The Political Economy of Customary Village Organizations in Rural Afghanistan

Jennifer Brick Department of Political Science University of Wisconsin Madison, USA jcbrick@wisc.edu1

Afghanistan is at best a fragile state and at worst a failed state. Nevertheless, public goods are provided routinely and effectively in villages throughout the country. What explains the provision of public goods in such a context? I argue that customary organizations are the primary source of order in Afghanistan not only because they can extract and redistribute resources from villagers, but because they are constrained in their ability to do so. Constraints such as the separation of village powers and local checks and balances facilitate local predictability despite national-level chaos. By analyzing the productive role of informal organizations in the provision of public goods, this research brings local politics into the study of state building in post-conflict or fragile environments. State-building strategies that build on productive informal organizations may improve their long-run prospects for success. The first step in the investigation of the potential for a bottom-up state-building strategy is determining what works locally. Positive effects of local organizations are obfuscated in public discourse on Afghanistan which focuses on the weakness of the state (Fukuyama 2006; Ghani and Lockhart 2008; Warnock 2008). Despite government weakness, citizens have faith in local organizations. According to a recent survey, seventy-eight percent believe their community leaders are fair and honest. Seventy-six percent of those
1

Prepared for the Annual Meeting of the Central Eurasian Studies Society, Washington, DC, September 2008. Funding for this project was provided by the Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA), the Afghanistan Research and Evaluation (AREU), the Bradley Foundation, and the University of Wisconsin Madison. The author wishes to thank Ghulam Sakhi Frozish, Nasreen Quraishi, Abdul Hadi Sadat, Gulalai Karimi, Fauzia Rahimi, Hussan Wafaey, and Ibrahim Mahmoodi at AREU for their dedication in collecting data for this project. The author is particularly grateful and indebted to Deborah Smith at AREU as well as to Paul Lundberg, David Garner, Adam Pain, and David Stanfield for sharing their wisdom during fieldwork in Afghanistan. Melanie Manion, Edward Friedman, Ilia Murtazashvili, and Meina Cai provided useful comments and suggestions on many of the ideas presented in this paper

Brick. The Political Economy of Customary Organizations in Rural Afghanistan

interviewed said that their informal customary local councils (shuras or jirgas) are effective at delivering justice and representing their interests (Asia Foundation 2007). Detailed qualitative studies of Afghanistan show that disputes are normally resolved at the local level (Noelle-Karimi 2006; Roy 2003; Shahrani 1998). Not only are disputes settled locally, water, land resources, and access to credit are generally maintained through community rules and norms (Emadi 1996, 2005; Favre 2005, 2006; Klijn and Pain 2007; Wardak 2004; Wily 2003). Public faith in traditional organizations stems from their ability to deliver public goods. In this paper, I focus on a constellation of three key customary organizations in rural Afghanistan: shuras (village councils), maliks (village executives), and mullahs (village lawgivers). These organizations emerged before a central state consolidated, and their existence is thus exogenous to the state. They existed parallel to existing regimes and endured decades of war and chaos. Explaining the emergence of these organizations, however, is beyond the scope of this paper. Based on empirical evidence, I find a potentially productive role such organizations can play in the state-building process. The results show that customary organizations are alive and well in rural Afghanistan. They indeed endured decades of fighting and displacement. They not only endured, but they provide a wide range of public goods in rural areas, including those that affect local safety and security. The field of post-conflict state building is dominated by two approaches that share a distrust of subnational political actors. Neither approach analyzes political organizations exogenous to state breakdown or reconstruction. The most common approach emphasizes the organization of violence and armed groups or warlords. Their deleterious effects are well documented (Bates 2001; Clapham 2002; Reno 2002; Zartman 1995). The second approach analyzes development policies and internationallyprovided solutions to development dilemmas in these contexts. Both development economics and international relations privilege external interventions such as peace building or state building policies and their effectiveness (Fukuyama 2004, 2006; Milliken 2003; Barnett, Fang, and Zuercher 2008; Rotberg 2004). Positive analysis of customary organizations contributes to our knowledge of state building by describing the informal foundations of order in a failed state. This approach to customary organizations brings the concept of self-governance into the statebuilding process by recognizing that they are more than mere anthropological curiosities or obstacles to political development. Empirical studies in self-organization have long recognized the ability of individuals to overcome collective dilemmas to provide public goods in the absence of external, thirdparty enforcement (Boettke and Coyne 2005; Gibson, McKean, and Ostrom 2000; Olson 1971; Ostrom 1990, 2005; Platteau 1991; Tsai 2006; Varughese and Ostrom 2001; Wade 1988). In the absence of effective central authority, the self-governance approach expects local actors to provide public goods. In fact, local self-organization under conditions of central state anarchy may produce more beneficial development outcomes than formal governance by predatory or corrupt central authorities (Leeson 2007). The self-governance approach stresses decentralized coordination in the absence of well defined governance structures. I build on the insights of the self-governance approach by analyzing hierarchical customary organizations in public goods provision. In the sections that follow, I analyze the political economy of customary organizations and public goods provision in rural Afghanistan and develop a theory that describes the conditions under which public goods are provided by local organizations in post-conflict societies. Local organizations will provide public goods when they are able to raise local sources of revenue. However, revenue collection on its own does not guarantee that public goods will be provided as local leaders may simply engage in

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Brick. The Political Economy of Customary Organizations in Rural Afghanistan

predatory behavior. Local leaders must be able to extract resources, but they must be constrained in their ability to do so. The theory describes the four conditions that facilitate effective local governance: independent sources local of revenue, separation of local authority, checks and balances between these authorities, and the presence of economic veto players. Independent revenue sources generated locally enable the provision of public goods while constraints on extraction through separation of customary authority enable local accountability. Economic veto players and checks and balances further provide incentives for customary organizations to provide public goods by limiting predation. I argue that customary organizations are the only local organizations that exhibit these characteristics, and are therefore able to provide public goods. This leads to two testable hypotheses. First, communities that have customary organizations will have higher levels of public goods provision than those that do not. Secondly, the presence of other forms of local organizations, especially donor-supported community development councils, will not exhibit higher levels of public goods provision than communities that do not have such organizations. To explore these questions in rural Afghanistan I rely on both quantitative and qualitative evidence. First, I analyze two nationally-representative surveys, the 2005 National Rural Vulnerability Assessment (NRVA) (Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development and Central Statistics Office 2007) and the 2007 Asia Foundation Survey of the Afghan People (Asia Foundation 2007), to determine the relationship between customary organizations, non-customary organizations, and a variety of theoretically-relevant factors that may explain public goods provision. The statistical analysis explores the effect of customary and non-customary organizations on three types of public goods: resolution of land disputes, general dispute resolution, and local safety and security. Second, I present three case studies illustrating public goods provision based on larger set of original semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions I collected during fieldwork in 32 villages across six provinces in rural Afghanistan. These case studies help illuminate processes suggested by the statistical analysis. The analysis provides evidence that the presence of customary organizations in villages improves the provision of public goods. The findings imply that there is the potential for productive cooperation between state-building programs and customary organizations and demonstrates these organizations perform many functions that are usually performed the state. In that sense, they effectively complement the nascent state. Difficulties arise when state-building efforts proceed as if these organizations are inherent enemies of modernization or do not exist at all.

1.1

Political and Economic Resource Allocation in Rural Afghanistan

Customary organizations are a primary source of order in Afghanistan. They are as diverse in name as the landscape in which are found. These organizations are pervasive, especially in rural areas where more than 80 percent of the population resides. However, they are overlooked in attempts to explain and cure state failure in Afghanistan. State builders often treat them as embodiments of a conservative political culture that disenfranchises women or exploits peasants. In most cases, state builders do not consider them at all or they are just assumed to have been wiped out by decades of war. Emphasis on their traditional features conceals their modern capacities to govern. This research does not make a normative argument about the role such organizations should play in political life. Instead, it explores the role of these organizations in the provision of public goods. Neglecting the role of these organizations in the diagnostic phase of state building increases the risk of policy failure.

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Brick. The Political Economy of Customary Organizations in Rural Afghanistan

First, I provide some terminology. Organizations are groups of individuals bound by some common purpose (North 1990, 5). The state is a formal or parchment organization (Carey 2000). Informal organizations include any non-governmental collective decision-making procedure (Ostrom 1990). In every society there are a myriad of informal organizations. They range from social networks, bowling clubs, or groups of armed guerillas. In the context of Afghanistan, informal organizations include customary or traditional organizations, informal credit systems, as well as warlords. Informal organizations can provide public goods (Ellickson 1991). In the absence of effective states or markets, political and economic resources are often allocated by a third type of organization: community organizations. Community organizations that have stable membership and well-developed mechanisms for transmitting private information and enforcing social norms among its members [have] the potential to provide sometimes more efficient coordination than either the state or the market (Bardhan 2006, 18). Customary village organizations are not civil society organizations for the simple reason that they do more than advocate. They can sanction, punish, reward, and restrict behavior. Furthermore, membership in these groups is generally fixed. Customary and non-customary organizations are central in the Afghan political economy. For example, warlords and their associated political parties were not a central part of the political landscape in Afghanistan until the state began its downward spiral after the Communist coup in 1978 and the Soviet invasion which followed the next year. Such groups emerged to control the state apparatus as well as gain spoils from its decline (Schetter, Glassner, and Karokhail 2007). Most contemporary Afghan political parties emerged in the late 1970s and 1980s as armed factions. For this reason, the Single NonTransferable Voting system (SNTV) is used to elect members of parliament, as it creates obstacles to the formation of party (warlord) blocs. A dizzying array of scholars have written on warlords and armed groups in Afghanistan since 1979 (Aras and Toktas 2008; Donini, Niland, and Wermester 2004; Englebert and Tull 2008; Fukuyama 2006; Giustozzi 2000; Goodson 2001; Jones 2008; Maley 1998, 2002; Rashid 2002; Rubin 2002; Saikal and Maley 1991; Giustozzi and Ullah 2006; Schetter, Glassner, and Karokhail 2007). New Community Development Councils (CDCs) that emerged in 2003 as the result of efforts by the Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development (MRRD) are also a type of noncustomary organization that emerged during the state reconstruction process.

1.1.1 Customary Organizations in Rural Afghanistan

Customary organizations receive far less attention despite their prowess in maintaining local order. To remedy this deficit, I describe the three most pervasive customary organizations in rural Afghanistan: shuras, maliks, and mullahs. A shura is a deliberative body. A malik is an executive authority. A mullah is a judicial and religious arbiter. Maliks and mullahs are individuals but represent organizations that have specific functions. The organizations have various names in different parts of the country; I group them according to the rules that govern their behavior. These organizations are summarized in Table 1.

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Brick. The Political Economy of Customary Organizations in Rural Afghanistan

Organization
Shura

Role
Village Council (Parliament) Other Names Qaumi Shura Jirga Shura-ye Rish-i-Safidan Spinzheri (Spingeri) Meshrano Jirga Oq Soqol Mu-ye Safidan Majlis/Jalasa Maraka Religious Leader (Judicial) Other Names Imam Mawlawi Ulama Pir Sayyed/Sadat/Eshan Tribal Council Pashtun name for local council Elders Council (Dari) Elders (Pashto) Council of Elders (Pashto) Elders (Uzbek) Elders Council(white hairs, Dari) Meeting (Dari, used in Hazara areas) Meeting Formally trained religious leader Religious teacher Group of religious scholars Sufi religious leaders Notable families who are direct descendents of the Prophet Muhammad Islamic Judge (also a government judge) Pilgrim (Bibi Haji is a female equivalent) Shia who made pilgrimage to Karbala in Iraq. Executive, can also signify landowner Executive Executive, tribal leader, can also signify landowner Leader Representative Representative
2

Mullah

Qazi Haji (Bibi Haji) Karbalayi

Malik

Village Representative (Executive) Other Names Arbob Qaryadar Khan Qalantar Wakil Nomayenda

Table 1: Customary Organizations in Rural Afghanistan

These organizations are a relative constant amid political chaos in Afghanistan. They do not have the uniformity of standards associated with formal bodies (Giustozzi and Ullah 2006; Noelle-Karimi 2006). They evolve over time: traditional and customary [titles] applied to local bodies of decision making are relative terms *they+ by no means imply timelessness or immutability (Noelle-Karimi 2006, 8). However, they have structural features that can be identified across time and place, despite regional, cultural, and religious diversity. For example, according to focus group discussions conducted as part of a national livelihood survey, almost all participants said they would first approach a relative if they had a dispute. However, when asked who they would approach second we begin to see the primacy of these organizations: 35 percent said they would go to their village shura, 25 percent said they would go to their village malik, while 22 percent said they would consult their mullah (see Figure 1). Outside of family, more than 82 percent of focus group participants said they would use one of these organizations.

The names of organizations which I list here are those I encountered during fieldwork in rural Afghanistan. This list is by no means exhaustive.

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Brick. The Political Economy of Customary Organizations in Rural Afghanistan

These organizations are also resilient. In the 1970s, the government of Daud Khan tried to co-opt many of them into the formal government. In the 1980s, the Communist government tried to eliminate them as agents of feudalism and backwardness (Hyman 1984). Various warlords, governments, and political parties in the 1990s understood the importance of these organizations and sought to dominate them by populating them with their own agents. However, these interventions were usually superficial and did not have a significant impact on their operations.

