TY - JOUR

T1 - Concepts of Legitimacy

T2 - Congruence and Divergence in the Afghan Conflict

AU - Minatti, Wolfgang

AU - Duyvesteyn, Isabelle

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2019, © 2019 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

PY - 2020/1/2

Y1 - 2020/1/2

N2 - Revisiting the US-led counterinsurgency campaign in Afghanistan, we examine to what extent the concepts of legitimacy of the Taliban and the US counterinsurgents showed congruence with pre-existing Afghan notions of legitimacy. We move beyond dominant approaches of social contract theory and materialist legitimacy by using a threefold model of legitimacy to assess the different concepts of legitimacy. Both the Taliban and the US, we argue, diverged markedly from historically developed notions of legitimate rule. The article demonstrates that counterinsurgents need to be aware of and adapt to local norms. Moreover, we point towards relevant norms in the case of Afghanistan.

AB - Revisiting the US-led counterinsurgency campaign in Afghanistan, we examine to what extent the concepts of legitimacy of the Taliban and the US counterinsurgents showed congruence with pre-existing Afghan notions of legitimacy. We move beyond dominant approaches of social contract theory and materialist legitimacy by using a threefold model of legitimacy to assess the different concepts of legitimacy. Both the Taliban and the US, we argue, diverged markedly from historically developed notions of legitimate rule. The article demonstrates that counterinsurgents need to be aware of and adapt to local norms. Moreover, we point towards relevant norms in the case of Afghanistan.

KW - Politics

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85075182635&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1080/13698249.2020.1686876

DO - 10.1080/13698249.2020.1686876

M3 - Journal articles

AN - SCOPUS:85075182635

VL - 22

SP - 1

EP - 25

JO - Civil Wars

JF - Civil Wars

SN - 1369-8249

IS - 1

ER -