PEACEW RKS

Beyond power sharing

institutional options for an afghan peace process

Hamish Nixon and Caroline Hartzell

[ [
About the Report

This report, funded by the Royal Norwegian Ministry 

of Foreign Affairs, is the product of a joint research 

project of the United States Institute of Peace (USIP), 

the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO), and the 

Chr. Michelsen Institute (CMI) to identify issues and 

options to support durable peace in Afghanistan. 

Previous publications stemming from the project 

include several USIP Peace Briefs and two research 

papers: Hamish Nixon, “Achieving Durable Peace: 

Afghan Perspectives on a Peace Process” (Oslo: PRIO, 

May 2011) and Deedee Derksen, “Peace from the 

Bottom-Up? The Afghanistan Peace and Reintegration 

Program” (Oslo: PRIO, September 2011).

About the Authors

Hamish Nixon is project coordinator of the joint 

research project on durable peace in Afghanistan. He 

spent five years in Afghanistan working on governance 

with the World Bank and the Afghanistan Research and 

Evaluation Unit, and has researched peace processes 

and post-conflict governance in Cambodia, El Salvador, 

and Afghanistan. Caroline Hartzell was a 2010–11 

Jennings Randolph Senior Fellow at the United States 

Institute of Peace and is professor of political science at 

Gettysburg College. She is researching the effects that 

civil war settlements have on post-conflict economic 

development, and is coauthor of Crafting Peace: PowerSharing Institutions and the Negotiated Settlement 

of Civil Wars (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State 

University Press, 2007). The authors would like to thank 

all those who spoke with them in Afghanistan and 

colleagues who provided comments on the paper.

Cover photo by Getty Images

The views expressed in this report are 

those of the authors alone. They do 

not necessarily reflect the views of the 

United States Institute of Peace, and do 

not represent official positions of the 

United States Government.

United States Institute of Peace

2301 Constitution Ave., NW

Washington, D.C. 20037

Phone: 202.457.1700

Fax: 202.429.6063

E-mail: usip_requests@usip.org

Web: www.usip.org

Peaceworks No. 78 

First published 2011

© 2011 by the United States Institute of Peace
Peaceworks • December 2011 • no. 78

CONTENTS

[ Any negotiated settlement to the Afghan conflict 

should involve a set of transitional arrangements to 

govern the period between the signing of a peace 

settlement, a cease-fire, and the entry into force of 

more permanent institutions for conflict management. ]

Introduction: Peace Is Possible ... 5

Challenges for a Peace Process: Analyzing the Afghan Conflict ... 8

Initiating and Structuring a Negotiation ... 12

Transitional Arrangements and Implementation Challenges ... 24

Beyond Power Sharing: Institutional Arrangements for the Long Term ... 32

Conclusions ... 41

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BEYOND POWER SHARING: INSTITUTIONAL OPTIONS FOR AN AFGHAN PEACE PROCESS

Summary

■ While the need for a peace process to end the conflict in Afghanistan becomes clearer 

with each passing month, there are deep doubts about the chances of achieving a settlement. While the challenges are formidable, they are also potentially surmountable with 

the right kind of process and settlement. 

■ All the phases of a peace process are linked. Beginning a process requires more than a 

conducive military situation; it also calls for potential negotiation scenarios that can 

generate the confidence to take the initial steps. The kind of negotiation that takes place 

will influence the comprehensiveness, quality, and therefore sustainability of the 

outcome.

The Problem

■ The Afghanistan conflict has many overlapping structures and root causes, a large 

number of incoherent actors, and rapidly changing causal and escalating dynamics, each 

of which presents challenges for a peace process. Within Afghanistan, the struggle of 

International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) troops and increasingly Afghan security 

forces against the insurgency is the dominant “lens” through which Western actors view 

the conflict. 

■ This dimension is actually one layer over a more complex struggle for influence among 

political-military factions with roots in previous decades of conflict, shaped by ethnic, 

tribal, regional, and economic factors, and increasingly coupled to a broad-based legitimacy crisis. The character of the conflict will continue to change as military, political, 

and economic “transition” proceeds, and it will increasingly revert to a multipolar struggle 

among a dynamic combination of political factions with economic dimensions.

Initiating and Structuring Negotiations

■ The core players in the conflict are complex and potentially incoherent actors who may 

have difficulty cohering around stable negotiating positions and delivering on agreements. Any viable peace process will need to encourage a pro-dialogue orientation within 

the actors, generate increased coherence in political positions, and protect the peace 

process against splits and violent setbacks.

■ A key task of the prenegotiation stage will be to overcome lack of confidence among the 

armed conflict parties through effective third-party engagement, provide support for 

parties to be effective negotiators, and develop a detailed procedural and substantive 

negotiating framework. 

■ To manage such a complex, incoherent, and dynamic array of conflict and nonconflict 

parties, a negotiation will likely require time and division of the agenda into incremental 

steps, as well as multiple tracks or accords to facilitate inclusion of diverse interests on key 

issues. Mediators and support frameworks may be strong or weak, and play active or more 

passive roles as negotiations progress.

Agreeing Transitional Arrangements

■ Any negotiated settlement to the Afghan conflict should involve a set of transitional 

arrangements to govern the period between the signing of a peace settlement, a ceasefire, and the entry into force of more permanent institutions for conflict management. 

■ Among other tasks, these arrangements need to overcome mistrust and insecurity among 

the parties, address governance challenges, and define an interim political order that 
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combines stability and continuity with inclusion and reform, while providing means of 

monitoring and verification. 

Beyond Power Sharing in Long-Term Institutions

■ Long-term institutions for distributing decision-making powers must also form part of a 

political settlement. Yet while enabling governance, institutions must not threaten the 

survival of any of the key parties to the conflict or the peace process may not be 

supported. 

■ Much of the debate about a peace settlement with insurgents in Afghanistan focuses only 

on political or territorial power sharing through central or provincial executive positions. 

However, a wide range of potential measures could create opportunities among the 

conflicting parties to share influence, as well as balance that influence with more roles 

for noncombatants, civilian political actors, and vulnerable groups. 

■ Power sharing and reform are not mutually exclusive approaches to addressing the political dimensions of the conflict. A combination of power-sharing, power-dividing, powercreating, and power-diffusing mechanisms can provide groups within divided societies 

with assurances that they will not be permanently excluded from state power and 

resources, while generating more effective and accountable governance and establishing 

the foundations for a more capable, accountable, and resilient state. 