Organization Approached to Resolve Dispute

0.4 0.35 0.3 0.25 0.2 0.15 0.1 0.05 0 Goto Shura Go To Malik Go To Mullah

Figure 1: Source NRVA (2005), Male Focus Group Interview

At first glance these organizations may resemble feudal systems characterized by inequality in decision making and exploitation of peasants by landlords (Ertman 1997; Moore 1966; Scott 1976; Skocpol 1979). However, anthropologists, economists, as well as historians have noted that peasant or rural life in Afghanistan is historically more egalitarian than in other areas of South and Central Asia: To superficial observers rural society may have appeared feudal, with khans (lineage leaders) and maliks (village leaders) exercising absolute power, either as landed aristocrats or creditors, over landless or debt-ridden peasants. The reality in most areas was far more complex. Authority within micro-societies traditionally was exercised by a jirga or shura (assembly), with the influence of the khan or malik within the assembly determined by a complex range of factors, including the individuals social position, mediating skills, and institutional resources at his disposal. In addition, land holdings in Afghanistan were for the most part small, with some ostensibly large estates being communal lands registered in a single name; frequently there was little expectation on the part of a debtor that he would have to repay (Saikal and Maley 1991, 15). Afghan communities are not feudal. The pervasiveness and diversity of customary structures illustrates the degree to which power is distributed across individuals in communities. In addition to the three main organizations, there are other important village organizations such as mirabs (village water resource managers) and hawala (money lenders) that play an important role in village governance (Kakar 2005; Rahmani 2006; Favre 2005). However, the malik, shura, and mullah provide the foundations of political order and are the informal basis of politics throughout most Afghan villages. In the following sections, I provide analytical descriptions of shuras, mullahs, and maliks.

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Brick. The Political Economy of Customary Organizations in Rural Afghanistan

Shura (Village Council) Informal customary village councils in rural Afghanistan are referred to as shuras or jirgas.3 I define a shura as the smallest deliberative body in a community.4 Village decision making is characterized by cooperation and consensus, which is illustrated by the significance of tribal jirgas and local shuras (Newell 1972, 25). These councils are not formal. Shuras are not fixed-membership organizations and in most cases they do not meet with predictably, but they do meet often. They gather to discuss particular issues or resolve disputes that arise within the village or with neighboring areas. In most instances, members of shuras are elders who have achieved positions of respect in the community: [Shura membership is a] traditional position that is normally given to old men who are widely respected and trusted for their honesty and goodwill. Almost every village has at least a few of these men who are considered to be the legislative body of the villagePower brokers refer any legislative issue that concern broader village interests to these elders. It is important to note that they are not considered to be executive people as they naturally tend to be kind and forgiving personalities (Rahmani 2006, 14-15). Shuras deal with a wide range of issues, but they have no fixed agenda. Results from the NRVA male focus group discussions reveal that individuals rely upon customary organizations for many of their community issues. For example, when a community has a shura 90 percent claimed to use them to resolve land-related disputes. Over 60 percent claimed to use their shura to resolve security and water resource management issues (see Figure 2).

Use of Shuras for Disputes

100% 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% Shura for Water DisuteShura for Land Dispute Shura for Aid Issue Average If Community Has a Shura Shura for Security Issue

Figure 2: Source NRVA (2005), Male Focus Group Interviews

3

The term shura is an Arabic word which literally means council. The term shura is used by non-Pashtun villages to indicate the village council. Jirga is a Pashto term that also means council, although it translates literally as circle, which reflects the seating arrangements participants take in the countryside. There are several varieties of shuras or jirgas at the village level. Because the shura exists to deal with issues as they arise they are flexible in membership as well as in scope. The shura that is indicated here is at the smallest level. 4 For purposes of simplicity, I will refer to all customary village councils as shuras. The term jirga is common, yet is a name that applies only to the Pashtun-speaking subpopulations.

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Brick. The Political Economy of Customary Organizations in Rural Afghanistan

Theoretically, every male can aspire to leadership in the community, as the jirga or shura is based on the concept of communal authority (Gregorian 1969, 40-41). Although various ethnic groups may have specific types of shuras, they have many common characteristics. For example, shuras are usually accessible to all male (and sometimes female) members of the community. The structure and authority of the council varies with local traditions and experience. Its most basic feature is the acceptance of the principle that all family interests within the group concerned may be represented in deliberations of justice, war, labor, and land. The spirit and procedure are usually democratic. Theoretically, a consensus of the whole group in question is necessary, if it is to act. The jirga [shura] therefore encourages a considerable degree of individual initiative, although in many instances it may be dominated by powerful chiefs. It is also a convenient device for accommodation among competing interests.There is no traditional limit to the size of the group to which the jirga [shura] principle may be applieda jirga [shura] might consist of tribal chiefs (khans) or clan leaders (maliks) representing their communities (Newell 1972, 26). Figure 3 illustrates that shuras are accessible to individuals across ethnic groups in Afghanistan. The shura is generally the most important decision-making body in the community because it usually derives its authority directly from the will of the people. It is the center of village governance.

Accessibility to Shuras by Ethnicity

100% 80% 60% 40% 20% 0% Pashtun Strongly Disagree Tajik Uzbek Disagree Hazara Somewhat Agree Turkmen Baloch

Strongly Agree

Figure 3: Source Asia Foundation (2007)

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Brick. The Political Economy of Customary Organizations in Rural Afghanistan

Mullah (Religious Leader/Lawgiver) Mullahs are typically self-trained religious leaders. I define a mullah as a community religious leader, representing the lowest level of religious organization in Afghanistan. Mullahs are part of a broad network of religious leaders that includes formally trained priests (imams), judges (qazi), scholars (malwawi), and those who have gone on religious pilgrimages (Haji/Karbalayi). Villages may have several mullahs, depending on their size and cultural diversity. Shia and Sunni populations coexisting in one community maintain separate mosques and separate religious leaders. Mullahs not only perform religious rites and services, but they are sought out to help resolve disputes, especially regarding family or other personal issues. In Afghanistan, an imam is a title given to someone who has had official training to lead prayers. A mullah is someone who carries out this function regularly and professionally, despite a lack of formal training (Dorronsoro 2005, 48). Due to the decentralized nature of religious leadership in Islam, mullahs can operate autonomously from religious administration and hierarchy. Throughout history, Afghan leaders have sought to co-opt religious leaders and bring them under government control (Olesen 1995) . However, such efforts had limited success due to extremely weak capacity of the state to actually execute its wishes and the shifts in government policies across administrations. The mosque is the center of religious life in rural areas, but it also serves as a deliberative center for (usually male) villagers. For instance, many interviews and focus groups for this research project were conducted in mosques as they are open to community members and outsiders. Villagers describe and demarcate the size of their community by the number of mosques (e.g. our village is big, we have six mosques). The mullah is the spiritual leader of the village and traditionally plays the role of the judge, the teacher, and in the absence of a doctor, the role of the village doctor. The mullahs power is derived from his religious and judiciary role that he exercises on a daily basis. It is not easy for anyone, including other powerful people such as Zamindar [landowners] and Qaryadar [executives], to confront the Mullah in public (Rahmani 2006, 13). Religious leaders have a range of responsibilities. They mediate disputes, not only within the community but between communities as well. Mullahs and other religious leaders raise revenue from villagers. They are also responsible to collect alms to help the less fortunate and raise funds to maintain mosques: Leadership, administration, and financing are locally basedIndividual mullahs subsist upon fees for ceremonial and advisory services on behalf of their clients and often receive endowments of land or agricultural income from the villages or tribes who engage them. Many mullahs cultivate or at least oversee their own land. The support of corporate institutions, such as schools, mosques, and monasteries has traditionally come from endowments based upon land the concept of waqf. Customarily, the mullahs have managed this income on their own behalf (Newell 1972, 26-27). While most scholars agree that the shura is the center of political life, some argue that religious leaders constitute the heart of village governance in Afghanistan because they can access community funds:

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Amongst the power brokers of the village, mullahs and mosques are the only entities who enjoy support of public funding regularly. All expenses of mosques and mullahs are paid by village contributions. When villagers were asked, What motivates you to give your money to pay for the mosque but not for the school or road, they responded, We can live without education and without a road, but we cannot live without our mosque (Rahmani 2006, 20). During the period of Taliban rule in Afghanistan, authorities sought to demote the role of jirgas and shuras and place the mullah at the center of community life. Taliban leadership developed their own network of religious leaders and sought to impose a particular interpretation of Sunni Islam on the countryside. In principle, the Taliban also tried to eliminate use of the Pashtun customary law, Pashtunwali, which contradicts some Islamic jurisprudence (Nojumi, Mazurana, and Stites 2004, 45-47). Malik (Village Executive) While there is general uniformity in the role of shuras and mullahs in rural Afghanistan, the role of maliks, village executives, is more complex. I define a malik as the individual who represents community interests to formal government institutions. He is the village executive.5 In Kabul Province and in many Pashtun areas, village executives are referred to as maliks, which can also signify a Pashtun clan leader (but a malik is not necessarily a clan leader). In other parts of the country the individual who fulfills these functions are called arbob, qaryadar, khan, kalantar, nomayenda or other titles. In Pakistan and other parts of South Asia, the term malik may connote a large and powerful landowner. The malik in rural Afghanistan is not always a large landowner. As was the case with mullahs and shuras, previous governments tried to co-opt the maliks to serve their own purposes. Under King Zahir Shah (1930-1973) and his cousin Sardar Daud Khan (1973-78), government administrations tried to use the maliks or appoint their own maliks to extract land tax in rural areas. The Communist Peoples Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) government tried to appoint its own parallel maliks to villages as representatives of the Party during the 1980s (Giustozzi 2000). These efforts were unsuccessful. Due to past efforts to formalize the position the title has a different meaning than it does elsewhere in Central and South Asia. In contemporary Afghanistan, villagers refer to the malik as the bridge between the people and the government. In most instances, the malik is selected by the village shura and then presented to the district governor (woluswal), who represents the lowest level of government in Afghanistan.6 The malik is responsible for representing community interests to the government and then communicating government issues and news back to the community. Woluswals have regular meetings with maliks to discuss issues of security, development, and governance in their respective districts. In many areas, the maliks obtain their position through heredity or through position in the clan structure. Because the malik deals with government documents and other formal issues, it is important to villagers that he is
5

Most are male but during field work I found evidence of female maliks. The head of provincial administration in Balkh Province in Northern Afghanistan told of at least six female maliks that he was aware of in the province. I interviewed a female malik in Nahri Shahi District in Balkh Province. 6 The lowest level of Government at the time of research was at the district level (woluswali). The head of the district government is the woluswal (district administrator or governor). Although the 2003 Constitution stipulates that the lowest level of government should be village councils, this aspect of the Constitution is not yet implemented. The Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development advocates the use of its Community Development Councils for this purpose, while other ministries and presidential offices have strongly disagreed with this position.

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literate, so this means maliks come from well-educated families in the community. Maliks are not directly paid for their work. If they are not independently wealthy, they may depend on community contributions from villagers in the form of wheat or other crops as compensation for their work. Members of the village shura elect one person and introduce him to the district authority. The district head [woluswal] then signs legal documents appointing the person as malik and sends those documents to the primary district court. After a series of additional legal processes, the court issues an entitlement seal that recognizes him as the malik of that particular village (Nojumi, Mazurana, and Stites 2004, 44). In many districts, I found that maliks have stamps or seals. In some areas where the woluswal had not issued them, maliks use a homemade seal consisting of their thumbprint and signature in lieu of a stamp. While maliks regularly coordinate with and report to government officials, their role is not mentioned in any official law or in the constitution. In many cases, where villagers are dissatisfied with their malik, they can choose another malik. In Herat province, for example, I found evidence that maliks are elected through the use of ballot boxes. In most areas they are selected using consensus procedures typical in shuras. I illustrate some of the selection procedures in case studies.

1.1.2 Non-Customary Organizations: Community Development Councils (CDCs)

CDCs are the most significant and pervasive non-customary organizations in Afghanistan. Since 2001, the Government of Afghanistan embarked on a major national program, the National Solidarity Program (NSP), which created more than 18,000 CDCs.7 The program is managed by the Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development (MRRD) and is funded entirely by multilateral and bilateral donors, with core support from the World Bank. They are designed to serve a conduit for external development funds to create public goods and services. For this reason, they may play a fundamental role in the provision of public goods in rural Afghanistan. Furthermore, MRRD, several international NGOs, and donors have suggested that the CDCs replace the customary system. The NSP is a Community Driven-Development (CDD) project, an approach promoted by NGOs and international assistance agencies that stresses participatory, decentralized delivery of public goods (Gupta, Grandvoinnet, and Romani 2004; Mansuri and Rao 2004). The principle objectives of the CDCs are to deliver project-based community based development and to improve community governance (Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development 2008, 1). The government does not directly implement this program; instead MRRD contracts more than 24 NGOs (mostly European and American) and international organizations called Facilitating Partners (FPs) who in turn hired social organizers to mobilize communities and create the councils. To achieve these objectives, FPs have the responsibility to: (1) hold elections in each community to establish the CDC; (2) build capacities of CDCs to identify subprojects, prepare plans, and implement training that develops skills in participation, consensus-building, accounting, procurement and contract management, operations and maintenance, and monitoring; (3) provide funds for the projects; and (4) link the CDCs to government agencies, NGOs, and donors to improve access to resources.8
7 8

