Policy possibilities for higher education as an institution of sustainable peace? Considering the case of Afghanistan

• In Event: What kind of state theories for rethinking the education-state-society relation?

Proposal

The Weberian notion of state legitimacy famously hinges upon a monopoly of violence. Such a test for state legitimacy poses significant challenges in countries currently affected by armed conflict. Modern conflicts involve an unprecedented number and scope of local and international actors, and in many current conflicts the legitimacy of these actors, and the sovereignty of nations in the first instance, are increasingly contested (Milton 2018). Post-conflict reconstruction efforts by international actors have followed a liberal peacebuilding model since the 1990s. Liberal peacebuilding promotes reconstruction through liberal democratic governance and market-oriented economic growth (Paris 2010). This involves seeking to (re)-establish institutions of security, governance, trade, justice, and so on following conflict.

In Afghanistan, open conflict continues in multiple districts almost two decades after the US-led invasion toppled the Taliban. Institutional legitimacy and institutional sovereignty have been central concerns in the ongoing liberal peacebuilding project in Afghanistan (Starr 2006). These same concerns can be extended to higher education’s strategic planning since 2009. Afghanistan’s higher education strategic plans were largely driven by actors outside of the Afghan state, and are built upon an ideological foundation of neoliberalism which orients the purpose of higher education towards promoting economic growth (Couch 2018). Economic growth is indeed a crucial development objective for Afghanistan. However, what are the implications for the institution of higher education when the existing economy is a war economy? How can such an institution bring sustainable peace within a conflict-affected context?

This presentation explores higher education’s capacity to act as an institution of sustainable peace within Afghanistan’s broader war economy. Data for this presentation comes from an analysis of two five-year national higher education strategic plans, and interviews with key policy authors, ministry officials, and international consultants. Through a critical cultural political economy of education approach, recently advance by Robertson and Dale (2015), I make the argument that an institutional role which promotes growth within a war economy can only reproduce the instabilities and fissures which formulate the structuring instability of the war economy in the first instance. Rather, I argue that higher education must interrupt this context, and I consider mechanisms of legitimacy and sovereignty as policy possibilities which might promote higher education as an institution of sustainable peace within Afghanistan’s ongoing national development.

Author

• Daniel Couch, University of Auckland