■ In Afghanistan, this might include clarifying or even redefining the powers of the president, National Assembly, and the courts, modifying the relationship between the central 

government and provincial and district administrations, or creating and diffusing 

decision-making authority among new or existing institutions over issues such as 

appointments.
5

BEYOND POWER SHARING: INSTITUTIONAL OPTIONS FOR AN AFGHAN PEACE PROCESS

Introduction: Peace Is Possible

The need for a peace process to end the conflict in Afghanistan becomes clearer with each 

passing month, just as quickly as hopes for one often seem to recede. Despite many positive 

changes, ten years of deepening international involvement, both military and civilian, have 

been accompanied by a pattern of mounting violence. Since 2009 a dramatic escalation by 

NATO of both conventional counterinsurgency and special operations has certainly cost the 

insurgency lives and territory, and the prospects of an outright Taliban victory seem negligible. 

At the same time, the Taliban movement and its allies have shown resilience and flexibility, 

presenting a consistent tactical challenge in narrowing areas of the south and broad areas in 

the southeast and east, while extending their reach in the north.1 A string of high-profile attacks and assassinations has undermined government and NATO claims of increasing security 

and eliminated key government allies, while deepening tensions among political factions with 

distinct ethnic overtones, raising the specter of a widening civil conflict.2

The United States and its partners seek to transfer the bulk of security responsibilities to 

the Afghan government by 2014, and there are concerns about the quality, unity, and sustainment costs of regular Afghan security forces and the effect of proliferating irregular units on 

government legitimacy.3 A succession of governance crises has undermined the last two national elections, threatens the continued delivery of international development assistance, and 

has paralyzed executive-legislative relations, bringing most avenues of institutionalized politics 

to a standstill. The security transition to 2014 will thus be accompanied by a challenging political succession and destabilizing economic conditions as output shrinks by upward of one third 

on the back of declining security and aid inflows.4

Such circumstances heighten the conclusion, already acknowledged by the United States, 

its international partners, and the Afghan government, that a diplomatic solution offers the 

best chance to avoid a deepening conflict. The Afghan government has pursued both private 

and public outreach to neighboring countries and insurgent groups centered on a seventymember High Peace Council appointed in late 2010—an approach that encountered a serious 

setback with the September 20, 2011, assassination of council Chairman Burhanuddin Rabbani. Nevertheless, the United States, the Taliban, and more recently the Haqqani network have 

all claimed participation in preliminary talks, while contact between Gulbuddin Hekmatyar’s 

Hezb-e Islami and Kabul has long been quite open.5

Yet, while the desirability of a negotiated outcome is increasingly clear, there are deep 

doubts about the chances of achieving a settlement. There are two important strands to such 

objections: (1) that the Taliban themselves are uninterested in negotiating and (2) that Pakistan will prevent an effective negotiation in order to preserve its influence over the outcome in 

Afghanistan. The claim that the Taliban leadership will never negotiate, either due to absolutist 

ideology or the perception that the war can be won through waiting out the U.S. drawdown, 

bears little scrutiny. The existence of a current of “pragmatic, politically thinking, pro-talks Taliban” has been demonstrated through contacts dating from 2007–08, their more recent participation in preliminary talks, and statements including but not limited to Mullah Omar’s 2011 

Eid message that claim the Taliban are focused on Afghan-specific goals and not international 

jihad. This evidence suggests recognition of the need to share political power with other groups, 

and potential moderation of some views on social issues. Evidence from field commanders also 

suggests some see talks with the leadership as acceptable.6

Admittedly, the relative influence of this current within the movement at present is unclear. However, this question and the spectacular assassination of Chairman Rabbani do 
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not indicate the impossibility of negotiation as has been asserted.7 Continued or intensified 

hostilities by branches of the insurgency do not in themselves demonstrate an unshakeable 

rejection of talks, just as intensified action by NATO or the Afghan government also does 

not. In fact, the current escalation reflects similar patterns in other conflicts as parties seek to 

leverage their position in advance of a potential negotiation. A study of relationships between 

escalation and negotiation in ten conflicts published in 2005 finds “that decisions to negotiate 

follow a party’s escalation of the conflict” and “that these correlations do, indeed, have a causal 

effect.”8 Consistent with this reading, for example, the head of the madrassa that trained 

Mullah Omar has called for continued armed struggle against U.S. forces in Afghanistan 

while offering to mediate between them and the Taliban.9 A key challenge of any peace process will be to enhance the appeal of negotiation among reluctant insurgents.

The second view—that without the acquiescence of the Pakistani security establishment 

no settlement is possible, and that that condition is unlikely to be fulfilled—is widely held in 

Afghanistan and among parts of the U.S. policy community. Much has been made of Pakistani efforts to maintain control over nascent negotiations through the arrest of “pro-talks” 

individuals during 2010, and the public reaction by the Karzai government to the Rabbani 

assassination reflects this line of thinking.10 A 2011 study suggests that Pakistan’s policy elites 

perceive that their interests increasingly lie with a stable and inclusive Afghan government—

potentially including Taliban representation—that can protect Pakistan’s interests, chiefly by 

preventing excessive Indian influence. In this light, Pakistan’s interference in the peace process 

can be seen as hedging that results from skepticism over the chances of a successful negotiation, which in turn stems from the ambiguity of U.S. policy toward such talks.11

Pakistani hostility, rather than being absolute, is in this sense part of a vicious circle driven 

by uncertain progress or prospects for an intra-Afghan process that would accommodate Pakistan’s concerns. It is possible that such progress might motivate gradual adjustments within 

Pakistan, converting a vicious circle of hedging to a more virtuous one of increasing prospects 

for peace.12 Certainly, establishing the general parameters of a peace process and future institutional options as described in this paper, incorporating Pakistani input and broader regional 

agreement, could make a contribution to Pakistan’s confidence that a peace process could meet 

its concerns. Furthermore, even if one argues such a change in Pakistani security policy is necessary to achieve a settlement in Afghanistan, it is certainly not sufficient to make such a settlement stick. Therefore, an intra-Afghan settlement needs to be hammered out, as prominent 

advocates, including U.S. secretary of state Hillary Clinton, have noted.13 While this report 

focuses on the intra-Afghan terms of such a settlement, by no means do we consider that 

Pakistan’s engagement with those terms is not an important key to a lasting settlement. 

The idea that the core of this intra-Afghan settlement will involve the sharing of political 

power and positions with Taliban representatives either at the central or provincial level is both 

widespread in public discourse, and the cause of considerable opposition.14 This opposition has 

two main strands. On the one hand, leaders of Afghan political or military factions that have 

a history of opposing the Taliban, or who represent minority communities that particularly 

suffered under their rule, warn that inclusion of the Taliban in a power-sharing agreement 

would ignite renewed factional struggle.15 On the other, a range of forces that can be broadly 

defined as civil society, including traditionally oriented tribal leaders, modernizing political 

parties, human rights and women’s groups, fear the consequences of accommodation with the 

Taliban for newfound democratic institutions and individual rights.16 The worst outcome from 

the point of view of any of these groups is a closed deal dividing influence between the current 
7

BEYOND POWER SHARING: INSTITUTIONAL OPTIONS FOR AN AFGHAN PEACE PROCESS

regime and the Taliban—in the eyes of many precisely the route pursued by Kabul prior to the 

Rabbani killing.