As of July 2008. MRRD/NSP website: http://nspafghanistan.org/about_nsp.shtm

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FPs established the first CDCs in 2003, rolling them out initially in 80 districts across most provinces of Afghanistan. Usually, MRRD contracts with the FPs to cover entire districts. A CDC should comprise of no fewer than 50 but no more than 300 households. According to regulations, each CDC receives $200 per household in block grant funds that are used to fund projects the community selects (between $10,000 and $60,000 per community). In theory communities should provide a 10 percent contribution to each project. This can be done through in-kind contributions such as labor to build the project. However, villagers rarely contribute their own funds directly to the project. The mostly foreign FPs determine the size of CDCs and demarcate borders between communities, although in some cases this is done with community cooperation and consultation. The number of CDCs in a community is not based on the actual number of villages but on the size of the population in the district. Thus, the boundaries of a CDC have a difficulty corresponding with self-identified community boundaries. For example, in one district the implementing FP received a contract from MRRD to create 40 CDCs in a district, yet according to local government officials there were only 15 villages in the district. Each CDC should have elections for members including an executive board consisting of a head, deputy, secretary, and treasurer. During field research, I found limited evidence that elections occurred in most villages. A possible explanation is that development shuras have been the primary conduit of humanitarian and development aid to communities since the early 1980s (Carter and Connor 1989), thus individuals understand that they can create a participatory faade and still receive project funds. CDCs are also intended to increase female participation at the village level as customary organizations do not always include women in public deliberations. CDCs should be equally representative of men and women and they should meet jointly, although this is very rarely the case. If women do participate, they do so separately from the men in their community, communicating through male relatives. In some areas, the FPs established separate female CDCs that have their own executive boards. Female CDCs may exist in name for accounting purposes, they vary rarely thrive in practice. The rationale for the NSP was to fill a gap in governance at the local level. In an MRRD presentation to donors and stakeholders in September 2007, a Ministry official stated that such a program is necessary because village governance structures had not existed in Afghanistan for more than 200 years.9 The CDCs fill this perceived void not only from a developmental perspective, but because they generate social capital.10 The Ministry and other NGOs and donors active in funding and implementing the NSP and creating CDCs argue that they have had a transformative effect on the lives of villagers. In fact, some of the FPs implementing the NSP claim that the program is vital to Afghans not because it can provide basic infrastructure, but because it generates participation in the countryside. According to one of the organizations implementing the program, If the CDCs just provide infrastructure, then all of our work has been a massive failure. 11 According to those involved in designing the NSP:
9

Presentation, MRRD official, Launch of NSP II, World Bank Supervisory Mission, Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development (MRRD), Kabul, Afghanistan, August 28, 2007. 10 Presentation, MRRD official, National Solidarity Program Official, Ministry Rural Rehabilitation and Development (MRRD), Workshop on Investigating the Sustainability of Community Development Councils, Kabul Afghanistan. March 6, 2007. 11 Statement by Manager of an International Organization implementing NSP, January 21, 2008. Workshop: Toward Sustainable Community Development Councils. Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Kabul, Afghanistan. Sponsored by the Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit (AREU).

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The intent of the National Solidarity Program was to address the process of democratization from the group level up, in parallel to the process of constitution making and rule writing at the centerVillages that were once the sites of neglect or predatory behavior by lower-level government functionaries were turned into the building blocks of a democratic processHaving gathered the necessary institutional and social capital and demonstrated its usefulness in the creation of infrastructure and services, the program is now ready to become the platform for a more ambitious series of undertakings at the village level. It couldbecome a mechanism for the registration and formalization of property rights and dispute resolution at the village level (Ghani and Lockhart 2008, 206-208). While development interventions are usually designed with good intentions to address development needs, they are also inherently political (Ferguson 1994). MRRD has insisted that CDCs replace existing governance structures at the community level and be recognized as the official village councils called for in the Constitution. In 2007, the Ministry began unilaterally educating villagers on a new bylaw12 that stated the CDCs are the village councils mandated by the Constitution, while other Ministries or the elected Parliament had yet to agree to such a position. Due to the broad claims made by those who designed and implement the CDCs, I consider their potentially important role in providing public goods. However, the task here is not to evaluate the CDCs; it is to consider their role in the constellation of actors that can provide public goods to communities. Theoretically and empirically, I consider how well these organizations perform considering the broader organizational context.

1.2 A Theory of Local Self-Governance

Under what conditions can customary organizations provide public goods? I argue that four mechanismsseparation of power among community organizations, checks and balances between organizations, the ability to raise local revenue under a hard budget constraint, and the presence of economic veto playersfacilitate the provision of public goods. These four conditions provide a revenue basis and accountability mechanisms that prevent predation and promote the delivery of public services. Theories of local cooperation and self-governance emphasize the emergence of simple norms that manage scarce resources (Ostrom 1990). Theories of repeated games predict that cooperative behavior will emerge when individuals are engaged in face-to-face, repeated interactions. Models of community enforcement demonstrate that people in small communities can cooperate through small-scale mechanisms (Ellickson 1991; Kandori 1992). These approaches direct our attention to the role of local cooperation in the absence of effective state authority. However, by focusing on face-to-face and other small-scale interaction, they do not capture the structural features of villages that influence public goods provision. The theory I elaborate here builds on the self-governance approach by acknowledging the possibility and pervasiveness of self-organized arrangements but adds the possibility of local selfarranged hierarchy.

12

A bylaw is akin to an administrative regulation in the U.S. legal system. The bylaw provides administrative guidelines to a particular ministry.

[13]

Brick. The Political Economy of Customary Organizations in Rural Afghanistan

The first feature of customary organizations contributing to public goods provision is informal separation of powers. Separation of power implies that organizations of actors within communities have the right to operate within a particular policy-making domain. Formal constraints on rulers are a source of beneficial economic outcomes. Theories of government size relate veto players to the size of government (Persson and Tabellini 2003; Tsebelis 2002). Theories of property rights and public goods provision recognize that rulers are more likely to protect private property rights and provide other types of public goods when leaders are constrained (North and Weingast 1989). Theories of formal separation of powers predict that constraints on rulers reduce the size of government and increase protection of citizens rights (Persson, Roland, and Tabellini 1997). Formal constraints such as constitutions are one type of constraint on rulers (Weingast 1997). Informal separation of local authority may also influence outcomes. Communities are polycentric (Ostrom 2005), and variation in village political institutions may influence the ability to provide public goods (Agrawal and Gibson 1999). In a village characterized by separation of local political power, leaders face constraints on their ability to extract resources from citizens. These constraints reduce the ability of leaders to expropriate citizen wealth. When village leaders are unconstrained and power is concentrated, rulers have incentives to overextract citizen wealth and few incentives to use resources to provide public goods. Over-extraction of citizen wealth creates disincentives for citizens to engage in productive activities. In the long run, this undermines incentives for individuals to engage in productive activities and undermines the revenue base of the community. Similarly, unconstrained rulers have few incentives to provide public goods with any revenue they do extract. This leads to the first condition for community-based public good provision: Condition 1: Separation of powers is necessary to ensure customary organizations provide public goods without expropriating citizen wealth. This condition is satisfied in many Afghan villages. The Afghan system is often characterized by local separation of powers between maliks (village executives), shuras (village councils), and mullahs (lawgivers/religious leaders). Decision-making authority over separate spheres of activity which impact community life is divided by three main bodies, rather than concentrated into the hands of any single actor. Power is separated because organizations derive their right to govern from separate sources of authority or legitimacy. Shuras derive their authority from the will of the people in the community. Mullahs have religious legitimacy. The authority of maliks is derived from tradition and government recognition. Because each organization derives authority from separate sources, power within the community is effectively separated across policy areas. The separation of powers in villages constrains leadership and thereby credibly facilitates the provision of key public goods. The second condition for public goods provision is checks and balances. While separation of powers demarcates appropriate use of authority within a sphere of authority, checks and balances implies that other actors at the village level can intrude on these separate spheres prevent abuse of power. Checks between customary organizations are not possible unless there is a separation of powers between them. Checks and balances between organizations prevent competition that undermines the ability of the government to provide public goods: Condition 2: Local checks and balances increase incentives of local leaders to provide public goods.

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Brick. The Political Economy of Customary Organizations in Rural Afghanistan

There are substantial checks that prevent abuse of authority in the Afghan political economy. While each organization derives its authority and legitimacy from separate sources, individual customary organizations can constrain one another. While the analytical description of separated powers may imply a local presidential system (Shugart and Carey 1992), local politics in Afghanistan centers around the shura, making it is closer to what Lijphart (1999) describes to as a consensus model. Power is dispersed and separated in a variety of ways. For instance, the shura can depose a malik who is not responsive or fails to represent the community interests to the government. Rahmani argues that the shura even has oversight over religious leaders in the community (2006, 14-15). Religious leaders report to the shura on issues related to the mosque and other issues. In turn, mullahs can veto programs or policies that violate religious norms. The fluid and open membership of shuras ensures that power is not concentrated in the hands of one group in the community. These checks and balances are expected to influence provision of public goods. The presence of economic veto players also serves as a structural constraint on the potential abuse of power within customary organizations. A veto player is an individual or collective actors whose agreement is necessary for a change in the status quo (Tsebelis 2002, 19). In the case of rural Afghanistan, an economic veto player is usually a landowner. As agriculture is the predominant source of rural income, I focus on patterns of landholdings in rural area. When landholding is centralized, villagers have limited economic capacity to constrain customary leaders. When landholdings are more equally distributed, the number of economic veto players necessarily increases thus constraining abuse of authority. This leads to the third condition for effective public goods provision: Condition 3: An egalitarian distribution of landholding increases incentives for local leaders to provide public goods. Centralization of local political authority is common in rural areas throughout the developing world. This is the archetypal view held in the state formation and state-building literature where centralized authority is linked to patterns of large landholding (Ertman 1997; Moore 1966; Skocpol 1979). As noted earlier observers of Afghanistan have pointed to the relatively egalitarian distribution of land in the countryside as a source of consensual decision-making (Tapper 1984). Elphinstone first made this observation in his documentation of Afghan history and customs in the early 19th century: The estates of the proprietors are, of course, various in their extent; but on the whole, the land is more equally divided in Afghanistan than in most other countries. There are a great number of small proprietors who cultivate their land themselves as assisted by their familiesThe reason of the equal division of property will be easily perceived by adverting the nature of the government of tribesExtravagance or misfortune compel many to sell their lands; quarrels, or a desire for change, induce others to part with them, that they may quit the neighborhood in which they life, and the division of every mans estate among all his sons, which is enjoined by the Mohammedan law, soon renders each lot too small to maintain its proprietor, who consequently either gives it up to one of his brothers or sells it. The number of tenants, in the common acceptation of the word, is not great in this country (1839, 389-390).

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Brick. The Political Economy of Customary Organizations in Rural Afghanistan

Severe displacement due to the war has limited the comparative analysis of current patterns of land ownership. However, as recently as the late 1980s, distribution of land in Afghanistan was far more egalitarian than it was in neighboring Iran, Pakistan, or India (Rubin 2002, 35-37). A practical consequence of smaller landholdings is greater local accountability. Village leaders are constrained in Afghanistan. These constraints, in the form of economic veto players, increase their ability to provide public goods without extracting excessive amounts of citizen wealth. Leaders require a reliable revenue stream to provide public services. The informal accountability mechanism detailed in conditions one through four will not be effective if there is no tax that citizens are willing to accept and therefore a source of local revenues that provide the basis for public goods provision. The second condition for customary-based public good provision is that rulers have the ability to draw on sources of local revenues: Condition 4: Local organizations must have the ability to raise revenues to provide public goods. Sources of independent revenue may take several forms, including but not limited to monetary or cash payments. Local tributes in the form of grain, wheat, or livestock contributions are other forms of revenue generation. Leaders also extract revenue for resolving disputes and they have the power to redistribute wealth from one party to another. To settle a grievance, for example, a customary leader may call upon one individual to transfer wealth to another party as a remedy. Mullahs often expect a meal when they visit a home to settle a personal dispute. 13 When revenues come from external sources, as they often do in state-building projects, a local rentier economy is established which may not encourage prolonged provision of public goods. The tripartite system of government is characterized by three accountability mechanisms and an independent revenue basis that makes the system self-enforcing. Separation of powers creates accountability and an independent source of local revenue provides resources to provide public goods. Both conditions are necessary for the provision of public goods at the community level. It would be difficult to speak of a separation of powers without access to local resources. Conversely, access to resources without accountability mechanisms is likely to lead to unconstrained authority and dictatorship. For example:

A khan [malik] is not a feudal lord. Power in villages or tribes does not reside in any one person or structure but in fluidly structured networks of influence. These networks are not based on any single principlesome khans redistribute wealth through patronage and use it to create public goods (irrigation, influence with or protection from outside powers), this perception is not merely the result of domination and false consciousness. The pattern of patronage is based on qawm [tribe](Rubin 2002, 41-43). Political separation of powers and checks and balances are reinforced by a landholding structure that divides economic power. Customary organizations in Afghanistan are not the only local organizations that satisfy some these conditions. Other organizationsspecifically, those endogenous to state failure such as warlordsare expected to fail to provide public goods because they are unconstrained in their ability to extract local
13

Afghans and others in Central Asia have a wealthy collection of jokes describing this form of revenue generation.

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Brick. The Political Economy of Customary Organizations in Rural Afghanistan

resources. Warlords and commanders lack accountability and separation of powers. They may have the ability to tax, but they have no accountability mechanisms. This is why we expect the effectiveness of public goods provision to be superior under customary organizations than under warlords. Warlords are akin to Olsonian roving bandits, while those exogenous to the state behave as stationary bandits and thereby serve as the basis for long term, stable governance (Olson 1993). Local non-customary organizations in Afghanistan, whether political parties, warlords and their command structure, development councils, lack many of the conditions outlined above, especially separation of powers and integrated checks and balances that can prevent abuse. For example, CDCs do not derive their authority from the people, despite the claims democratic elections. They are upwardly accountable not to the community but to the NGO that provides them access to funds. They submit paperwork detailing their activities not to community members or to district government officials, but to the local NGO implementing the project in the area. There are no self-enforcing accountability mechanisms present in these organizations. CDCs are also limited in their ability to raise local revenues. CDCs generally do not collect revenues from individuals. These organizations redistribute resources accumulated through non-productive sources, specifically from international financial assistance, and are thus rentier community organizations. They are dependent on outside sources of revenue for support. When such support is absent, as it often is, these organizations will have limited opportunities to provide public goods because they have no revenue. In contrast, commanders or warlord networks are not rentier organizations. In most cases they secure resources in the form of tributes directly from individuals. However, warlords are not constrained by separated authority. Because they are not subject to any constraints, they can extract excessively. They become roving bandits. The local government is also an important actor at the local level. While the local government does have the ability to raise revenue, it is also subject to fewer constraints on its authority. While Afghanistan has a democratically elected Executive, Parliament, and Provincial Councils, district level government officials are not elected locally. They are appointed by the government through opaque procedures. As is common throughout much of the world, these appointees usually do not come from the district where they are tapped to serve. Formal local government officials are not constrained by any other governmental bodies. However, they are often constrained by individuals in the communities they serve. The presence of institutional conditions that facilitate public goods provision in a variety of customary and non-customary organizations are summarized below in Table 2.

