• DOI:10.25911/5D611E475D146
• Corpus ID: 211345041

Afghanistan : prospects for stability in relation to geostrategic dynamics in Central and South Asia

@inproceedings{Qassem2007AfghanistanP,
  title={Afghanistan : prospects for stability in relation to geostrategic dynamics in Central and South Asia},
  author={Ahmad Shayeq Qassem},
  year={2007}
}

• A. Qassem
• Published 2007
• Political Science

Political stability has always been a central theme of policy for all governments and political systems in the history of modern Afghanistan. Since its inception in the mid-nineteenth centur}', the country experimented with a diverse succession of political systems and state ideologies matched by few other countries' polidcal histories. In the span of less than nine decades since independence in 1919, the Afghan state was substantially restructured at least a dozen times. Its official character underwent changes from being a vassal entity of a foreign power to adopt a plethora of successive/simultaneous identides including: a progressive monarchy; a peasant emirate; a conservative monarchy; a republican regime; a communist state; an Islamic state; an Islamic emirate; and finally die current Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. Within diese political systems, the governments and ruling elites reformed and readjusted some of their policies so as to make them more conducive to polidcal stabilit}'. Yet political stabilit}', at best, remained a dream unrealised in Afghanistan. Despite the multiplicity' of successive changes, elements of continuity can be deciphered in the foreign relations of all the political systems in modern Afghanistan. It is some of these constant themes that are responsible for the chronic instability of the country. The country has had a complex histor)' of relations with its neighbours, particularly, in Central Asia and South Asia. Although its foreign policy orientations have fluctuated between friendship and tension with bordering nations, it has never been on good terms with both regions simultaneously. The namre of Afghanistan's relations with Central and South Asia is one of the most important factors that impact on the political stabilit)7instabilit)' of the country'. On the other hand, the domestic politics of Afghanistan influence its relations with the neighbours. In order to understand tlie imperatives of long-term stability in the country sufficiently, a holistic approach to the study of both the concept of political stability and the interactive nature of the relevant endogenous and exogenous factors is needed. A repeated failure by the Afghan governments and their various major-power patrons to grasp the need for implementation of a holistic approach is largely responsible for the chronic instability of the countrv.