While these issues are formidable, they are also potentially surmountable by the right kind 

of process and settlement. This report attempts to contribute to the evolution of a peace process 

that may be able to confront such objections about an agreement with the Taliban. A peace 

process requires both ideas and will. Of these, will is clearly most important: without the desire 

and efforts of leaders and their followers to exit conflict and seek peace, no quantity of wellmeaning mediators, policy reports, or peacebuilding programs can lead to a durable settlement. 

However, ideas are needed to convert that will into a path toward a settlement, and to increase 

the chance of that settlement enduring:

Factors important in creating “ripe opportunities” for conflict resolution are . . . the availability and increasing acceptability of new sets of basic ideas, principles and concepts for 

addressing the conflict and, eventually, craft[ing] viable formulas and resources [for] 

peace agreements.17

Indeed, rich experience exists internationally to provide suggestions, lessons, and models, as 

a recent call from the Brookings Institution for a more robust political strategy in Afghanistan 

observes:

The international community can offer ideas here, based on previous experiences ranging from the termination of civil wars in Central America and Angola and Rwanda to 

the war crimes processes in the Balkans and Liberia to the Truth and Reconciliation 

process in South Africa to the mixed indigenous-international arrangements employed 

in Cambodia.18

However, to have any chance of success, such ideas must respond to Afghanistan’s unique 

conflict dynamics. Too often international actors—whether analysts, policymakers, or implementers—try to apply lessons that derive from what they know, rather than what is suited 

to the context. Military planners may tend to draw on recent experiences in Iraq, UN officials from major peacebuilding efforts such as those in Bosnia-Herzegovina or East Timor, 

and diplomats from their own country’s experience, such as that of the United Kingdom in 

Northern Ireland.

This report takes a different approach. Rather than lifting wholesale the experience of other 

peace processes that writ large may have limited applicability to the complexities of Afghanistan, it examines some specific challenges a peace process in Afghanistan will face, and then 

presents theoretical observations and some real world comparative examples that may be applicable to these challenges. The report does not aim to recommend a complete or a single set of 

institutions for an Afghan peace process, but rather to stimulate discussion on how to connect 

the particular challenges an Afghan peace process faces with the possibilities for peace that 

careful and innovative arrangements can and have produced even in complex and seemingly 

intractable conflicts.

To do this, the report develops in its next section a conflict analysis to clarify some of the 

particular challenges that the Afghan conflict presents. Following that, the paper discusses the 

challenges of initiating and structuring intra-Afghan negotiations to reach a settlement, focusing on the need for effective engagement by third parties, a support structure, and a negotiating 

framework with provisions for careful inclusion. Next, it discusses the key challenges and functions of transitional arrangements that will be needed in a settlement during the implementation of key provisions. Finally, it details longer-term institutions that can dampen fears about 

sharing power with the Taliban while addressing root causes of the conflict. In particular, the 

report outlines a range of examples of power-sharing, power-dividing, power-creating, and 
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power-diffusing models that go beyond the current focus on sharing power with insurgents to 

integrate elements of much-needed reform.

Challenges for a Peace Process: Analyzing the Afghan Conflict

It is beyond the scope of this report, and indeed the abilities of its authors, to comprehensively 

analyze or summarize the conflict in Afghanistan. Nevertheless, there are patterns that present 

challenges to any potential peace process discernible in the available literature on the conflict, 

and in the primary research conducted under the study of which this report forms a part. If 

used carefully and flexibly, formal conflict analysis frameworks can help focus attention on 

some of the challenges that a peace process must face.

Conflict resolution specialists have developed detailed conflict-mapping frameworks that 

emphasize history, context, and variations in the kinds of actors, the nature of the issues, and 

the contrasting beliefs and orientations that drive a given conflict.19 Most frameworks developed for practitioners—inevitably a little reductive—tend to stress three main elements: 

■ structures (sometimes referred to as root causes or conflict issues: “what is the conflict 

about?”—including international, regional, historical, and contextual factors); 

■ actors (“who are the parties to the conflict?”—including whether these are “primary,” 

“secondary,” or “third parties,” their interests and motivations, their relationships, 

resources, and capacities, and therefore their likely responses to different incentives); and

■ dynamics (triggering or proximate causes of conflict, escalating factors, and changes in 

structures or issues as conflicts become longer and deeper rooted, or local capacities for 

management or resolution).20

The Afghanistan conflict exhibits complications in each of these areas: it has many overlapping structures and causes, a large number of incoherent actors, and rapidly changing causal 

and escalating dynamics.

Structure: Dimensions of the Conflict

It goes without saying that the Afghan conflict actually comprises a number of interacting disputes at international, regional, national, and local levels. One attempt to outline this “conflict 

net” describes the international “war on terror” intertwined with regional disputes between India and Pakistan, between Pakistan and Afghanistan over the border and with Taliban groups 

active in both countries, between Saudi Arabia and Iran, and between the United States and 

Iran.21 Within Afghanistan, the struggle of International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) 

troops and increasingly Afghan security forces against a complex and cross-border insurgency 

is the dominant “lens” through which Western actors view the conflict. A well-publicized September 2011 discrepancy in the interpretation of security trends is a telling example of the 

difference of perspective between those who measure progress as a decline in insurgent attacks 

and those observing overall violence.22

However, this counterinsurgency conflict is one layer over a more complex struggle for 

influence among political-military factions with roots in previous decades of conflict, that is in 

turn being shaped by ethnic, tribal, regional, and economic factors operating both nationally 

and locally. There is consequently a fragmentation of understandings of what the Afghanistan 

conflict is “about” among different actors, for different audiences, and in different locales. Many 

national-level Afghan leaders emphasize Afghanistan’s victimization in these wider regional 

struggles, while internally some focus more on U.S. and government actions driving the insurThere is . . . a 

fragmentation of 

understandings of what 

the Afghanistan conflict 

is “about” among 

different actors, for 

different audiences, and 

in different locales.
9

BEYOND POWER SHARING: INSTITUTIONAL OPTIONS FOR AN AFGHAN PEACE PROCESS

gency, poor governance and the benefits corrupt elites derive from conflict, or historical ethnic 

rivalries and patterns of rule.23

The insurgency does not tend to see or present itself as an ethnic Pashtun movement and 

has achieved modest expansion among other ethnicities primarily through clerical networks 

and in remote areas, yet some outside the insurgency view it in ethnic terms.24 Within the 

Pashtun sphere, the tribe has a fluid, relative, and localized role in the conflict, just as it does in 

Afghan society more generally.25 While the conflict cannot be understood without reference 

to tribal dynamics, these are but one factor or “arena” among others such as religious and commander networks dating to earlier conflicts, competition over opium production and trafficking, and a lack of articulated Pashtun political alternatives.26

In addition to insurgency, regional, and factional dimensions, the Afghan conflict increasingly turns on a broad-based legitimacy crisis. The Taliban grew out of and benefited from 

widespread disillusionment with the outcome of short-lived power-sharing agreements among 

the mujahedin factions after 1992 and the resulting civil war and disorder.27 Similarly now, 

the conflict is “for a broad cross-section of stakeholders, a legitimacy crisis stemming from a 

system of power and patronage distribution” that has resulted in the capture of the government 

by narrow elite interests who enjoy declining legitimacy and seek to mobilize societal tensions 

such as ethnic divisions to maintain their influence.28 An important structural cause of the 

conflict therefore remains weak governance, and any peace process will need to address this 

issue through reform as well as power sharing if it is to lead to a durable peace.