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Brick. The Political Economy of Customary Organizations in Rural Afghanistan

Institutional Conditions Separated Power Customary Organizations Warlord Groups Community Development Councils Formal Local Government x x Checks and Balances x Economic Veto Players x x x Source Local of Revenue x x

Organization

Table 2: Conditions for Public Good Provision and Local Governance

The theory has several implications: Implication 1: Public goods will be provided when customary organizations are characterized by accountability through informal separation of powers, increased distribution of economic power, and sources of revenue. Implication 2: Individuals who are members or leaders of customary organizations will not have better access to public goods than non-members. Implication 3: The presence of non-accountable organizations (such as warlords or CDCs) will fail to improve access to public goods and services. Implication 4: Individuals who are members of non-customary social organizations will have greater access to public goods than other members of the community because these organizations are less accountable. These implications can be tested by evaluating the relationship between local organizations and public goods provision. In a given village, I can measure if there is a shura, a CDC, both, or none of these organizations. A limitation with current data sets is that they do not provide information on customary actors aside from shuras in a community. However, the shura variable is a measure of accountable customary organizations: where a shura is present it is almost always accompanied by a mullah and a malik. Not all villages are governed by a shura. Based on the theory of customary organizations, I hypothesize that the presence of a shura in a village will lead to greater public good provision relative to villages that do not have a shura. Conversely, the presence of a CDC in a village will have limited or no effect on public goods provision, because they are not accountable to the citizens they are supposed to serve.

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1.3 Measures, Hypotheses, and Models

In order to statistically analyze the provision of public goods in rural Afghanistan, I utilize two nationallyrepresentative surveys. The first is an extensive household survey, the 2005 National Rural Vulnerability Assessment (NRVA) that was administered and designed by the Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development with support from the World Bank (Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development and Central Statistics Office 2007). The purpose of the NRVA assessment, conducted across all 34 provinces in the country, was to provide vital information about rural livelihoods in the absence of a national census. The sample size of this survey consists of more than 30,000 households in more than 2,500 communities. The second source of survey data is a public opinion survey designed by the Asia Foundation with funding from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and administered by the Afghan Center for Socio-economic and Opinion Research (ASCOR) based in Kabul. This survey was also conducted across every province in Afghanistan in 2007 (Asia Foundation 2007). The survey interviewed more than 6,200 people in more than 570 communities from all provinces. The purpose of the public opinion survey was to gauge individual attitudes on a range of governance issues. I limit my analysis of both surveys to the rural subpopulations. 14

1.3.1 Land Disputes

The first set of public goods analyzed relate to local land disputes. Using the NRVA 2005 household livelihoods survey, I analyze three measures related to land disputes and their resolution: whether a household reported having a dispute, whether the dispute was resolved and whether the dispute or its resolution had been officially recorded.15 All three variables are measures of community-based public goods. These models allow us to measure the relative impact of customary and non-customary organizations on the provision of public goods related to local land disputes. The dependent variable in a first set of models (Models 1 and 2) is whether a household has been party to a land dispute. Preventing such disputes is a public good: a traditional function of a local governing organization is to prevent disputes over land. If customary organizations are able to provide public goods, then households in communities with such organizations should have fewer disputes. 16

14

The NRVA survey included three population strata: urban, rural, and the nomadic Kuchi population. The Asia Foundation survey did not stratify for the migratory Kuchi population and included them under the larger Pashtun subpopulation (as Kuchis are Pashtun). I do not include urban or Kuchi populations in the analysis. 15 Whether a dispute or its resolution has been recorded measures not only whether the dispute has been resolved but whether record of the dispute was recorded with local officials. Thus, a dispute does not have to be resolved in order to be recorded. 16 According to the NRVA survey, 54 percent of the rural population own agricultural land, while 5 percent manage land for others, and 42 percent own no garden or agricultural land. Out of those that own land, only 3 percent reported having a dispute over their land. This number is surprisingly small given other qualitative reports on the escalation of land disputes in Afghanistan. One explanation for this could be that disputes do occur, but they occur between family members who may rarely seek recourse outside the family to resolve it. Another explanation is that individuals may in fact be involved in a dispute but do not report it because they are aware they do not have legal or any formal recourse as they are not entitled to use of the land in the first place. For example, most rangeland in Afghanistan is owned by the government, not by private individuals. In any event, we want to describe what determines the probability of disputes. However, I compared responses between male and females in communities where both populations are enumerated and found no significant discrepancies.

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A second set of models (Models 3 and 4) relates social organizations to resolution of a dispute. The dependent variable in these models is whether a land dispute is resolved, given that a dispute occurred. In these models, resolution of land disputes is the measure of the public good. If customary organizations are effective in providing the public good of dispute resolution, then households in communities with customary organizations should be more likely to resolve their disputes. A third set of models (Models 5 and 6) analyze the probability that a land dispute, if resolved, was recorded in a court or in local official records. The ability to record land disputes is a measure of the effectiveness of local formal government to provide public goods. Recording the results of disputes also measures the ability of customary organizations to facilitate communication with the local governmenta task the malik is supposed to play. Therefore, examining whether results of disputes are officially recorded provides insights into several features of the local political economy. The theory implies that the presence of a customary organization, measured here by the presence of a shura in a community, is associated with increased provision of public goods to households with access to them: there should be fewer disputes and more disputes should be resolved for households in communities with a shura. The theory has no implication for whether or not a land dispute will be resolved in the community. Most of the business of the shura is unrecorded (Stanfield et al. 2008). However, a shura should increase the ability of households to interact with a government, relative to households that lack access to these organizations. Conversely, the theory implies CDCs will have limited or no impact on public goods provision. CDCs lack accountability and independent authority to generate revenue. Lack of constraints undermines the ability of these organizations to provide public goods. This leads to the prediction that the CDC will not pacify conflicts over land, increase resolution of disputes, or create incentives for people to record their disputes. However, proponents of CDCs as instruments of state building would suggest that CDCs have a positive impact on the registration of land disputes. These independent variables and the control variables are defined below. Social Organizations To measure the presence of customary organizations, I constructed a variable that indicates whether a customary shura is present in a community. This variable is a composite of responses by male focus group as to whether a community had at least one of the following customary organizations: jirga, elder shura, mixed gender shura, tribal shura, female shura, and male shura.17 Similarly, I coded whether a household had a CDC if the male focus group reported the presence of a male CDC, female CDC, or a mixed gender CDC in their community.18 Communities could have more than one kind of CDC or customary social organization.19

17

The NRVA dataset includes both household survey responses as well as one focus group in each community (population sampling unit). The focus group survey includes village-level questions such as the type of variety of village governance structures in the community and general community characteristics such as population. 18 The presence of CDCs and shuras are not correlated in pairwise tests. 19 I rely on results from the male rather than the female focus groups interviews as female responses were not enumerated in all districts. In many southern regions of the country involved in ongoing conflict, NRVA did not interview female household members or conduct focus group discussions with women. To capture a more comprehensive sample, I used responses from the male focus group discussions.

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Figure 6 shows that 75 percent of the rural population claimed to have one type of customary social organization active in the community. This is surprising, as we would expect such social organizations to be ubiquitous in rural Afghanistan. Upon further exploration, it appears that the number of social organizations is lower in areas around Kabul, the capital. As Kabul has experienced large migrations of population in recent years, we would expect fewer social organizations to be present in these areas. Another area that show a significantly fewer social organizations than other parts of the country is the set of provinces that constitute the Hazarajat. The Hazarajat named after the Shiite Hazara minority that inhabits the rugged mountainous territory of central Afghanistan. Due to difficult terrain and decreased availability of arable land, such communities will have fewer customary organizations. Also, a significant portion of the population in the region was resettled to this area from southern parts of the country nearly a century before by King Amanullah Khan who sought to redistribute their land to other groups, causing further disruption to community governance organizations. The Central Hazarajat region includes most of the mountainous terrain in the center of the country as visible in Figure 5. [Figure 5: Physical Map of Afghanistan] The presence of a CDC was also coded from the male focus group questionnaire conducted in each community. A problem with this variable is that it does not indicate the duration of CDC activity in the community, as CDCs were rolled out over a period of several years, beginning in 2003. This is a limitation of the dataset that can be overcome by examining multiple sources of data. We can also test the effectiveness of constraints in customary organizations by analyzing whether households with a member in a shura or a CDC have increased access to public goods. The theory predicts that shura members will not have higher levels of access to public goods. However, due to the lack of binding constraints preventing expropriation, CDC members should have higher levels of access to public goods. Predicted directions of variables related to land disputes and social organizations are summarized below in Table 3.

Public Good Prevention of Land Disputes Resolution of Land Disputes Official Recording of Land Dispute Control Variables

Shura/Customary Organization + No effect

CDC No effect No effect +

Table 3: Hypothesized effect of local organizations on issues related to Land Disputes

In order to capture the impact of social organizations, I control for a series of geographical variables, including six regional dummy variables (Central/Kabul, Eastern, South Central, South Western, Northern, and Central/Hazarajat).20 In addition to the regional variables, I also control for the altitude (in meters) of each community. Studies of civil war suggest that mountainous terrain is correlated with conflict, as mountainous regions are more difficult for a central government to control and areas provide effective hideouts for insurgent groups (Fearon and Laitin 2003; Skaperdas 2008). In terms of social organizations, higher altitudes may decrease the presence or necessity for social organizations to form as they are the byproduct of a need to manage scarce resources. The higher the altitude, the lower the likelihood of finding social organizations, both customary and non-customary. Higher altitudes are not only difficult for states to access, but they present challenges to aid organizations and others wishing to create new
20

For identification purposes the Western variable is omitted in estimation.

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institutions, such as CDCs. The models also control for demographic variables, such as whether the head of household is literate and number of household members. Measuring wealth in Afghanistan presents a challenge because personal assets are not always measured in cash or currency. Therefore, I include three separate measures of household wealth: annual income, whether the house owns or manages agricultural land, and whether the household owns livestock.21 I also include a variable measuring the number of people in the community. As size of the community increases, local cooperation to provide public goods may be more difficult to achieve. There are also three theoretically relevant variables that should be included in models of land dispute: possession of a land title (deed), whether the land was inherited, and number of years a family has lived in a community. Households that have deeds and that inherited land should be less likely to have disputes. Length of time in the community should also decrease likelihood of a land dispute. Finally, to estimate whether a household records the results of a land dispute in local courts or official records, I include a measure of distance to a local market, which in most cases is the district center (woluswali). This variable measures the distance to the nearest market by foot during the summertime. I expect that the likelihood of recording a dispute decreases the further a community is from the nearest market.

1.3.2 Dispute Resolution

The second set of public goods I analyze are related to dispute resolution involving all types of local claims, not just land disputes. To analyze the role of local organizations in dispute resolution, I analyze data from the Asia Foundation public opinion survey. Unlike the previous model, the unit of analysis in this survey is the individual, not the household. A first model of dispute resolution (Model 7) asks individuals whether their community has had a problem in the past five years such that outside help or cooperation was required to resolve it. A second model (Model 8) asks if the community dispute was resolved. The next two dependent variables return to the individual level of analysis exploring whether the individual has had a dispute or formal case that required formal adjudication by a state court or village/neighborhood shura/jirga (Models 9 and 10) and whether respondents were satisfied with the outcome of those proceedings (Models 11 and 12). The theory suggests that individuals who have access to a shura will be less likely to have a dispute or formal case that requires outside adjudication. The CDC should have no effect on the likelihood that an individual requires assistance to resolve disputes as the CDCs do not have the same preventive benefits that the shura provides. A shura is also expected to increase satisfaction with outcomes with dispute resolution. Individuals who take their formal dispute to a shura should be satisfied with the outcome due to the constraints on these local organizations. Because local government organizations do not have self-enforcing constraints on their activities, we can anticipate that individuals who take their cases to government courts will be less satisfied with the outcome. Appointments to courts and local government positions are not yet conducted through a democratic or transparent process. I summarize the predicted direction of variables related to general disputes and social organizations below in Table 4.
21

Pairwise tests show that the variables are not correlated.

