Defense, Development and Diplomacy in Hybrid State-building Interventions : A local perspective on the outcomes of Provincial Reconstruction Teams in Afghanistan.

Sammanfattning: Most studies on Provincial Reconstruction Teams in Afghanistan have focused on foreign perspectives thus giving little attention to the perspective of local Afghans to understand its aftermath and consequences. Based on empirical work and information drawn from semi-structured interviews with experts who have worked with military and civilian development agencies as well as government liaison officers, this study explores the intended and unintended outcomes of PRTs across the country. The findings were interpreted with the help of a theoretical framework based on PRT objectives such as security implementation, reconstruction, and development as well as extending the authority of central government and building local institutions. The findings show that there were various factors ignored which impacted the success of the Afghan state-building operation. The lack of local knowledge regarding political, cultural, and religious aspects, relying on warlords, putting the local institutions in wrong hands, lack of local consent, inadequate and unprofessional disbursement of development aid, putting the military in charge of everything, undermining the human development aspects as well as the long-term presence of foreign militaries in the country were some of the major factors which lead the PRTs to have unsuccessful and counterproductive outcomes. In addition, the aid disbursed by the military has not only diverted the military from its main task but also led to a high level of corruption, high expenditure, lowest possible quality, risking the safety of civilians, NGOs as well as development in the country. Furthermore, the discussion and analysis of the findings show that the use of the military might have played a much greater role in the failure of the overall state-building campaign as the role of diplomatic and development agencies was undermined.