Actors: A Cast of Complex and Incoherent Players

This multiplicity of conflict structures or “lenses” in turn complicates analysis of the conflict 

actors. Underlying much conflict analysis is an explicit or implicit assumption that actors—

in the sense of discrete decision-making units—can be identified, and their motivations 

and resources catalogued.29 For Afghanistan, the number, identity, and nature of the most 

relevant actors are matters of interpretation and are contested. As noted earlier, a counterinsurgency reading of the conflict suggests a government and its NATO allies with generally 

congruent interests confronted by an insurgency with several components, surrounded by 

concentric “rings” of regional and global players with their own interests.30 An interpretation 

that focuses on the struggle among political-military factions emphasizes a larger range of 

actors engaged in armed and unarmed competition with each other in a “violent political 

marketplace” characterized by neo-patrimonial deal making.31 In turn, analyses of the war 

economy emphasize the importance of numerous war profiteers—so-called malign actor 

networks—in driving the conflict, whether their resources derive from drugs, or international transport and security contracts.32

The result is a shifting cast of conflict actors depending on what aspects of the conflict are 

seen as most salient. Furthermore, those actors that can be identified exhibit great internal 

complexity and incoherence. Much attention in this regard has been paid to the insurgency. At 

the highest level of aggregation, division of the insurgency among three broad networks—the 

Quetta Shura Taliban, the Haqqanis, and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar’s Hezb-e Islami—is largely uncontroversial, though some prefer to distinguish between a Kandahari and Paktiawal/

Waziristan network of Taliban.33 It is fairly widely understood that these organizations 

have some shared and some distinct objectives and positions, and that a peace process may 

need to deal with them separately, exclude one or more of them, and may find them acting 

as spoilers.34
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Within this macrostructure, there is vibrant debate about the continuity of the Taliban 

organization, the coherence of its command and control and the impact of accelerated capture 

and kill operations, and the likelihood it can be split constructively, or will fragment destructively, during a peace process.35 The Taliban form a network of networks that each draw on 

different group-based motivations. Depending on local dynamics, these groups can be tribal 

or subtribal, have roots in jihadi party divisions, or in closer ties of “andiwal” (allegiance based 

on past history of common struggle). They may be motivated by grievances against government policies or officials, revenge for abuses, ideological affinity, the need for support in local 

disputes, or desire to commit crimes or extract rents.

However, these disparate building blocks are also mobilized by a central Taliban leadership, and bound together through radicalization into an Islamist and increasingly nationalist 

ideological frame of reference.36 Thus, 

the system of reference individual Taleban or their leaders allude to—tribal, nationalist, 

or Islamist—depends on the circumstances under which a particular decision is taken 

and on the particular tactical or strategic aim at stake.37

The Taliban as an organization also features a considerable degree of decentralization, despite the totalizing ideological views of the Taliban “emirate.” For example, in general its muchdiscussed “justice” system has not been imposed from the top down, but rather by establishing Taliban courts as available alternatives that adapt to the varying local roles and status of 

existing clerical networks.38 While the Taliban code of conduct, the layha, establishes a loose 

set of centralized policies in military organization and behavior, significant decision-making 

powers—for example, over appointment of deputies, dress, non-governmental organization 

(NGO) activities, and celebrations—have been decentralized to the provincial level or below.39 

In the words of one Taliban cleric, “Commanders are responsible to Mullah Omar, but have 

to respond to the public.”40 This structure allows a considerable degree of coordination and an 

ideological and material infrastructure, while enabling autonomy and resilience.41 However, it 

also makes it very difficult to judge the coherence of policy toward a negotiated political settlement, and creates a high probability of splits and independent action by segments whose local 

concerns are not met by a peace process: in short, spoilers.

It is not only the insurgency that features a complex and potentially incoherent structure. 

In fact, the Afghan government, the other political factions within the national scene, and even 

the international coalition exhibit divisions that prevent effective concerted action in relation 

to a peace process. Despite a presidential policy emphasizing “reconciliation” with the Taliban 

and a High Peace Council charged with the public pursuit of this policy, interviews with senior 

members of both the government and the council suggest both include individuals actively 

opposed to negotiations.42 What is sometimes known as the political or legal opposition has 

been struggling to cohere around a unified position or to agree to a leadership configuration; describing these actors based on pre-2001 labels such as the “Northern Alliance” or the 

Jamiat-e Islami is increasingly difficult as these are split into camps opposed to or allied to 

President Karzai.43

Despite outwardly parallel mandates to support Afghanistan, the international community 

represented by the United States, NATO and its other members, and the United Nations 

may be among the least coherent of the groups of actors involved in this conflict. One need 

look no further than the diversity of views during development and implementation of the 

Afghanistan Peace and Reintegration Program to uncover significant differences of analysis 

and approach between ISAF, the Afghan government, and the United Nations.44 Even within 

The Afghan government, 

the other political 

factions within the 

national scene, and even 

the international 

coalition exhibit divisions 

that prevent effective 

concerted action 

in relation to a 

peace process. 
11

BEYOND POWER SHARING: INSTITUTIONAL OPTIONS FOR AN AFGHAN PEACE PROCESS

the United States government, there is a pattern of divergence between departments such as 

State and Defense on Afghan policy as a whole, and a negotiated settlement in particular.45

This picture of the core players in the conflict is one of complex and potentially incoherent 

actors who may have difficulty settling on a single set of negotiating positions and delivering 

on agreements as a peace process advances. As one comprehensive review of the actors notes,

Low coherence is not good news for the prospects of an accord. Incoherent actors are 

difficult and unreliable counterparties in any negotiation. The actors may change course 

in midstream, their terms are likely to shift and be retraded, and their commitment to 

implementation is always suspect. For these reasons, an Afghan peace process will probably bear little resemblance to the Congress of Vienna, the Treaty of Versailles, or the Six 

Party Talks on Korea, all cases in which the participants had pretty clear ideas about 

their interests, objectives, and limitations.46

A key quality of any viable peace process for Afghanistan will therefore be the ability to 

encourage pro-dialogue opinion within actors on all sides, generate increased coherence within 

conflict actor networks, and protect the peace process against the splits and violent setbacks 

that will inevitably arise.