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Public Good Prevention of Community Disputes Resolution of Community Disputes Prevention of Individual Formal Disputes Satisfaction with Resolution of Individual Formal Disputes

Shura/Customary Organization + +

CDC No effect No effect No effect n/a

Government n/a n/a -

Table 4: Hypothesized effect of local organizations on issues related to General Disputes

Social Organizations Measures of social organizations in the public opinion survey differ from those in the household survey. To measure the presence of a customary organization, I rely on individual agreement or disagreement to a statement that a shura or jirga is accessible.22 The shura/jirga variable is not dichotomous, but ordinal. The measure of CDC presence in a community is based on responses to a question about whether individuals are aware of such a council working in their village, a dichotomous variable. Thirty-seven percent of those interviewed were aware of a CDC in their village. Fourteen percent said that shuras were not accessible.23 This number is lower than the 25 percent of communities in the NRVA communities reporting there was no shura in their community.24 The survey asked an open-ended question about who they approached to resolve a dispute, which allows us to test the ability of various organizations to resolve disputes. The theory predicts that individuals who approach shuras or maliks (customary organizations) are more likely to have their disputes resolved than those approaching other, non-customary organizations. I also include subjective measures of individual attitudes towards social organizations, such as satisfaction with the CDC and beliefs about whether their shura and local courts represent local norms. Where possible, I use the same control variables for the public opinion data that I use in the household models. Controls included here include the number of people in the household, income, level of education, and age.25 I also include a measure for whether the household listens to the radio. Radio
22

This measure is imperfect, as access to a community organization is not equivalent to measuring its presence. However, the survey asks a battery of subjective questions about the performance of customary organizations (e.g. are they fair, do they represent local norms and values, etc.). I measured the presence of customary organizations using this variable as it is the least subjective of all the questions on the topic. 23 When asked whether a shura or jirga was accessible to them, 4.3 percent strongly disagreed, 9.7 percent disagreed, 45.9 percent somewhat agreed, and 40.12 strong agreed. 24 One explanation is that the NRVA questionnaire listed specific sub-classifications of shuras such as a qaumi shura (tribal shura), shura-ye mardomi (male shura), jirga, shura-ye rish-i-safidan (elder shura) and even whether there are mixed gender shuras. In some parts of the country, a community may not have a specific sub-classification for their shura and perhaps this is why the presence of such councils may be underreported. The question may have unnecessarily over-specified responses. The Asia Foundation survey did not make such distinctions and merely asks about generic shuras or jirgas. 25 Variables for age, education, and income are measured on a scale of 1 to 5. While in many countries education and income are highly correlated, this is not true of Afghanistan: pairwise tests show no significant correlation between these variables.

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waves in Afghanistan are flooded with public service announcements by the government, NGOs, and foreign and domestic military sources; therefore those who listen to radio should be more informed of reforms and more likely to engage others to resolve a dispute. They should also be more likely to participate in CDC and other aid-related activities. Another key control variable is trust in others, which should have a preventative impact on the emergence of a dispute. A trusting individual involved in a dispute would be more likely to reach out to others for assistance. Finally, this survey included both men and women in the sample, allowing analysis of the effect of gender.

1.3.3 Local Safety and Security

The last set of public goods I investigate concern local safety and security. The ability to resolve disputes undoubtedly impacts perceptions of local security. By asking individuals directly about the local security situation in the community, we can test the degree to which informal organizations provide this public good. The presence of regional variables takes on even greater significance in these models, as the level of attacks from an insurgent Taliban, which opposes the central government and foreign forces, is higher in those regions neighboring Pakistan (Eastern, South Central, South Western). While security is related to insurgent activity, the questions here are specific to community-level issues, such as burglary, murder, and other crimes. To examine these questions, I rely on the Asia Foundation public opinion survey. Models 13 and 14 test the factors that explain whether an individual fears for his or her personal safety or the security of the family. Thirty percent of the rural population stated that they never fear for their safety, 22 percent said they rarely experience such fear, 38 percent sometimes feel fear, while 11 percent of the population fears often for their safety. What is the relationship between organizations and security fears, if any? The theory predicts that because of local accountability mechanisms, individuals having access to customary organizations should feel more secure relative to those who do not. I hypothesize that access to customary organizations should decrease individual fears regarding personal safety and security. I also hypothesize that presence of non-customary councils, in this case CDCs, should have no effect on such fears. In Model 14 I include a set of dummy variables that measures confidence in various security organizations such as the army, police, as well as local militias. If people have confidence in the ability of such organizations, then they should be less fearful for their security. The final set of outcomes explores whether a person has been a victim of violent crime, such as a physical attack or beating, racketeering or extortion, burglary, or pick-pocketing in the past year. These are outcomes that involve local security, which local governing organizations should be able to monitor and control. Seventeen percent of the rural population indicated that someone in their family had been the victim of violence in the past year. Model 15 analyzes the relationship between violent crime and the presence of shuras and CDCs in communities. The presence of a shura should decrease the likelihood that an individual was a victim of a violent crime, while the presence of a CDC should have no impact on this outcome. Does the presence of a local governing organization affect whether an individual reports the crime to an authority? The theory of local governance outlined above does not speak to the relationship between customary or non-customary organizations and the government. However, proponents of CDCs as instruments of state-building would predict that the CDC increases links between individuals and the

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Brick. The Political Economy of Customary Organizations in Rural Afghanistan

government (Model 16). Whether or not an individual chooses to report a crime to the government is a measure of such links. The final model (Model 17) investigates the relationship between reporting crimes and trust in shuras, CDCs, militias, and government departments such as local justice officials, public administration in general, political parties, municipalities, and democratically elected provincial councils. Individuals who have more trust in government agencies and officials will be more willing to report their crimes to the government. The same theoretical caveats from previous models regarding the relationship between informal organizations and local government also apply here.

Public Good Individual Fears for Personal Safety Victim of Violent Crime Report Crime to Authorities

Shura/Customary Organization n/a

CDC No effect No effect +

Table 5: Hypothesized effect of local organizations on issues related to local safety and security

1.4 Estimation and Results

Because all relevant dependent variables are ordinal or dichotomous, I use logit and ordered logit estimators to analyze the role of customary social organizations in the provision of public goods. Estimation of models using both datasets account for the unique design of each survey by including household weights, provincial stratification, and identifies each population sampling unit (PSU) to correct for unobserved differences between members of different units that may affect standard error estimates (Deaton 1997). Summar statistics for the relevant variables from the NRVA and Asia Foundation surveys are listed in Table 6 and Table 7. [Table 6: NRVA (2005) Summary Statistics] [Table 7: Asia Foundation (2005) Summary Statistics]

The results support the hypotheses that customary organizations play an important role in many aspects of local public goods provision. Customary organizations are not only effective in providing public goods; individuals who use them when seeking remedies are more often satisfied with the outcome. Consistent with the theoretical framework, CDCs did not have a beneficial effect on public goods provision. In many instances, the CDC actually had a negative impact on public goods provision. It is possible that public good provision and the presence of CDCs are endogenous. CDCs may locate in a village based on the degree of public good provision. This implies that public good provision is causing CDCs. However, there is limited evidence that CDCs locate in regions based on public good provision. During the time of the survey, the CDCs were widespread. However, if there is any possible bias it would be that CDCs are located in areas with higher public good provision as CDCs may have been first established in more easily accessible areas, which implies they are more likely to have a positive effect on public good provision. The potential for locating in better regions would bias the results in favor of CDCs. However, there is limited evidence CDCs have a positive effect, considering the possibility

[25]

Brick. The Political Economy of Customary Organizations in Rural Afghanistan

of this bias. Because the CDCs are designed to infuse communities with resources to provide public goods, it is important to include them in any model estimating public goods provision.

1.4.1 Empirical Findings: Land Disputes

Customary organizations had the expected influence on both the emergence of disputes and on whether such disputes are resolved. The estimation shows that the presence of a shura in a community has a more precisely estimated impact on the prevention of land disputes (Model 2): households in communities with shuras are less likely to be involved in a conflict than those that do not. Interestingly, households with at least one member in a shura are more likely to be party to a land dispute. This demonstrates that shura members are not above the law and are subject to constraints; otherwise it would be unlikely that they would be challenged to a dispute (Model 4). As the theory predicted, the presence of a CDC has no preventative impact. The results also show that CDC members are no more or less likely to be parties to land dispute than other members of the community. The findings suggest that presence of customary organizations have more influence to deter conflict than do state-sponsored property rights. [Table 8: Estimation Results, Land Disputes, NRVA Data (2005)] The presence of both shuras and CDCs in a community increases the likelihood that a land dispute is resolved, although we do not have information about whether individuals were satisfied with the results of the resolution. However, shuras have a more precisely estimated, larger in magnitude impact on the ability to provide the public good of dispute resolution than do CDCs. CDC presence does not influence the recording of land disputes (Model 6). However, proponents believe that the CDC should increase links to the government: as this is one of the stated program goals. Those who own livestock and who manage or own agricultural land are also less likely to record their disputes formally; however, those who have higher income are more likely formally to record results of their disputes. Wealth has expected effects in some of the models. The inclusion of the three wealth indicators demonstrates that the type of household wealth may affect outcomes, as those who have higher cash incomes are more likely to have their disputes resolved than those owning agricultural land or livestock. The wealth measures do not seem to have a significant impact on whether a household is party to a dispute or whether disputes are resolved. The fact that wealth does not have a significant impact on whether a household is involved in a dispute or whether disputes are resolved indicates that wealth does not influence access to some public goods. This provides further insight into the egalitarian nature of local decision making. In this case, wealthier households do not appear to be above the law.

1.4.2 Empirical Findings: Disputes

Results from the public opinion survey are consistent with those from the household vulnerability assessment. The consistency reinforces the validity of the conclusions about the relationship between varieties of local organizations and public goods provision. The empirical results regarding general types of dispute resolution suggest that CDCs may actually destabilize community cooperation. [Table 9: Estimation Results, General Disputes, Asia Foundation Survey of the Afghan People (2007)]

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Brick. The Political Economy of Customary Organizations in Rural Afghanistan

First, the presence of a shura or jirga does not have a significant effect on whether a community has a dispute for which outside assistance is required (Model 7). This finding contradicts the theoretical prediction as the theory predicted that customary organizations would have a deterrent effect. Surprisingly, CDCs actually increase the likelihood of community-level disputes that require outside assistance to resolve. The lack of self-enforcing accountability mechanisms within a CDC and the large infusions of cash the program injects into a community may be sources of contention that generate, rather than prevent, conflict. The results indicate that when community members use shura mechanisms to resolve disputes, the likelihood of resolution increases (Model 8). Approaching the police also has a positive and significant impact on community-level dispute resolution. However, when the community approaches a malik or a CDC, it is no more likely to have the dispute resolved. The shura appears to be the more effective organization in providing this public good. Approaching the shura also has a more positive effect than approaching the police. Similar patterns emerge in individual disputes. The presence of a shura has no significant deterrent effect on whether someone is party to a formal dispute; however, the presence of a CDC in the community again increases the likelihood that an individual has a formal dispute that requires outside adjudication (Model 9). However, if an individual is satisfied with CDC performance and she believes that shuras follows local norms; she is less likely to be party to formal disputes. This reveals that the quality of local governance matters (Model 10). Finally, individuals who used shuras to resolve their dispute are far more satisfied with the outcome than those who used state courts (Model 11). A possible explanation for this is that due to the lack of binding constraints on local government officials, individuals may experience corruption or other distortion when they use government offices to resolve disputes. Because there are no informal or formal constraints on their activity, they may be more corrupt than the constrained customary organizations. The results from these estimates on dispute resolution indicate that for general types of disputes shuras may have less of a deterrent effect than for land disputes, although they cause no harm. However, when both communities and individuals use shuras to resolve issues, shuras are not only better able to resolve disputes, but individuals who use them are more satisfied with the result than those who use state courts.

1.4.3 Empirical Findings: Local Safety and Security

The final set of results also provides support to the theoretical argument that customary village organizations are effective in providing public goods at the community level. Consistent with the theory, the CDCs do not enhance security through preventative measures. [Table 10: Estimation Results, Local Safety and Security Issues, Asia Foundation Survey of the Afghan People (2007)] When a shura or jirga is accessible, individuals are less likely to fear for their safety and security. While the summary statistics indicate surprisingly high levels of support and trust in both the Afghan National Army and the police, such confidence may be somewhat superficial as confidence in the army or police does not significantly reduce individual personal security fears.

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Brick. The Political Economy of Customary Organizations in Rural Afghanistan

Accessibility to customary organizations decreases the probability that an individual is subject to violent crime. However, presence of a CDC in a community actually increases the probability that a person is the victim of violence. There is no empirical reason to expect that CDCs are placed in areas that have greater levels of violence. So this finding is surprising. It reinforces earlier findings that CDCs may actually disrupt rather than assist local dispute resolution and security mechanisms. One of the stated goals of the CDCs is to build effective links between citizens and the government. However, there is no evidence that the presence of these bodies at the community level increases the probability that an individual will report a crime to authorities. Similarly, access to local courts does not impact whether individuals will report crimes to authorities. However, access to a shura does increase the likelihood that an individual who is victim of a crime will report it. Access to customary organizations in this case increases citizen access to formal government. However, we must be careful when interpreting this result as such a result could be endogenous to the quality of local formal government. When people have confidence in local, non-governmental militias, they are significantly less likely to report crimes to authorities. Yet, confidence in shuras has a beneficial effect on reporting crimes. This finding provides evidence supporting the differentiation between informal organizations endogenous and exogenous to the breakdown of the state. Militias, by discouraging citizens from reporting crimes authorities, appear to replace the state or compete with it. On the other hand shuras seem to complement, rather than replace, the formal local government. Customary organizations are therefore not inherently opposed to the formal government.

1.5 Qualitative Case Studies

The quantitative evidence demonstrates the ability of customary organizations to provide diverse public goods despite central government weakness. Yet the empirical analysis raised several more questions. In this final empirical section, I draw on case study evidence that supports the theoretical arguments and untangles some of the surprising statistical results. Qualitative analysis also allows us to understand the context in which public goods are provided. Below, I present three brief case studies from data collected in 2007 on the nature of public goods provision and informal organizations in rural Afghanistan. The case studies here are part of a larger set of 300 interviews conducted in 32 villages across 16 districts in six provinces in rural Afghanistan.26 The case studies were constructed from 8-12 interviews or focus group discussions, equally divided among men and women, as well as observations from each village.27 The case studies help us understand how customary organizations have adapted to adverse circumstances and how they interact with a variety of actors and organizations at the local level. Furthermore, they add to the evidence supporting the theoretical assertions regarding the separation of local authority, checks and balances between organizations, economic veto players created through egalitarian land distribution, and the ability to generate revenue. The organization of the analysis mirrors the issues addressed in the statistical analysis in the previous section. The first case from Eastern
26

Provinces include Balkh, Bamiyan, Herat, Kabul, Kunduz, and Nangarhar. Security concerns limited site selection. Most of the interviews were conducted by a team of Afghan researchers from the Afghan Research and Evaluation Unit, an independent Afghan research organization based in Kabul for whom this research was commissioned. However, I designed the interview guides and accompanied the researchers to field sites. 27 All village and informant names in this section are fictitious. I do not provide these details to protect the confidentiality of informants.

