Book Review: Rajen Harshe and Dhananjay Tripathi (Ed.), Afghanistan Post 2014: Power Configurations and Evolving Trajectories (original) (raw)

India Quarterly: A Journal of International Affairs

Abstract

Contemporary discourses on Afghanistan at the academic, policy and journalistic levels are heavily suffused by attempts to map the future course of events as the shadow of the US-led military-intervention recedes. The editors of this volume aptly remind us of how the state of contemporary narratives on Afghanistan grates sharply against the relative amnesia of the international community towards the country, following the collapse of the USSR. The events of 9/11 have redirected international spotlight onto the country. The impact of 15 long years of the US-led international military intervention in the country has left a strong imprint in shaping the contours of issues and actors at stake. There has been a perceptible shift in the discourse which, in the initial years following the intervention, was impregnated by issues of post-conflict reconstruction , creating inclusive structures of governance, reconciliation, institutionally entrenching protection of women and human rights to a near overarching securiti-sation of structures, issues and actors involved in Afghanistan. This work is reflective of this shift of ground realities in Afghanistan. A discernable sense of pervasive anxiety and pessimism colours discourses on potential course of future events. A steady intensification of the scale and scope of violence coupled with a troubled political transition has served to reinforce these perceptions. What are the likely trajectories of events in a post-American Afghanistan? How would internal sociopolitical and external geopolitical dynamics shape the contours of the future trajectory of events? What would be its impacts on the region and its security and political implications for the seemingly distant Western world? What mechanisms could be deployed to negotiate some of the key challenges that lie ahead? This book attempts to grapple with some of these questions by stringing together a diverse collection of essays, originally presented at seminar organised by the South Asian University, funded by the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung in 2013. The book has been organised under four sections. The first section analyses Afghanistan's engagement in the international arena by bringing the Afghan setting in conversation with theoretical frames of reference. The second section

Raghav Sharma hasn't uploaded this paper.

Let Raghav know you want this paper to be uploaded.

Ask for this paper to be uploaded.