Dynamics: Impact of a Changing Conflict 

Finally, an examination of the conflict dynamics in Afghanistan illustrates additional challenges. As described earlier, the conflict in Afghanistan is a confluence of intersecting regional 

and internal conflict structures linking the post-2001 U.S. “war on terror” with regional tensions, internal historical rivalries, and legacies of past conflicts, governance weakness, and war, 

aid, and drugs economies. However, the balance of these factors is changing over time, altering 

the complexion of the conflict as quickly as efforts to resolve it are introduced. 

A brief review of the development of the conflict after 2001 illustrates this dynamism. The 

trajectory of Taliban resurgence across the country has been examined in some detail.47 While the 

top leadership fled to Pakistan, in the south and southeast many mid-level Taliban commanders 

attempted to melt back to their communities or negotiate a secure exit. In case after case, the 

installation of new local officials and the elevation of certain patronage networks fed rivalries that 

drove such men back into the Taliban organization.48 In the south, this exploitation of local rivalries and events led to “widespread disillusionment with the government and foreign forces, giving the Taliban a rank-and-file force.”49 While combinations of factors were at play everywhere, 

in some places this process ran more along tribal lines (Kandahar) or between confederacies 

of tribes (Uruzgan); in other places ethnicity (Ghazni), political factionalism (Loya Paktia), or 

competition over narcotics networks (Helmand) infused the process. This reliance on interested 

power brokers was combined with a “light-footprint” policy that saw foreign troops restricted to 

Kabul or engaged in special operations, often against targets suggested by the same brokers. The 

devastating impact of this lack of a political solution for the Taliban and the inadequate provision 

of security on the conflict has been outlined in considerable detail.50

When NATO troops were deployed to the south in numbers during 2006, they were 

unable to prevent this political process, and some actions of the intensified international engagement, such as the removal of certain regional power brokers or counternarcotics activity, 

also exacerbated tensions.51 The resultant pattern of direct confrontation between a growing 

international military force and the insurgency generated new insurgent strategy and tactics 

influenced by Iraq, as larger scale engagements were supplanted by increased use of suicide 

attacks and improvised explosive devices.52 Thus, the post-2006 phase of the conflict has been 

characterized by escalation on both sides, with ISAF forces approximately quadrupling in 
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number and insurgent attacks per week increasing by about ten times between early 2008 and 

2010.53 These quantitative changes have enabled an insurgent discourse increasingly referring 

to national liberation from foreign occupation, such that the presence and behavior of foreign 

forces has become the most prominent grievance of both local fighters and insurgent leaders. 

54 This ideological change has assisted the insurgency’s ability to extend beyond the south and 

east into northern regions, often via clerical opposition to international military forces. In this 

sense, the conflict became increasingly “about” something new in the post-2006 period. 

As the conflict proceeds into a new phase characterized by what is now called “transition,” changes in its structure can also be expected.56 A shift away from direct ISAF military 

involvement toward the expanded Afghan National Security Forces or local counterinsurgent 

irregulars and decreasing financial flows will reemphasize the kind of local disputes and rivalries that were prominent in the insurgency’s early spread. It will also allow regional dimensions 

of the conflict with Pakistan, Iran, and India to gain even greater salience. The reorientation of 

political allegiances promised by elections scheduled for 2014 and possible agreements with 

segments of the insurgency will deepen already apparent tendencies to ethnic mobilization. It 

is likely there will be hard-core ideological opponents to any agreement no matter its terms, 

though the influence of these over their rank and file will vary as a process develops. If progress toward settlement is made, networks within and outside the principal political actors will 

be marginalized and will seek—indeed, probably have already sought—to derail the process 

through violence. Furthermore, progress may, perversely, enhance the destabilizing economic 

patterns caused by “transition” as cash-strapped foreign backers see less need to fund government security and potentially development expenditures. Shrinking flows will prompt existing 

networks, possibly on both sides of the Durand Line, to intensify criminal activities, or fragment as they become unable to maintain the patronage that binds them together. 

In short, if after 2006 the conflict became increasingly structured as a counterinsurgency, 

after 2011 it will increasingly revert to a multipolar struggle among a combination of political 

factions with economic dimensions. In effect, the peace process will have to address a conflict 

that is again changing in character. This dynamism provides some information about the likely 

contours of the spoiler problem. Rather than dealing with a narrow range of splits between 

political “hard” and “soft” liners, the peace process in Afghanistan will need to be resilient in 

managing violence from a range of political, economic, and regional spoilers.57 Structuring a 

settlement simply as an agreement between a “government” and “insurgents” will ignore the 

changing nature of many of the conflict actors. Instead, the process will have to involve institutional changes to help incorporate some of these spoilers into the new dispensation, or generate enough legitimacy to marginalize them despite ongoing violence.

These problems—the need to address multiple interrelated conflict structures, numerous 

and incoherent actors, and changing dynamics that multiply spoilers—are not unique to the 

Afghan conflict, but they complicate the challenges that a peace process will face. The following sections of the report examine the kinds of provisions that have been applied in other cases 

to constructively tackle these challenges at the different stages of a peace process, beginning 

with the challenges of arriving at and carrying out negotiations. 

Initiating and Structuring a Negotiation

As the introduction to this report outlines, in Afghanistan, the government and its international backers already accept the desirability of a negotiated settlement, and there are real indiStructuring a settlement 

simply as an 

agreement between a 

“government” and 

“insurgents” will ignore 

the changing nature 

of many of the 

conflict actors. 
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BEYOND POWER SHARING: INSTITUTIONAL OPTIONS FOR AN AFGHAN PEACE PROCESS

cations that elements of the insurgency would explore this avenue under certain circumstances. 

However, confidence on all sides in the possibilities of a negotiated outcome to deliver core 

aims or result in sustainable peace is very low, and this is itself a major barrier to initiation of a 

process. As far as can be discerned publicly, current diplomatic efforts to initiate negotiations 

are largely passive, meaning they rely on a presumed continued military stalemate and efforts 

to prompt an improved regional situation to alter insurgent willingness to negotiate. Without 

a doubt, efforts to feel out the conditions under which Pakistan can be more supportive are important, and should continue. However, as noted in the introduction, these may also be aided if 

they are coupled with concrete possibilities for a negotiation and settlement that reassures the 

Pakistani security establishment.

