![Sample our Politics & International Relations journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5947/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Politics-International-Relations.jpg"})
![Editing Services Awareness English-speaking]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/110148/ED-Services-English.jpg"})
![Publish your Policy Brief rapidly today and inspire change for tomorrow.]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/110967/JournalAd-CFP-SociologyF1000.jpg"})
A variety of international actors, such as the UN and NATO, intervene in complex environments, such as Afghanistan. In order to overcome complexity and for ‘us’ to deal with ‘them’, constructs such as ‘the insurgents’ and ‘the government’ are used to help ‘our’ understanding and to simplify the picture. Subsequently, these constructs become subject to nation building and counterinsurgency theories applied by the ‘international community’. Many of these are suboptimal because their subjects were constructs in the first place. The result is a shadow boxing match, in which international policies dissolve in local realities. On the basis of social psychology theories, this paper develops the hypothesis that in complex peacebuilding environments decision-makers structure and simplify disorder, which leads to suboptimal interventions, to which local actors respond in a process of friction. This hypothesis is tested on the case of Afghanistan.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The author is grateful to NATO and particularly Daniele Riggio for the possibility to visit Afghanistan and discuss the mission with international staff and local Afghans. Moreover, the author is indebted to Tinka Veldhuis who provided ideas on which social psychological literature to read, and who was so kind to comment on this paper.
Notes
Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing, Friction: An Ethnography of Global Connection, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005.
Herbert A. Simon, Administrative Behavior: A Study of Decision-Making Processes in Administrative Organizations, 4th ed., New York: Free Press, 1997; H. Michael Crowson, Teresa K. Debacker and Stephen J. Thoma, ‘The Role of Authoritarianism, Perceived Threat, and Need for Closure or Structure in Predicting Post-9/11 Attitudes and Beliefs’, Journal of Social Psychology, Vol.146, No.6, 2006, pp.733–50; Ted Hopf, ‘The Logic of Habit in International Relations’, European Journal of International Relations, Vol.16, No.4, 2010, pp.539–61.
This research is based on literature study, open interviews held in the Netherlands, and in Afghanistan, as well as fieldwork within the context of a Trans Atlantic Opinion Leaders (TOLA) delegation organized by NATO in March-April 2011.
Mark J. Landau, Michael Johns, Jeff Greenberg, Tom Pyszczynski, Andy Martens, Jamie L. Goldenberg and Sheldon Solomon, ‘A Function of Form: Terror Management and Structuring the Social World’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol.87, No.2, 2004, pp.190–210; Daniel Kahneman, Paul Slovic and Amos Tversky, Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982; Herbert A. Simon, Reason in Human Affairs, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1983; Susan T. Fiske and Steven L. Neuberg, ‘A Continuum Model of Impression Formation, from Category Based to Individuating Processes: Influences of Information and Motivation on Attention and Interpretation’, in Mark P. Zanna (ed.), Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, Vol.23, New York: Academic Press, 1990, pp.1–74; Megan M. Thompson, Michael E. Naccarato, Kevin C.H. Parker & Gordon B. Moskowitz, ‘The Personal Need for Structure and Personal Fear of Invalidity Measures: Historical Perspectives, Current Applications, and Future Directions’, in Gordon B. Moskowitz (ed.), Cognitive Social Psychology: the Princeton Symposium on the Legacy and Future of Social Cognition, Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 2001, pp.19–39.
Kahneman, et al. (see n.4 above); Simon (see n.4 above).
Arie W. Kruglanski, The Psychology of Closed Mindedness, New York: Psychology Press, 2004, p.6.
Arie W. Kruglanski, Lay Epistemics and Human Knowledge: Cognitive and Motivational Bases, New York: Plenum, 1989; John T. Jost, Arie W. Kruglanski and Linda Simon, Effects of Epistemic Motivation on Conservatism, Intolerance, and other System Justifying Attitudes, Research Paper Series No. 1482, Graduate School of Business, Stanford University, n.d.
Milton Rokeach, The Open and Closed Mind, New York: Basic Books, 1960, p.67.
