Market Economy and Conflict; Disjuncture between the Politics and Economics of Statebuilding in Afghanistan during 2001-2021

My PhD investigated the knowledge shaping private sector investments in manufacturing activities in a market economy that, meanwhile, suffered from political instability - taking post-2001 Afghanistan as a case. The research findings are unique because they bring forth the role of institutions rooted in social structures (religion and patriarchal family) where the individual motivation to invest was seen to have taken shape. Whether these investments were sufficient to develop manufacturing sector in a place like Afghanistan (2001-2018) is where my research contributes to the critical study of market-led development.

I completed my PhD in July 2021 after minor corrections. Empirical evidence for this project was gathered through primary data collection in an extensive fieldwork in 2018. Research tools consisted of semi-structured interviews and field visits. In total, 51 manufacturing enterprises were researched which I personally visited to take field notes, observing all the production processes and sites.

Research focus on manufacturing was warranted because Afghanistan's economy has been dominated by subsistence farming and illicit trade. Hence, growth of manufacturing activities could be a positive transformation, and would throw into relief the outcome of the economic policy implemented in Afghanistan during the study period - what I wished to examine in my research.

The historical period under investigation is when market economy was adopted in Afghanistan as part of The United States led international coalition state institution (re-)building. The policy promoted private sector for undertaking productive resource allocation. This approach was reiterated in foundational policy documents and enshrined in article 10 of Afghanistan's post-2001 constitution.

Globally, market-oriented policy in Afghanistan came in the context of a neo-institutionalist and neoliberal synthesis that was developed more coherently in the 1990s, thereafter adopted by the World Bank.

My conceptual framework was adapted mostly from scratch because Afghanistan's economy had not been studied with a similar topic in mind. This framework emphasized on early 'socialization' to find out why individuals invested in manufacturing and whether their investments led to a significant role for this sector in the economy of Afghanistan.

The findings suggest that: 1) investment choices were deeply rooted in embodied (informal) institutions, 2) internal organization of enterprises reproduced these institutions, notably the hierarchy in the patriarchal family, transmitting the inequities from one social domain to
another, and 3) manufacturing sector remained structurally insignificant (i.e., in regards to how resources were allocated in the economy) based on deductive proxies. That is, the role manufacturing sector played in the economy remained marginal.

Building on my PhD research, I plan to investigate the politics and economics of state-building in Afghanistan during 2002-2021 as a case of 'disjuncture' between the two domains. This research could explain some of the structural reasons as to why the state did not cope with the abrupt ceasing of external support and collapsed in August, 2021. Adoption of depoliticized market-oriented policy in Afghanistan in parallel to an anti-government insurgency - among other reasons that made Afghanistan politically unstable - is a curious problem for political economy. It is interesting to examine whether despite the challenges to the autonomy of market by security conditions, the economic policy remained unchanged. This topic has not been critically examined in the research on Afghanistan (2001-2021). The investigation of this topic will draw on my master's and doctoral research, aiming to study the limitations of market-oriented policy in a place like Afghanistan (2001-2018) despite arguably witnessing the inflow of unprecedented international assistance during the study period.