It is often observed that the willingness to enter into a peace process is related to the 

emergence of a “mutually hurting stalemate.”58 However, for this negative structural condition 

to lead to a viable peace process, it should contribute to a broader reevaluation of the armed 

group’s (and its supporters) chances of achieving key goals through negotiation:

What is more important than external pressures is the armed group’s subjective appreciation of a negotiated settlement as the first prize—as something that can actually 

deliver on their bottom line demands.59

The insurgent organization shifts from a militant position, in which armed conflict is the 

only option, to a “dual strategy” open to the opportunities of both military action and negotiations, and eventually to an outright preference for a negotiated solution. Such a shift typically 

has less to do with individual attitudes or splits between “hawks” and “doves” than with the 

balance of arguments for each approach under the circumstances of the moment.60 In fact, the 

most effective insurgent interlocutors in such a negotiation are not soft-liners, but rather militants who have come to view negotiations as a possible route to achieving group aims.61

Beyond the military situation, two important influences can alter that balance for a nonstate armed group. The first is increased confidence that entering into a negotiation process 

per se will not fatally undermine its interests. The second is the availability of possible outcomes that can meet enough core goals to be worth exploring. In short, to make the decision 

to negotiate seriously, the conflict actors may need reassurance both in terms of process and 

potential outcomes. A key task of the peace process at the prenegotiation stage will thus be to 

overcome this lack of confidence among the armed conflict parties about a negotiation process. 

A well-considered peace process can help generate these reassurances through effective thirdparty engagement, support for parties to be more effective negotiators, and development of a 

negotiating framework or “road map” with both procedural and substantive elements. However, equally important will be using such a framework for reassuring other stakeholders that 

the resulting process will not be so dominated by armed actors that its outcome will generate 

renewed conflict or enjoy no legitimacy.

Effective Engagement and Support for an “International Facilitator”

Why are the exploratory contacts and increased clarity in the U.S. position in favor of a settlement not producing the required change of orientation on the part of the armed nonstate actors? As two highly experienced diplomats observe, this lack of progress is caused by 

mistrust among all those so engaged, the low level of coherence in the objectives of most 

of the players, and the limited capacity to put together such a complex, multitiered diplomatic process. The United States has that capacity, but . . . as one of the major combatants, the United States is not well placed to mediate even a procedural accord.62
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Effective prenegotiation must help address this lack of confidence, coherence, and capacity. 

What kind of engagement is likely to be constructive in the Afghan conflict? First of all it is 

important that it be proactive, not based on waiting for insurgents to come to the table:

Successful engagement tends to strengthen the pro-dialogue elements within armed 

groups, while political isolation tends to strengthen hardliners. This suggests that minimal levels of engagement need to be the norm, not a concession.63

Knowledgeable analysts of the insurgency describe just such currents of “pragmatic protalks” and militant Taliban, rather than ideological divisions:

There is no organised or recognisable “moderate” (or any other “political”) “faction” in 

the Taleban—to counterbalance the “religious” hardliners. . . . It appears to be more 

useful to differentiate between currents. . . . On one side, there are pragmatic, politically 

thinking, pro-talks Taleban who understand that a political solution is desirable but who 

still are conservative Islamists. On the other side are those who favour a purely military 

approach, often combined with a hypertrophic recourse to terrorist means.64

One factor that works against pro-talks opinion within nonstate armed groups is the likelihood that negotiating with state (especially great power) counterparts will leave them at a 

disadvantage. There are also well-founded concerns about recognizing violent nonstate groups 

as equal negotiating partners, and negotiation structures can vary to reflect these concerns. 

Inevitably the distribution of power during negotiations is important in generating a decision 

to negotiate in the first place:

parties to a conflict—especially armed groups—are less likely to choose to negotiate if 

they consider the process strongly biased against their interests. They are likely to reject 

pre-conditions that require them to give up core goals [in] advance or their existing 

strategic advantages gained during conflict. . . . Instead they are likely to demand to enter 

talks on the basis of “parity of esteem” within the process and demand equal power in 

decision-making.65

This is why considered engagement by a third party can be effective if it provides some 

legitimacy and recognition to the nonstate actors, while politically buffering state actors from 

the implications of full recognition of their enemies and their means:

Respect is the basic condition of any negotiation. The opponent must be recognized as a 

party with standing—a negotiating partner because of its ability to veto any agreement 

and an actor with identifiable reasons behind its actions. However, respect does not mean 

sympathizing with the terrorists’ aims and goals or even recognizing their legitimacy.66

Increasingly, there have been high-profile calls for an international facilitator—via a range 

of possible institutional avenues including the United Nations, the Organization of the Islamic 

Conference (OIC), states, private organizations, or high-profile individuals—to lead exploratory discussions.67 Such third-party engagement is needed not only to coordinate disparate 

initiatives toward a coherent track, but also to rebalance the internal relationships of the actors 

toward dialogue by reinforcing the sense that they can achieve their aims through negotiation. 

This will place complex demands on facilitation, including sustaining contact with nonstate 

actors that remain proscribed and potentially incoherent, supporting the credibility of the 

process despite limited international acceptance of the nonstate actors’ goals, supporting the 

negotiating capacity of the actors, and determining tricky logistics and security arrangements. 

Considerable and carefully considered support will be needed to carry out this challenging set 

of tasks and thus generate confidence. 

It is likely no one facilitator or organization alone can bring all that is required to the 

table(s). Instead of focusing on the choice of a single mediation arrangement, some combination of a mediator or facilitator with a “group of friends” or contact group that brings diverse 

resources to the task may be useful, though there are potential pros and cons: 
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BEYOND POWER SHARING: INSTITUTIONAL OPTIONS FOR AN AFGHAN PEACE PROCESS

Potential benefits of grouping the external actors in some way include enhancing the 

leverage of the mediator, raising the visibility of the peace process, preempting rival 

mediation initiatives, and preparing for sustained support in implementation. However, 

groups also have disadvantages. The question of composition is delicate, as small 

groups, although undoubtedly more effective, risk excluding—and thus offending—

significant potential partners. . . . In regionally intertwined conflicts, or conflicts that 

take place in the shadow of a regional power, what to do about the neighbors will be a 

constant concern.68

Such a group might consist of states, as with early examples of such mechanisms in the 

Central American peace processes or in the “standing international conference” suggested in 

the Century Foundation report for Afghanistan (see box 1).69 Groups under United Nations 

auspices “have generally been a mix of permanent members of the Security Council, interested 

regional actors, and midsize donor states or ‘helpful fixers’ with experience of the conflict” that 

can bring a range of resources to bear.70 The mechanism must be able to build the credibility of 

the process and increase confidence in its lack of bias among all the parties. This requirement 

is one motivation for the frequent mention of the OIC, Saudi Arabia, or other Gulf states as 

potential mediators for the Islamic context of Afghanistan. In Afghanistan, as was the case in 

Central America, it is likely that neighboring countries will need to act as parties to a regional 

peace process, rather than members of a third-party support group. With these considerations 

in mind, one can picture a range of possible groups of friends from among one or more interested midsized Western states, sizeable distant Muslim states, along with Islamic partners who 

can reassure the insurgent parties, such as Saudi Arabia, or interested but removed regional 

powers, such as Turkey or the OIC.

