Afghanistan’s Taliban – legitimate jihadists or coercive extremists?

Weigand, Florian ORCID: 0000-0003-2629-0934 (2017) Afghanistan’s Taliban – legitimate jihadists or coercive extremists? Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding. ISSN 1750-2977

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Abstract

The military intervention in Afghanistan in 2001 was portrayed as a fight to oust the extremist Taliban. But the Taliban have long been regaining influence, with the military victory of the Afghan government and its foreign allies now seeming less likely than ever. In light of these developments, this article investigates what the affected people – rather than the foreign interveners – think about the Taliban, and whether they perceive them as coercive or legitimate. Building on a conceptual understanding of legitimacy that has been adjusted to the dynamics of conflict-torn spaces, the article suggests that people judge the Taliban on the basis of how their day-to-day behaviour is perceived. While the Taliban are a coercive threat in urban centres and other areas where they launch attacks, they nonetheless manage to construct legitimacy in some of the places which they control or can access easily. A major source of their legitimacy in these areas is the way in which they provide services – such as conflict resolution – which some people consider to be faster and fairer than the state’s practices.

Item Type:	Article
Official URL:	http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/risb20/current
Additional Information:	© 2017 The Author © CC BY 4.0
Divisions:	International Development
Subjects:	J Political Science > JA Political science (General)
Date Deposited:	12 Jul 2017 11:11
Last Modified:	22 Nov 2024 00:42
Projects:	ES/J500070/1
Funders:	Economic and Social Research Council
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/83461

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