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Afghanistan deals with land disputes. The second case from Central Afghanistan explores issues of general dispute resolution. The final case from Northern Afghanistan highlights issues of local security as well as insight into how the introduction of new organizations can destabilize patterns of local cooperation. Yakakhak Village, Behsod District, Nangarhar Province (Eastern Afghanistan) The first case, from eastern Nangarhar Province on the border with Pakistan, illustrates dynamics of land conflict and the role customary leaders play in resolving issues. In this case, the malik was able to resolve a large land dispute and manage the transfer of wealth from one party to another. The case also highlights how communities deal with corruption in customary organizations through local checks and balances. While customary leaders may have opportunities to expropriate wealth, they may be limited in their ability to do so for very long. Finally, it demonstrates the previous finding that wealthy individuals are not above the law when it comes to land disputes. Yakakhak is a village of about 1,400 people in Behsod District in Nangarhar Province on Afghanistans eastern border with Pakistan. The village is located about 10 kilometers from Jalalabad City, one of the largest cities in Afghanistan. The population of the community is a mix of settled Pashtun Kuchi nomads and Khogiani Pashtun tribes who in recent decades emigrated from neighboring Kunar Province.28 There is also a small Shia Hazara group in the community. According to villagers, there are 22 farms in the village, which allows for small landholdings. Unlike many other areas of the country, villagers feel there is adequate land in the community, but said they never had enough inputs such as seeds to produce abundant and profitable harvests.29 The village has an active shura as well as a several mullahs and a malik. However, the community recently replaced its malik. Villagers complained that the previous malik was corrupt, detailing how he expropriated external assistance for himself including food aid and cows provided through NGO animal husbandry projects. Even worse, he was allowing his greed to influence shura decision making: The malik was not a good man. He would sit in the marakas and jirgas and made decisions on behalf of those who could give him the biggest bribe.30 Out of frustration, the villagers appealed to a young man whose father was a malik before the war to serve in place of the corrupt malik. The villagers appealed to him several times, but he was not interested in serving because he had other interests and work, after some cajoling, he took the position. The newly selected malik was only 30 years old and was from a Kuchi family. Villagers did not have a formal election for this position; they selected him during a meeting of the shura. He was chosen not only because of his personal attributes, but also because of his familys honest reputation in village decision making. As is the case throughout Afghanistan, the cessation of large scale violent conflict resulted in the return of millions of refugees to the country. The return prompted conflict over land as returning families claimed ownership of the same parcel of land. Successive governments handed out their own titles, making definitive land ownership uncertain. Some families remained during the war and others
28

The two main Pashtun tribes are Ghilzai and Durrani. Khogiani are a subtribe of the Durrani while most Kuchis are Ghilzai. Most Afghan Kings and leaders, including Hamid Karzai, have been from the Durrani tribe while most of the most of the leadership of the Afghan Taliban movement have been Ghilzai. The Khogiani here often referred to themselves as Khogiani or Kunari. They maintain links with relatives in Kunar through marriage. During periods of fighting this group migrated to Kunar. 29 Interview, Mother of Malik, Yakakhak Village, Behsod District, Nangarhar Province, September 2007. 30 Interview, Young Woman, Yakakhak Village, Behsod District, Nangarhar Province, October 2007.

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fled. The shura in Yakakhak handled most of the land disputes. However, a powerful commander had recently returned to the village after nearly 30 years. Upon his return he claimed a large parcel of land that others had lived on and cultivated in his absence:31 Some Hazara people from our village had land and one commander came and took his land. The Hazara man tried to take his land back from the commander but he could not. The commander said that the land was his, but he hadnt lived in our village for 28 years! The shura divided the land. They gave one-half for the Hazara and one-half to the commander. In the end, the Hazara agreed to the settlement that the shura negotiated. Instead of taking the land, the commander gave him 2 million Afghani ($40,000) for the land. 32 Despite the wealth of the commander, in this community he was not above the law. He had to use the shura process to resolve his dispute with the much less wealthy Hazara farmer. The shura required that the commander pay the poorer Hazara for the land, regardless of his possession of a land title. The community used the shura to resolve this dispute. However, the community has several types of shuras. There is a community shura and a larger inter-communal shura. Also each ethnic and religious group has its own group of elders that forms the basis of a smaller, sub-shura. According to the malik: We have a shura with 13 people and they usually resolve conflicts. This shura is composed of elders who find who is guilty and not guilty in our village. We have another larger shura called a meshrano jirga that has about 21 members that includes our settlement as well as neighboring villages. There are several ethnic groups here so they are all represented there. 33 The malik indicated that responsibility for resolving conflicts lies with the shura, not the malik. An elderly man described the process of dispute resolution, as it applied to recent land conflicts: Afghan people are very traditional and they live by different customs. People usually resolve their problems by discussion in the village, and rish-i-safidan (elders) resolve most village disputes. The people usually refer their conflicts to elders, and they try to resolve all the problems. Elders talk with both sides and then they talk with each other; finally, if both parties give wak (authority)34 to the elders then they will make a decision and both sides have to accept it. The elders make their decision according Sharia and customs of Afghanistan. Another important thing you should know is that elders must take shast (fingerprints)35 of the people before a decision is made and then they cannot disobey the decision.36 He said that the role of the malik in the village is to communicate individual needs to the government and then help the government implement policies in the village. For example, the woluswal [district
31 32

Interview, Farmer, Yakakhak Village, Behsod District, Nangarhar Province, October 2007. Interview, Farmer, Yakakhak Village, Behsod District, Nangarhar Province, October 2007. 33 Interview, Malik, Yakakhak Village, Behsod District, Nangarhar Province, September 2007. 34 Wak is an a priori commitment given by both parties whereby they swear to abide by the decision of the elders, regardless of the outcome. 35 Due to high illiteracy rates in Afghanistan, fingerprints are used in place of signatures on many official documents as many Afghans are unable to sign their names. 36 Interview, Farmer, Yakakhak Village, Behsod District, Nangarhar Province, September 2007.

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governor] wants us to stop growing poppies and he wants to use the elders of the community to communicate this to the villagers. He says that if we plant any poppies we will not receive any assistance from the government.37 There is tension in the community between settled Pashtun Kuchi nomads who were given deeds by the Communist Government during the 1980s and the Khogiani tribal population. However, the mullah of the community is aware of these tensions and although he himself is a Khogiani, he has tried to integrate the Kuchi population into the community. According to the maliks mother, the mullah in the village teaches Islamic books to the children. Some Kuchis are coming into our mosque because our mullah is kind to them [despite tensions in the community].38 Villagers were not aware of a CDC in the area. The new malik said that there was a CDC in one part of the community, but the FP put it with a CDC in another neighboring village. The community had no role in determining the boundaries of the CDC. Villagers were keen to have a CDC because they had heard advertisements for the program on the radio and had heard of project funds and infrastructure that neighboring villages received. The case illustrates that customary leaders can also be corrupt, yet their corruption is tempered by the presence of other bodies in the community which act to constrain them or remove them from power after a series of abuses. While authority is separated, the checks and balances that exist between customary organizations can work to prevent long-term expropriation of citizen wealth. The case also highlights the increasing pressure put on customary organizations to resolve land disputes due to the large number of returnees to communities since 2001. Rashidan Village, Saighan District, Bamiyan Province (Central Hazarajat Afghanistan) This case from Bamiyan Province in the Central Hazarajat highlands, illustrates the role customary organizations play in the resolution of general disputes. It lends insight into the dynamic and adaptive nature of customary organizations but also highlights the important role they play in maintaining local security and preventing violence. Customary organizations have not only changed their names, but the landowners who once dominated the organizations have been driven out of the community. The case study also illustrates that CDC funds can provide badly needed infrastructure to communities, but underscores the difficulties encountered by NGO staff, if they are not from the community or even the province, to implement the program: they are not accountable to villagers. According to members of the village, there are approximately 270 households in Rashidan (about 1,500 people).39 The community is about two kilometers from the district center, giving it access to government offices. The entire district of Saighan is quite small, with a population of only 17,000. Prior to the Taliban, Saighan was a subdistrict of neighboring Kahmard District. 40 According to the district governor, two-thirds of the population are Farsi speakers (loosely referred to as Tajiks) while the remaining one-third are Hazara.

37 38

Interview, Malik, Yakakhak Village, Behsod District, Nangarhar Province, September 2007. Interview, Mother of malik, Yakakhak Village, Behsod District, Nangarhar Province, September 2007. 39 The village is not listed in official population numbers issued by the Central Statistics Office. All population data in this paper is from official government statistics provided by this Office. Data is available for download at http://www.cso.gov.af. 40 In Dari a subdistrict is aloqadari. The Taliban eliminated the subdistrict system. The aloqadari system is no longer used. There are no subdistricts remaining in Afghanistan; all aloqadari have become full districts [woluswali].

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In Bamiyan province, villagers had particularly bad memories of highly extractive landlords, arbabs, who taxed them excessively at the behest of the government more than thirty years ago. According to interviews, the landholdings of the arbabs had been divided byte the people and commanders and the arbabs themselves were driven away in the 1970s and the 1980s. Yet the arbab played an important governing role as a broker between the community and the government. According to the villagers, the Communist Khalq Party41 was responsible for this dissolving the arbab system. In its place, villagers created a nomayenda (representative) system that had many of the same responsibilities.42 It is unclear whether the Khalqis established this system or whether it emerged out of community needs. The title nomayenda is used exclusively in Bamiyan Province to indicate a village executive. Nomayendas and villagers with whom I spoke in the district asserted that the nomayenda represented the will of the people to the government. External conflict dynamics had an adverse effect on local cooperation. According to the nomayenda of the village (who is also a mullah), most homes in the district were destroyed during the war by the Soviets, During the war with the Russians, people would go to Pakistan and they would bring guns back to fight the Russians. People were united then, but when the Russians left, civil war began.43 During the Civil War between mujahedeen groups in the 1990s, there was heavy fighting between Northern Alliance and Hazara militias in the district. Many Tajiks emigrated out of the district as a result, but most have since returned. According to villagers, there are now good relations between the groups. The mostly-Pashtun Taliban brutalized Shia Hazara communities in Afghanistan because they were not Sunni. The malik said that the cruelty of the Taliban brought both communities closer together: I was the nomayenda for two or three years during the regime of the Taliban. During that period some Hazara people came to me and asked that I represent them because they needed someone to help them and they were afraid of the Taliban at that time. I accepted their nomayendagi. I accepted their suggestion that I be their representative. When they had some business in the district, first they would come to me. I would try to resolve their problems alone. During that time I was very busy. Every day, every moment, the Taliban police were coming to me and they were asking me to do things for them in the community. They would always take me to different villages to help them resolve issues.44 The jihadi commanders active in the area were killed during the war, so the area has returned to relative peace.45 The area is also fairly remote and does not have substantial land or other resource endowments. Religious leaders regularly interacted with members of the shura. While the malik is also a mullah, the community has an ulama shura or a council of religious scholars. Despite the fact that the malik is a religious leader, he has disputes interpreting Islamic law with the ulama. The malik told of an NGO that came to the village to teach children how to play musical instruments. He said the ulama complained about them, believing that music would bring social problems to the community. The organization then left the area because it did not want to be a source of conflict in the community. The malik said, I told
41 42

The Khalq (Peoples Party), was one of the two main Communist parties in Afghanistan. While the Khalq Party sought to disrupt large landholders and traditional power brokers, it is unclear why the title nomayendas surfaces only in Bamiyan province and not in other areas. 43 Interview, mullah/malik, Rashidan Village, Saighan District, Bamiyan Province July 2007. 44 Police Commander is a district police chief; an official government position. 45 Interview, Male Villager, Age 25, Rashidan Village, Saighan District, Bamiyan Province, July 2007.

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the ulama shura they should have stayed out of thisThey should have left this organization alone, but they did not accept my wish.46 Villagers had a great amount of reverence for the woluswal [district governor] in this area. Unlike woluswals in most other districts, this woluswal himself was from the district and he had served in the position since the fall of the Taliban nearly six years before. Several villagers repeated the story of how the woluswals father was shot on his sons wedding day by a Northern Alliance group fighting Soviets who thought his father was a Khalqi (Communist) more than twenty years ago. When asked about how they resolve conflicts, all those interviewed described the same procedure: they first try to solve the dispute between internally, between parties; if the dispute cannot be solved internally, they then go to the shura for counsel; if the shura has difficulty send the dispute to the woluswal;47 because the woluswal respects the authority of the elders, he sends the dispute back to the village for adjudication: A few days ago, there was one problem between two people. One side had a donkey. Their donkey was running around in the neighbors field and eating their wheat. The person went to the district security commander (police chief) and then to the woluswal. The woluswal sent the dispute back to me. And I sat between them. I told them that this is not such a big problem. If the donkey eats a lot of wheat, then your neighbor will simply pay you some money. I told them that I didnt want to hear anymore about this donkey.48 The villagers appointed the mullah to be the head of the CDC. There were no complaints of corruption in the village. However, villagers did not view the CDC as anything more than an organization set up by an NGO for the purposes of implementing a reconstruction project. Women did not participate in its activities. There were some complaints about corruption in the FP working in the area. A retaining wall built with CDC funds had collapsed since its construction one year ago. Villagers said that engineers working for the FP in the district were corrupt and skimped on construction materials. Women complained about the conduct of elections for female CDC members: On election day, each candidate had their picture on the ballot box so people distributed the pictures so women would know who to vote form. The men who distributed the pictures promised that if they voted for their relative, they would be given some money. But after the elections, the candidates did not give money as the promised.49 The malik system in Saighan district is unique because the previous landlords who held leadership position were driven out. In this case, the malik system regenerated itself during times of fighting and was able expand its scope to protect outside groups. Demand for the functions of the organizations continued to arise. As a result, villagers created a village governance structure that functioned along the same lines as the previous system under a different name. The case also highlights the difficulties of creating new organizations in communities that are not subject to mechanisms of local accountability.