However, such support mechanisms need not be comprised only of states or multilateral 

organizations, though these may certainly be important for the “heavy lifting” of logistics, security, and implementation guarantees. Recently restored negotiations between the government 

of the Philippines and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) feature a novel form of 

international contact group that brings together four third-party governments with four interested international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs) with wide expertise in peacemaking and peacebuilding generally, and in the Philippines specifically (see box 2). 

While this example corresponds to an ongoing negotiation, the introduction of NGOs 

suggests possibilities for new kinds of support for mediation even in exploratory stages. In 

Afghanistan, there might be potential to increase the credibility of the process among the nonstate actors by including nongovernmental or educational institutions with particular Islamic 

credentials, as well as organizations specializing in mediation or peacebuilding. Such engagement will need to come through an active third party, and may require a mechanism for diverse 

support that can provide legitimacy and credibility to the process, flexible negotiation support, 

and some heavy lifting as well. 

Supporting the Parties’ Negotiating Capacity

Effective third-party engagement can help reassure parties and thus help induce and support 

a negotiation. However, governments, armed groups, political parties, and civil-society actors 

who have been immersed in a conflict environment for an extended period may be fragmented, 

lack negotiating skills or clearly developed positions, and be unaccustomed to the give and 

take of negotiations. Some groups may “need technical support to articulate their negotiation 

strategy and to develop skills and confidence in their ability to negotiate” an agreement.71

Accordingly, third parties should attempt to determine whether divided groups need help reconciling their positions and developing a common bargaining position before attempting to 

Effective third-party 

engagement can help 

reassure parties and thus 

help induce and support 

a negotiation.
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negotiate with other groups. Such support may increase their confidence to pursue a negotiated outcome: 

When leaders are more confident in the prospects of attaining their interests through 

political—rather than military—means and feel themselves able to skillfully negotiate to 

achieve their objectives, then a negotiated process become a more attractive option.72

Training and capacity building that enables actors to analyze the sources of conflict and 

identify potential solutions, engage in policy formulation, and negotiate effectively can increase the probability that the negotiation process will be successful. However, groups may 

react if they see rival groups receiving support to enable them to play a more effective role, 

and thus support needs to be approached with sensitivity by third parties, perhaps by using 

one of the models of support groups described earlier. But properly preparing groups for 

the possibility that their rivals may also receive support can help to alert them to the role 

reciprocity plays in the negotiation process. Third parties should consider these types of supBox 1. The Contadora Group—Framing the Principles of Central American Peace

The Contadora group, comprising interested but not directly involved states of Mexico, Venezuela, Panama, and Colombia, was formed in January 1983 to support a peace process in Central 

America, where several insurgencies were tied in with regional conflicts and Cold War dynamics. The 

groups’ foreign ministers met with the Central American governments to try to develop a peace plan 

focusing on regional and internal causes of the conflicts. Three core elements of the plan, known 

as the “21 Objectives,” were the termination of foreign interference and the nonuse of neighboring territories to support insurgencies; respect for human, political, civil, economic, and social rights 

and measures to democratize; and the establishment of an appropriate verification and monitoring 

system—later requested from the United Nations.1

While the Contadora plan in itself could not bring about an end to the conflicts, as conditions did 

not allow internal peace talks with insurgents in Nicaragua and El Salvador until later in the decade, 

these principles formed the backbone of all subsequent efforts, including those that formed the 

Salvadoran accords. Individual states from the group also continued to provide important assistance, 

with Spain providing the idea for a joint multiparty monitoring mechanism in El Salvador (COPAZ, 

discussed later in this report). 

1. Dario Moreno, The Struggle for Peace in Latin America (Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 1994), 55–60; “21 Objectives Document” (September 9, 1983), reproduced in Jack Child, The Central American Peace Process, 1983–1991: Sheathing Swords, Building Confidence (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1992), 174–177.

Box 2. The Philippines International Contact Group—Mixed Composition Support

The 2008 breakdown of peace negotiations between the government of the Philippines and the 

MILF over provisions for the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) later produced 

an agreement to create an international contact group empowered to “attend and observe the 

negotiations, visit and advise the parties to conflict . . . and meet with the parties upon request to 

resolve outstanding issues,” under the coordination of the Malaysian facilitator of the negotiations. 

The agreement specified a preference for the inclusion of countries from the OIC and the European 

Union and allowed for the inclusion and support of international NGOs.1

In addition to the United Kingdom, Turkey, Japan, and Saudi Arabia, the group includes the Asia 

Foundation (a regional INGO with broad activities), Conciliation Resources (a peacebuilding resource 

and training organization), the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue (a mediation and mediation 

support organization), and Muhammadiyah (an international Islamic NGO). Before and after the 

formation of the group, these organizations have provided numerous forms of active support and expertise to the peace process locally and nationally. Their inclusion leverages these experiences and 

resources but also enables, through their local partners, an organic connection between the peace 

process and the broad scope of civil society in the Philippines involved in peacebuilding.

1. Claudia Hoffman, “Peace Negotiations in the Philippines: The Government, the MILF and International NGOs,” Peace Brief, United States 

Institute of Peace, 2011.
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port an investment in the peace process, in later policy processes, and in “good politics” after 

the settlement.73

One example of multipronged third-party support to build the capacity and coherence 

of actors for a negotiation process took place in Mozambique. Although the years since the 

signing of the country’s peace accord have not seen the Mozambican National Resistance 

(RENAMO) become a particularly effective opposition party, the support the group received 

in the run-up to and during the peace negotiations helped to secure its commitment to the 

peace process (see box 3).

Another example of a more structured technical support program was the Palestine Negotiation Support Unit (NSU), established in 1999 with mixed results (see box 4).

Establishing a Negotiating Framework

To further enhance the chances that the parties will accept a negotiation as a viable route 

to important preferred outcomes, the goal of third-party engagement and early negotiation 

support should be to achieve as comprehensive and explicit a framework for negotiation as 

possible. Ideally, such a framework will have two broad elements, each contributing to reassuring the parties that negotiation is the way forward: 

■ a procedural agreement that outlines how negotiations will proceed in terms of mediation, 

representation, sequencing, and decision making, as well as practical but difficult issues 

of logistics and security;

Box 3. Mozambique—Capacity Support for Negotiations and Transformation

Mozambique’s ten-year civil war ended with a settlement signed by the governing party, the Liberation Front of Mozambique (FRELIMO), and RENAMO, in 1992. At the start of the negotiation process, FRELIMO had significant advantages, including a well-established party structure, a tradition of 

unity, and experience as the government in power. RENAMO, on the other hand, lacked ideological 

coherence, knowledge of constitutional and electoral processes, and experience carrying out basic 

administrative and political tasks. It remained wary during early diplomatic activity prior to formal 

talks beginning in Rome in 1990. 

