies in states seeking to recover from conflict, especially the persistence of centralized administrative structures, help explain these failures. These institutions are often the source of state collapse yet are often reinforced by the international community once the dust of war settles. This leads to a vicious cycle of centralization that reinforces rigidity through influxes of foreign aid. Elections often serve as a smokescreen that detract from meaningful administrative reform. The desire to concentrate power is at odds with societies that have governed without the state, or have become deeply distrustful of it, during conflict.
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