Peter Wright, ‘The Harassed Decision Maker: Time Pressures, Distractions, and the Use of Evidence’, Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol.59, No.5, 1974, pp.555–61.
Kahneman et al. (see n.4 above); Fiske and Neuberg (see n.4 above), pp.1–74; Simon (see n.4 above).
Landau et al. (see n.4 above), p.191.
Ibid., pp.190-210; Jost et al. (see n.7 above).
Landau et al. (see n.4 above), p.191; E. Tory Higgens, John A. Bargh and Wendy J. Lombardi, ‘Nature of Priming Effects on Categorization’, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, Vol.11, No.1, 1985, pp.59–69; John A. Bargh, ‘The Automaticity of Everyday Life’, in Robert S. Wyer Jr. (ed.), The Automaticity of Everyday Life, Advances in Social Cognition, Vol.10, Mahway, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1997, pp.1–61; Ziva Kunda and Steven J. Spencer, ‘When do Stereotypes Come to Mind and When do they Color Judgment? A Goal-Based Theoretical Framework for Stereotype Activation and Application’, Psychological Bulletin, Vol.129, No.4, 2003, pp.522–44.
Jost et al. (see n.7 above).
Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman, ‘The Framing of Decisions and the Rationality of Choice’, Science, Vol.221, No.4481, 1981, pp.453–58; Jeremy R. Gray, ‘A Bias toward Short-Term Thinking in Threat-Related Negative Emotional States’ Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, Vol.25, No.1, 1999, pp.65–75.
Wright (see n.9 above); Simon (see n.2 above); and, Landau, et al. (see n.4 above).
Arie W. Kruglanski and Donna M. Webster, ‘Motivated Closing of the Mind: “Seizing” and “Freezing”’, Psychological Review, Vol.103, No.2, 1996, pp.263–83.
Sultan Barakat, et al., A Strategic Conflict Assessment of Afghanistan, Her Majesty's Government's Understanding Afghanistan Initiative, Recovery & Development Consortium, November 2008, p.5.
Sarah Ladbury (in cooperation with Cooperation for Peace and Unity (CPAU)), Testing Hypotheses on Radicalisation in Afghanistan: Why do Men join the Taliban and Hizb-I Islami? How Much do Local Communities Support Them, Independent Report for the Department of International Development (DfID), Kabul, 2009, pp.14–5; Martine van Bijlert, ‘Unruly Commanders and Violent Power Struggles: Taliban Networks in Uruzgan’, in Antonio Giustozzi (ed.), Decoding the New Taliban: Insights from the Afghan Field, New York: Columbia University Press, 2009, pp.15 –78, pp.160–1; International Crisis Group, Talking About Talks: Toward a Political Settlement in Afghanistan, Kabul/Brussels: ICG, 2012, p.30.
Thomas Ruttig, ‘Die Taleban nach Mulla Dadullah: Ihre Strukturen, ihr Programm – und ob man mit ihnen reden kann’, SWP-Aktuell, No.31, 2007.
Interview by author with Dutch Diplomat, The Hague, September 2011.
Astri Suhrke, ‘Reconstruction as Modernisation: The “Post-conflict” Project in Afghanistan’, Third World Quarterly, Vol.28, No.7, pp.1291–308, p.1302.
Barakat (see n.18 above), pp.24–5.
Anatol Lieven, ‘The War in Afghanistan: Its background and Future Prospects’, Conflict, Security & Development, Vol.17, No.3, pp.333–59.
Barakat et al. (see n.18 above), pp.11–2, pp.14–5.
Thomas Ruttig, How Tribal are the Taleban? Afghanistan's Largest Insurgent Movement between its Tribal Roots and Islamist Ideology, Afghanistan Analysts Network, 2010; Martine van Bijlert, ‘Imaginary Institutions: State-Building in Afghanistan’, in Monique Kremer, Peter van Lieshout and Robert Went (eds), Doing Good or Doing Better? Development Policies in a Globalizing World, The Hague/Amsterdam: WRR, Scientific Council for Government Policy/Amsterdam University Press, 2009, pp.157–76, p.170.