46 47

Interview, Mullah/Malik, Rashidan Village, Saighan District, Bamiyan Province July 2007. Villagers have this option because the woluswali offices are very close to the village. 48 Interview, Malik/Mullah, Rashidan Village, Saighan District, Bamiyan Province, July 2007. 49 Focus group discussion, women, Rashidan Village, Saighan District, Bamiyan Province, July 2007.

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This case also illustrates how religious leaders and other leaders can operate in unique policy domains under a separated system, but have the right to check one another. Manzil Bagh Village, Hazrati Imam Sahib District, Kunduz Province (Northern Afghanistan) The final case study illustrates how the influx of funds gained from non-productive sources of income, such as aid, can potentially disrupt patterns of customary decision-making and destabilize local cooperation. The statistical models provided surprising evidence that CDCs may actually increase conflict in a community. The story of this desert village, in northern Kunduz Province, help explain this finding. External assistance encouraged the return of roving bandits, such as commanders, to the community. The lack of self-enforcing accountability mechanisms within the CDC and other aid-related shuras accompanied by large infusions of cash can cause community contention. Manzil Bagh, population 2,000, is a village in Hazrati Imam Sahib District in Kunduz Province (northern Afghanistan). The population of the village is mostly Uzbek, although there are a few Turkmen and Pashtun families in the area. The village is located about 15 kilometers from the district center. Most villagers migrated to Pakistan, Iran, Kunduz City (the provincial capital), as well as Kabul during the war. Homes in the village were destroyed during two rounds of fighting: in the 1980s, when villagers fought the Russians, and during the late 1990s when Northern Alliance forces fought the Taliban. There are significant amounts of landless families in the community and water is scarce. Men in the village are employed harvesting wheat and corn while women weave carpets. Some men work as daily laborers (mardikar). Villagers described their respect for the malik. He came from a pious family.50 The village has a tribal shura (qaumi shura) where elders make decisions and resolve disputes. Both men and women said that if they had a dispute in the village, they would normally take their problem to the elders and the malik, although recent events caused disruption to these patterns of governance. If they could not resolve the dispute they would then go to the district government (woluswali).51 Customary leaders were active resolving domestic disputes.52 For example: There was a wedding party between two villages [and a large bride price was paid] to the family of the bride. After the wedding the bride was not happy with the groom and wanted to separate from her husband. The elders and the religious leaders sat together and resolved the issue so that the couple could peacefully separate.53 The elders were able to redistribute wealth from one family to another to ensure the resolution of the dispute. However, villagers complained about corruption in the CDC. When the project first started in the village, the people selected their malik to be the head of the organization (through consensus voting, not through a ballot box). Villagers made no contributions to the CDC activities, but instead were promised salaries for work building projects. This is a common practice among CDCs. However, one

50 51

In this province, maliks are referred to by the title arbob. Interview, Young Woman, Manzil Magh Village, Hazrati Imam Sahib district, Kunduz province, June 2007. 52 Interview, Middle-aged Woman, Manzil Bagh Village, Hazrati Imam Sahib District, Kunduz Province, June 2007. 53 Interview, Dehqan Yasin, Manzil Bagh Village, Hazrati Imam Sahib District, Kunduz Province.

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Brick. The Political Economy of Customary Organizations in Rural Afghanistan

metal worker said he installed many of the hand pumps built by NGOs in the village, but he has never been paid for his labor or materials as he was promised.54 The CDC was one of several NGO projects in the community. As the amount of money flowing into the village increased, villagers complained that local commanders took greater interest in village activities. In the years since the war ended, commanders had receded, yet the money provided by external assistance encouraged them to reappear. The people feared the commander, as he was part of General Abdul Rashid Dostums Milli-ye Junbish political party. When the commander took charge of village activities, he encouraged the malik to resign his position and dismantled the beginnings of female participation. When asked, the commander said that he had done such a good job managing a German NGO project (another development shura) that the villagers voluntarily decided to have reelections and that the incumbent malik decided not to run against me.55 People in the village, including the deputy director (moween)56 did not seem to have information about CDC meetings or any other activities since the commander wrestled control of the organization from the community. While people feared the commander and discussed his corruption, they also spoke highly of how he handled security issues. He had access to a larger network of commanders that customary leaders were usually unable to access. The commander bragged openly about how he brought order to the village with his iron fist. Several villagers told of how he captured three young men who were sexually abusing boys in the village. Actually, Im not really interested in being the arbab [malik] in this village and solving all these disputes. I have wanted to resign many times but my people say, what will we do if you resign?57 According to other villagers, the new head of the CDC (the commander) bought two cars for himself since the CDC started its work. They also speculated that the CDC cashier, a close ally of the commander, bought two cows with CDC money.58 Despite these complaints, the villagers did see results from several donor projects such as water wells, culverts, as well as a newly graveled road. Although, they speculated that more could have been done with the vast amount of funds the commander had received. Since the commander reemerged in the village. Local decision making through the customary organization had continued informally but not publically, as the malik became increasingly afraid of the power of the commander. Women were not participating in village activities. The women said that the FP came to the village and themselves selected the female participants to the CDC. None of the villagers, aside from the commander, were aware that the CDC was a government project. They believed it was just an NGO project, like so many that had come before it. This case illustrates that local separation of powers and local checks and balances that encourage more legitimate use of village resources can be destabilized by outside groups. Most importantly, this case highlights the important distinction between informal organizations endogenous and exogenous to the breakdown and reconstruction of the state.

54 55

Interview, Dehqan Yasin, Manzil Bagh Village, Hazrati Imam Sahib District, Kunduz Province. Interview, Commander, Manzil Bagh Village, Hazrati Imam Sahib District, Kunduz Province, June 2007. 56 Interview, Deputy Director of CDC, Manzil Bagh Village, Hazrati imam Sahib District, Kunduz Province, June 2007. 57 Interview, Commander, Manzil Bagh Village Imam Sahib District, June 2007. 58 Interview, Mechanic, Manzil Bagh Village, Hazrati Imam Sahib District, Kunduz Province, June 2007.

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1.6 Conclusion
Can public goods be provided in a failed state? If so, what mechanisms govern their provision? I distinguished between customary and non-customary organizations and developed a theory predicting the conditions under which local governance organizations can be effective in providing public goods. In the context of rural Afghanistan, customary organizations meet the conditions that encourage selfenforcing local governance and public goods provision. The evidence supported the implications of the theory. By focusing on the productive role of customary organizations in the provision of public goods and differentiating between customary and non-customary organizations, I have shed light on the micro-foundations of state building in a post-conflict society. Community-scale public goods such as dispute resolution and safety and security are provided by customary organizations. However, such goods are neither provided by government authorities nor newly-created development councils. Customary organizations are far from perfect. They can also be sources of predation and corruption, and the conditions that encourage local accountability do not exist in every community. Constraints within village organizations provide an explanation of why these organizations are generally effective. Shuras (village councils), maliks (executives), and mullahs (religious leaders) are not only accountable to one another in a separated system; they are also directly accountable to citizens in the community. Customary leaders are able to resolve disputes and provide other goods to citizens because they extract a fee for their services but also because they are accountable for what they extract. The case studies elaborate results from the statistical analysis and illustrate why the presence of non-customary organizations, such as CDCs or warlords, may destabilize local cooperation or in the worst case, cause conflict or tension in communities. The representatives to CDCs should be elected by villagers, yet these elections, if they do occur, are not sufficient to create conditions for accountability. In practice, CDCs are neither accountable to citizens nor to the local government. They are accountable only to the (usually) international NGO to which they report their activities. Furthermore, the creation of a CDC creates only one body. Power within these organizations is not distributed; it is concentrated. While the CDC is supposed to derive its legitimacy from the community, the large influx of resources that the CDCs provide, if not accompanied by effective monitoring, can destabilize local cooperation. The presence of such councils creates a rentier effect at the community level where resources, gained through non-productive processes, provides temporary access to public goods and services, but does not encourage the development of local accountability measures. Several findings are worrisome about the impact of CDCs on broader outcomes in the community. For example, the presence of a CDC seems to increase the probability that a community is involved in a dispute that it cannot resolve itself. Also, presence of a CDC increases the odds that an individual will be involved in a dispute as well as be the victim of a violent crime. Presence of a CDC has no significant impact on state building or building links between individuals and local government. However, these findings yield more puzzles: if customary organizations are effective at providing public goods and services, why does Afghanistan remain so poor? Why are human development indicators so horrifically low? Such observations suggest that there are limits to customary social

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Brick. The Political Economy of Customary Organizations in Rural Afghanistan

organizations. While they can provide certain kinds of public goods and act as a deterrent to disputes and other conflicts, they are not a panacea. The next problem is explaining the limits of community organizations.

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Brick. The Political Economy of Customary Organizations in Rural Afghanistan

Estimate Mean Altitude (meters) Annual Income (ln) CDC in Community CDC Member Central/Kabul Central/Hazarajat Deed to Land Distance to Market in Summer by Foot Eastern HH Member Count HH own agricultural Land HH own Livestock Inherited Dwelling Land Dispute Land Dispute Recorded Land Dispute Resolved Longitude Northern Read Letter Shura in Community Shura Member South Central South Western Years in Community N PSUs 1435.262 10.69384 0.344972 0.076882 0.063887 0.097589 0.477316 3.779417 0.107476 7.385536 0.713064 0.731609 0.8261 0.027449 0.322814 0.485994 67.21815 0.286476 0.294632 0.748541 0.165213 0.187588 0.122292 25.13153 30822 2597

Std. Err.

[95% Conf.

Interval]

22.56536 0.014812 0.010986 0.003847 0.005362 0.007132 0.010157 0.052083 0.006858 0.040494 0.009433 0.006279 0.005418 0.001693 0.027475 0.033214 0.06156 0.010238 0.008009 0.010056 0.00589 0.009775 0.008459 0.368338

1391.014 10.6648 0.32343 0.069339 0.053373 0.083605 0.4574 3.677277 0.094028 7.306132 0.694567 0.719298 0.815476 0.024129 0.268809 0.420611 67.09744 0.266399 0.278928 0.728822 0.153663 0.168421 0.105706 24.40923

1479.51 10.72289 0.366513 0.084425 0.0744 0.111573 0.497232 3.881558 0.120924 7.46494 0.73156 0.74392 0.836724 0.030768 0.376819 0.551377 67.33887 0.306552 0.310337 0.768261 0.176763 0.206755 0.138879 25.85382

Table 6: NRVA (2005) Summary Statistics

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Brick. The Political Economy of Customary Organizations in Rural Afghanistan

100%
90% 80% 70% Percentage 60% 50%

Village Organizations by Region

40%
30% 20% 10% 0% Elder Shura Central/Kabul Eastern 14.7% 15.6% 25.1% 21.3% 16.1% 12.5% 26.1% 20.7% Male Shura 4.4% 36.3% 1.8% 24.2% 30.2% 5.7% 8.9% 15.0% Tribal Shura 45.9% 41.1% 66.6% 54.2% 21.6% 34.9% 53.7% 47.5% Jirga 11.8% 18.2% 3.6% 7.2% 0.7% 0.6% 6.3% 6.4% Female Shura 2.9% 2.1% 0.9% 0.5% 5.2% 1.6% 5.3% 3.2%

Mixed Gender Shura

0.0% 0.4% 0.0% 0.5% 1.7% 2.3% 4.0% 1.8%

Male CDC 51.1% 34.0% 21.5% 21.0% 31.5% 17.4% 23.0% 26.5%

Female CDC 14.1% 9.1% 2.7% 1.1% 12.2% 6.0% 10.6% 8.2%

Mixed Gender CDC

14.0% 0.4% 2.4% 1.0% 11.1% 15.2% 23.5% 11.7%

Total Shura 56.9% 93.0% 82.7% 86.3% 63.7% 53.1% 73.4% 74.2%

Total CDC 62.9% 34.4% 23.9% 22.0% 41.2% 30.6% 41.5% 36.2%

South Central
South Western Western

Central/Hazarajat
Northern Average

Percentages based on responses to community-level focus group, not individual level responses.

