Columbia International Affairs Online
CIAO DATE: 8/5/2007
The Politics of Center-Periphery Relations in Afghanistan
2003 March
Center on International Cooperation
Abstract
The relationship of the central government of Afghanistan to the other units of government is in many ways a proxy for the relationship of state to society. It would not be so if the state were more institutionalized and in control of the territory and population of the country. But the current situation, where the direct administrative control of the government is largely limited to the capital city and environs, and in which the government relies on international support (“foreign” support to its opponents) to exercise that control, has precedents in other eras of Afghan history.