Barakat et al. (see n.18 above), pp.11–2, pp.14–5.
Ibid., p.5, pp.19–20.
Van Bijlert (see n.19 above), p.161.
Barakat et al. (see n.18 above), p.23.
Van Bijlert (see n.26 above), pp.158–62.
Barakat (see n.18 above), p.5, p.12.
Ibid.
International Crisis Group (see n.19 above), pp.10–6; and, Barakat et al. (see n.18 above), pp.12–4.
Roger Mac Ginty, ‘Warlords and Liberal Peace: State-Building in Afghanistan’, Conflict, Security & Development, Vol.10, No.4, 2010, pp.577–98, pp.593–4.
Antonio Giustozzi, ‘Introduction’, in Antonio Giustozzi (ed.), Decoding the New Taliban: Insights from the Afghan Field, New York: Columbia University Press, 2009, pp.1–6, p.2.
Speech Obama, West Point, 1 December 2009; emphasis added.
Speech Obama, 22 June 2011.
Mission, ISAF (at: www.isaf.nato.int/mission.html).
Interview Petraeus, Washington Post, 16 August 2010.
ISAF commander General David Petraeus' testimony to Congress, 15 March 2011.
Stathis N.Kalyvas, ‘The Ontology of “Political Violence”: Action and Identity in Civil Wars’, Perspectives on Politics, Vol.1, No.3, pp.475–94.
Interview by author with a Netherlands Ministry of Defence official, The Hague, September 2011.
Van Bijlert (see n.26 above), p.170.
Sippi Azarbaijani-Moghaddam, ‘Northern Exposure for the Taliban’, in Antonio Giustozzi (ed.), Decoding the New Taliban: Insights from the Afghan Field, New York: Columbia University Press, 2009, pp.247–68.
Ibid.
Ladbury (see n.19 above), p.47.
Ibid., pp.39–41.
International Crisis Group (see n.19 above).
Ladbury (see n.19 above), p.19.
International Crisis Group (see n.19 above).
Ibid.
Interview by author with a High ISAF diplomat, Kabul, April 2011.
NATO, Allied Joint Doctrine for Counterinsurgency (COIN) – AJP-3.4.4, February 2011 (at: http://info.publicintelligence.net/NATO-Counterinsurgency.pdf), para.0109.
Ibid.
Ibid., para.0111.
OECD-DAC, Concepts and Dilemmas of State Building in Fragile Situation: From Fragility to Resilience, Paris: OECD/DAC, 2008, p.14.
Charles T. Call and Elizabeth M. Cousens, ‘Ending Wars and Building Peace’, Coping With Crisis Working Paper Series, New York: International Peace Academy, 2007.
General Stanley McChrystal, ISAF Commander's Counterinsurgency guidance, Headquarters International Security Assistance Force, Kabul, Afghanistan.
Interview by author with an ISAF interpreter, Kandahar, March 2011.
Mac Ginty (see n.35 above), p.592.
Barakat et al. (see n.18 above), pp.11–2, p.23; Ladbury (see n.19 above), p.38; Mac Ginty (see n.35 above), pp.577–98.
International Crisis Group (see n.19 above), p.24.
International Crisis Group, The Insurgency in Afghanistan's Heartland, Kabul/Brussels: ICG, 2011, pp.26–8.
Ibid.
Jonathan Goodhand and Mark Sedra, Bargains for Peace? Aid, Conditionalities and Reconstruction in Afghanistan, The Hague: Clingendael Institute, 2006, p.28.
Van Bijlert (see n.19 above), p.161.
Interview by author with a Netherlands Ministry of Defence official, The Hague, September 2011.
Antonio Giustozzi, ‘The Taliban's Marches: Herat, Farah, Baghdis and Ghor’, in Antonio Giustozzi (ed.), Decoding the New Taliban: Insights from the Afghan Field, New York: Columbia University Press, 2009, pp.211–30, p.216.
Van Bijlert (see n.26 above), pp.166–67.
Ibid., pp.166–68.