Figure 4: Source Male Focus Group Interviews, NRVA (2005)

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Brick. The Political Economy of Customary Organizations in Rural Afghanistan

Figure 5: Physical Map of Afghanistan

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Brick. The Political Economy of Customary Organizations in Rural Afghanistan

Mean Age Approach CDC Approach Foreign Forces Approach Govt. Agent Approach Malik Approach MoP Approach Police Approach Shura Approach Woluswali CDC in Community CDC Satisfaction (1-5 scale] Central/Hazarajat Central/Kabul Confidence in Army Confidence in Municipality Confidence in Pol. Parties Confidence in Police Confident in CDCs Confident in Govt. Justice Confident in Militias Confident in Municipality Confident in Provincial Council Confident in Public Admin Confident in Shura/Jirga Court Accessible Court Reflect Local Norms Did Report Crime Dispute Solved Eastern Education Fear Safety Female Had Formal Dispute Income [1 to 5 scale] Listen to Radio No People in HH Northern Outside Help Needed Satisfied with Resolution Shura/Jirga Accessible [1 to 5 scale] Shuras are Fair [1 to 5 scale] Shuras/Jirgas Reflect Local Norms [1 to 5 scale] South Central South Western Take Dispute to Court Take Dispute to Shura Trust People Victim of Violence N PSUs

Estimate 33.84515 0.009779 0.001481 0.007427 0.02401 0.012632 0.034311 0.061083 0.04642 0.367749 3.154236 0.090989 0.089947 0.878158 0.349682 0.379951 0.822414 0.685142 0.481619 0.349682 0.485153 0.725426 0.615769 0.741943 2.971833 2.628532 0.64174 0.502762 0.107809 2.388417 2.301527 0.500068 0.154945 2.960826 0.714411 9.380056 0.326131 0.174532 0.719647 3.217758 3.103977 3.096065 0.175911 0.092143 0.488444 0.511556 0.41343 0.171243 5209 572

Std. Err. 0.216036 0.001944 0.000534 0.001672 0.003172 0.002942 0.003619 0.005313 0.004042 0.015009 0.032884 0.012629 0.012366 0.009274 0.014451 0.013561 0.010461 0.012604 0.013735 0.014451 0.014543 0.011983 0.013318 0.011762 0.024416 0.026071 0.021597 0.025958 0.013512 0.050332 0.030251 0.021916 0.008413 0.046163 0.011224 0.104102 0.020322 0.009428 0.020483 0.024349 0.022596 0.022472 0.016802 0.01257 0.024814 0.024814 0.012126 0.007817

[95% Conf. 33.42083 0.00596 0.000432 0.004143 0.017781 0.006853 0.027202 0.050647 0.038481 0.338268 3.089595 0.066184 0.065659 0.859943 0.321297 0.353316 0.801866 0.660386 0.454642 0.321297 0.456589 0.70189 0.589611 0.71884 2.923876 2.577325 0.59927 0.451694 0.08127 2.289559 2.24211 0.457021 0.138421 2.870156 0.692365 9.175585 0.286217 0.156015 0.67933 3.169933 3.059595 3.051927 0.142911 0.067454 0.43961 0.462723 0.389612 0.15589

Interval] 34.26947 0.013597 0.002529 0.010711 0.03024 0.018411 0.04142 0.071519 0.05436 0.397229 3.218877 0.115793 0.114235 0.896373 0.378066 0.406586 0.842962 0.709899 0.508597 0.378066 0.513717 0.748962 0.641928 0.765045 3.019789 2.679738 0.68421 0.553831 0.134349 2.487275 2.360944 0.543114 0.171469 3.051496 0.736457 9.584528 0.366045 0.193049 0.759964 3.265583 3.14836 3.140202 0.208912 0.116833 0.537277 0.56039 0.437248 0.186597

Table 7: Asia Foundation (2005) Summary Statistics

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Brick. The Political Economy of Customary Organizations in Rural Afghanistan

Land Disputes land dispute all s Model 1 Shura in Village Shura Member CDC in Village CDC Member Altitude (in meters) No People in Village Annual Income (ln) Read Letter # People in HH Deed HH owns agricultural land HH owns livestock Inherited Land Years in Village Central/Kabul Eastern South Central South Western Northern Central/Hazarajat Longitude Distance of market by foot in Summer Constant Observations prob >F PSUs -3.952** [1.279] 10332 0 1944 -0.000** [0.000] 0.000* [0.000] -0.041 [0.121] -0.191 [0.138] 0.009 [0.021] -0.244 [0.159] -0.138 [0.088] 0.171 [0.165] -0.324 [0.218] -0.007+ [0.004] 1.227** [0.465] 0.971* [0.451] 2.141** [0.388] 2.534** [0.453] 2.212** [0.347] 1.927** [0.414]

Land Dispute Resolved Model 2 -0.497* [0.203] 0.384* [0.172] 0.036 [0.183] 0.052 [0.230] -0.000** [0.000] 0.000+ [0.000] -0.067 [0.117] -0.218 [0.137] 0.008 [0.021] -0.213 [0.158] -0.146+ [0.087] 0.167 [0.164] -0.312 [0.214] -0.007+ [0.004] 1.232** [0.471] 1.132* [0.470] 2.301** [0.415] 2.698** [0.470] 2.288** [0.360] 1.941** [0.417] Model 3 Model 4 0.853* [0.394] 0.24 [0.417] 0.767* [0.371] -0.488 [0.585] 0 [0.000] 0 [0.000] -0.006 [0.134] -0.406 [0.397] -0.019 [0.049] 0.990** [0.322] -0.453 [0.297] 0.063 [0.390]

Land Dispute Officially Recorded Model 4 Model6 -0.297 [0.367] 0.345 [0.393] -0.205 [0.397] 1.153* [0.468] 0 [0.000] 0 [0.000] 0.394* [0.172] 0.005 [0.340] 0.062 [0.042] 1.487** [0.360] -0.286+ [0.170] -0.949** [0.361]

0 [0.000] 0 [0.000] 0.036 [0.149] -0.357 [0.370] -0.012 [0.049] 1.018** [0.327] -0.378 [0.263] 0.037 [0.364]

0 [0.000] 0 [0.000] 0.403* [0.162] 0.017 [0.331] 0.052 [0.043] 1.387** [0.356] -0.304+ [0.168] -0.944** [0.351]

-1.704 [1.181] -1.685+ [0.860] -1.259+ [0.707] -1.358+ [0.728] -1.720** [0.581] -0.504 [0.829]

-1.412 [1.230] -1.919* [0.896] -1.089 [0.685] -1.328+ [0.715] -1.792** [0.579] -0.156 [0.872] 0.039 [0.072] 0.1 [0.096] -8.602+ [4.909] 359 0.001 269 0.029 [0.074] 0.114 [0.096] -8.094 [5.050] 359 0.001 269

-3.485** [1.243] 10332 0 1944

0.253 [1.802] 235 0.079 191

0.008 [1.633] 235 0.027 191

Heteroskedasticty robust standard errors that correct for correlation of error terms across within communities in brackets + significant at 10%; * significant at 5%; ** significant at 1% Logit Estimates, Estimation accounts for survey design including household weights and population sampling units

Table 8: Estimation Results, Land Disputes, NRVA Data (2005)

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Brick. The Political Economy of Customary Organizations in Rural Afghanistan

Community Dispute Model 7 0.03 [0.077] 0.817** [0.116]

Community Dispute Resolved Model 8

Individual had Formal Dispute Model 9 0.043 [0.077] 0.525** [0.118] Model 10

Satisfaction with Resolution of Formal Dispute Model 11 Model 12

Shuras/Jirga Accessible CDC in Community Approach Shura Elder Approach Malik/Khan Approach Woluswali Approach CDC Approach Member of Parliament Approach Government Agent Approach Foreign Forces Approach Police Courts Accessible Took Case to Court Took Case to Shura CDC Satisfaction Courts Follow Local Norms Shuras/Jirgas Follow Local Norms # People in HH Income Education Female Age Central/Kabul Eastern South Central South Western Northern Central/Hazarajat Trust People Listen to Radio Constant Obervations prob >F PSUs

0.617** [0.194] -0.047 [0.258] 0.155 [0.203] 0.207 [0.417] -1.150* [0.460] -0.433 [0.504] -0.277 [0.840] 0.459+ [0.236] -0.066 [0.079] -0.799** [0.221] 0.799** [0.221] -0.190+ [0.097] 0.093 [0.087] -0.244* [0.095] 0.043+ [0.024] -0.072 [0.061] 0.069* [0.035] -0.574** [0.186] 0.001 [0.005] -0.105 [0.343] 0.861* [0.367] 0.289 [0.299] 0.148 [0.456] -0.059 [0.264] -0.309 [0.499] 0.189 [0.146] 0.05 [0.185] -0.64 [0.602] 1573 0 404

0.016 [0.011] -0.031 [0.045] 0.066** [0.025] -0.157 [0.139] 0.001 [0.003] -0.38 [0.258] 0.058 [0.255] 0.278 [0.243] -0.144 [0.313] -0.644** [0.212] -1.684** [0.342] -0.237* [0.103] -0.011 [0.123] -1.771** [0.400] 4446 0 561

-0.01 [0.025] 0.144* [0.067] 0.083* [0.042] -0.228 [0.217] 0.001 [0.006] 0.867* [0.408] 1.955** [0.424] 1.374** [0.344] 1.331** [0.403] 0.978** [0.320] 2.012** [0.628] 0.439** [0.168] -0.243 [0.201] -1.847** [0.509] 822 0 315

0.019 [0.012] -0.025 [0.042] 0.032 [0.026] -0.658** [0.138] 0.004 [0.003] -0.425 [0.269] 0.675* [0.275] 0.409+ [0.239] -0.312 [0.322] -0.182 [0.213] -0.750+ [0.399] -0.01 [0.109] -0.200+ [0.121] -1.705** [0.482] 4478 0 563

0.003 [0.035] 0.082 [0.097] -0.036 [0.057] 0.093 [0.238] 0.008 [0.008] 0.472 [0.530] 0.511 [0.419] -0.419 [0.406] -0.362 [0.536] 0.017 [0.415] -0.437 [0.642]

0.003 [0.035] 0.082 [0.097] -0.036 [0.057] 0.093 [0.238] 0.008 [0.008] 0.472 [0.530] 0.511 [0.419] -0.419 [0.406] -0.362 [0.536] 0.017 [0.415] -0.437 [0.642]

0.236 [0.610] 563 0.033 261

1.035+ [0.602] 563 0.033 261

Heteroskedasticty robust standard errors that correct for correlation of error terms across within communities in brackets
+ significant at 10%; * significant at 5%; ** significant at 1% Logit Estimation, Estimation accounts for survey design and includes provincial weights and population sampling units (PSUs)

Table 9: Estimation Results, General Disputes, Asia Foundation Survey of the Afghan People (2007)

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Brick. The Political Economy of Customary Organizations in Rural Afghanistan

Fear for Personal Safety or Security Model 13 -0.207* [0.101] -0.004 [0.090] Model 14 -0.240* [0.100] -0.001 [0.087]

Victim of Violent Crime in the Past Year Model 15

Was Violent Crime Reported to Local Authorities Model 16 Model 17

Shuras/Jirgas Fair/Trusted CDC Satisfaction Shuras/Jirgas Accessible CDCs Accessible Courts Accessible Confidence in Army Confidence in Police Confidence in Local Militias Confidence in Political Parties Confidence in Gov. Justice Confidence in Public Admin. Confidence in Municipality Confidence in CDC Confidence in Provincial Coun. Confidence in Shura/Jirga # People in HH Income Education Female Age Central/Kabul Eastern South Central South Western Northern Central/Hazarajat Listen to Radio Victim of Violence Trust People Constant Cut 1

-0.116+ [0.063] 0.583** [0.099]

0.210* [0.104] 0.149 [0.175] 0.136 [0.106] 0.256 [0.315] 0.353 [0.252] -0.376+ [0.215] 0.225 [0.209] 0.495* [0.206] 0.195 [0.211] -0.448* [0.222] -0.132 [0.219] 0.375 [0.249] 0.259 [0.231] 0.022 [0.030] -0.249** [0.069] 0.079+ [0.047] -0.432* [0.219] -0.002 [0.008] -0.07 [0.504] -0.447 [0.382] -0.001 [0.392] -0.104 [0.496] -0.773* [0.371] -1.921* [0.928] 0.012 [0.188]

-0.029 [0.225] -0.209 [0.148] 0.209 [0.162]

0.009 [0.018] -0.098+ [0.053] 0.01 [0.025] 0.162 [0.166] -0.009* [0.004] -1.630** [0.335] -0.465 [0.285] -0.01 [0.301] 1.373** [0.398] -1.341** [0.199] -1.989** [0.429] -0.532** [0.137] 0.537** [0.131] -0.292* [0.120]

0.005 [0.019] -0.071 [0.054] 0.008 [0.026] 0.171 [0.169] -0.007* [0.004] -1.755** [0.344] -0.492+ [0.292] -0.046 [0.307] 1.170** [0.397] -1.399** [0.196] -1.784** [0.416] -0.486** [0.137] 0.561** [0.134] -0.272* [0.120]

-0.005 [0.011] 0.063+ [0.035] 0.070** [0.023] -0.075 [0.111] 0.008* [0.003] -0.732** [0.237] 0.421* [0.204] 0.390* [0.193] 0.24 [0.257] -0.09 [0.173] -1.380* [0.556] -0.210* [0.104]

0.02 [0.028] -0.221** [0.063] 0.081+ [0.042] -0.349+ [0.204] -0.003 [0.007] -0.41 [0.457] -0.594 [0.373] -0.382 [0.359] -0.211 [0.499] -0.744* [0.323] -2.447* [0.957] 0.068 [0.184]

-1.839** [0.319]

0.483 [0.637]

0.693 [0.656]

-3.135** -3.284** [0.494] [0.521] Cut 2 -2.271** -2.418** [0.499] [0.528] Cut 3 0.017 -0.117 [0.484] [0.516] Observations 1609 1558 4625 prob >F 0 0 0 PSUs 402 399 566 Ordered Logit Estimates Logit Estimates Heteroskedasticty robust standard errors that correct for correlation of error terms across within communities in brackets + significant at 10%; * significant at 5%; ** significant at 1% Estimates Account for provincial sampling weights as well as population sampling units

789 0 346

738 0 335

Table 10: Estimation Results, Local Safety and Security Issues, Asia Foundation Survey of the Afghan People (2007)

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