South Africa, a RENAMO ally in the conflict, began to consider the group’s future in light of unfolding political changes in southern Africa, and shifted its support away from military means toward 

encouraging and assisting the group to formulate and consolidate its political demands. During the 

negotiations, logistical and financial assistance provided by the international community enabled 

RENAMO leaders to participate on an equal footing. 

The United Nations fostered a plan to hold democratic elections in 1994, giving RENAMO two 

years to develop into an opposition party. After the signing of Protocol 111 of the General Peace 

Accords that dealt with the electoral laws and guarantees of logistical support for RENAMO in the 

cities, the United Nations set up a trust fund to support the rebel group’s transformation. Resources in the amount of US$17 million gave RENAMO’s leadership a realistic chance of competing in 

the multiparty elections and provided its former military commanders with salaries, houses, offices, 

and vehicles.

Funds from the international community bolstered Afonso Dhlakama’s leadership position, allowing 

RENAMO to pay off military leaders and other officials it could no longer use; maintain the loyalty 

and services of selected party leaders; and attract new leaders and activists. Initially, financial support 

was disbursed directly to the party leadership for discretionary use. After the elections, party funding 

was to become contingent upon the party’s ability to win office.1

1. Giovanni M. Carbone, “Emerging Pluralist Politics in Mozambique: The FRELIMO-RENAMO Party System,” Working Paper no. 23 (LSE 

Crisis States Programme, 2003), http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/28268/1/WP23GC.pdf; Carrie Manning, The Politics of Peace in Mozambique: PostConflict Democratization, 1992–2000 (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2002); Severine Rugumamu and Osman Glba, “Studies in Reconstruction and 

Capacity Building in Post-Conflict Countries in Africa: Some Lessons of Experience from Mozambique” (African Capacity Building Foundation, 2003); Jeremy Weinstein, “Mozambique: A Fading U.N. Success Story,” Journal of Democracy 13, 1 (2002): 141–156.
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Box 4. The Palestine Negotiations Support Unit

The Palestine Negotiations Support Unit was established in 1999 through a request from the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) to the British government for technical and financial support in the 

run-up to the (eventually failed) final-status negotiations in 2000–2001. The unit was partially funded 

by the United Kingdom and later several other European nations with a mandate to provide legal, 

communications, and policy advice to Palestinian negotiators. The unit was integrated into the PLO’s 

Negotiations Affairs Department in Ramallah and drew on the expertise of Palestinian-American and 

other Western-trained lawyers and officials. 

The unit has a legal and policy department that aimed to strengthen and refine existing Palestinian 

negotiation positions, develop new positions, and contribute to resumption of permanent status 

negotiations. It provides advice on the permanent-status issues (security, settlements, Jerusalem, 

refugees, borders, and water), as well as other issues (economic relations, compensation, agriculture, 

tourism, health, transport, energy, telecommunications, and archaeology). The Communications 

Department publicizes and explains Palestinian negotiation positions.1

The unit was embroiled in controversy in early 2011 after it was determined three employees were 

behind a leak to Al Jazeera of 1,600 key internal documents on Palestinian negotiation strategy over 

a ten-year period, prompting the resignation of the Palestinian Authority’s chief negotiator.2

1. The authors are grateful for a suggestion by Michael Keating of the United Nations Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) regarding the NSU, personal communication, July 15, 2011. PLO Negotiations Affairs Department Web site, “About Us,” www.nad-plo.org/etemplate.php?id=182.

2. Seamus Milne and Ian Black, “The Story Behind the Palestine Papers,” Guardian, January 24, 2011.

■ a statement of fundamental principles that outlines core substantive elements and limits, 

reassuring the parties that primary or existential interests will not be sacrificed and specifying agenda items that need to be negotiated.

A procedural agreement should determine how parties are represented and how many are 

included, thus suggesting how power will be structured during negotiations. Decision-making 

formulae, the makeup of delegations, logistical questions, the role and powers of the third 

party suggested time frames and pacing, and communications, recording, and confidentiality 

procedures can all contribute to clarity regarding the direction of the peace process. Two of the 

most important procedural issues that will need to be considered are the role of the third party 

and the structure of the negotiation. A mediator can play a stronger or weaker, a more or less 

active, role in a negotiating process. A strong mediator with solid international backing may be 

able to commit these resources to pushing a high-profile plan with top leaders, and to mobilize 

significant rewards or coercive provisions. A lower-profile mediator from a nongovernmental 

institution may have more flexibility in methods and formality, perhaps more easily gaining 

confidence and thus influence from knowledge or informational power.74

The mediator may play a very active role, suggesting solutions and formulae and proposing 

texts based on consultation with the parties, or a more passive one that focuses on bringing the 

parties together and letting them resolve key questions. A fairly active mandate to integrate positions and suggest formulae can be an important way to support the balance between nonstate 

parties and states by elevating the position of the less legitimate actor while providing a buffer 

for the governments involved. For example, in El Salvador, Salvadoran government negotiators 

tried to push a minimal role for the United Nations mediator and continuous negotiations to 

capitalize on the weaknesses of a nonstate insurgent actor that had several component organizations and lacked coherence, while guerrilla groups sought an active mediation that could 

suggest settlement formulae to rebalance the relationship (see box 5). What kind of role is appropriate will depend on the nature of the mediator and the kind of support system available. 

The structure of substantive talks might consist of direct or shuttle diplomacy, be conducted in parallel according to theme or sequenced over time, and held in continuous or punctuated sessions. In Afghanistan one might imagine a military-security negotiation focused on 
19

BEYOND POWER SHARING: INSTITUTIONAL OPTIONS FOR AN AFGHAN PEACE PROCESS

cease-fires or cantonment, future security arrangements, and verification measures such as 

military observation. This will primarily involve the United States, the Afghan government 

and insurgents, and perhaps the United Nations. A parallel political and social negotiation 

might involve wider inclusion of Afghan groups, perhaps with additional mediation from 

respected figures from within or outside Afghanistan, particularly with legitimate Islamic 

credentials and reputation.

However, such an approach may founder on the inability to separate these issues—a lasting 

cease-fire is unlikely to be agreed in the absence of political and social agreements. An alternative approach would be a series of consecutive negotiations, building upon each other and 

perhaps with varying participation, aiming to build momentum by generating a track record 

of mutual accommodation. For example, an agreement on allowing humanitarian access and 

limited cease-fires might come first to initiate the process. Talks on the future electoral system 

or power-sharing institutions and governance of the security forces might lead to a broader but 

“armed” cease-fire. This progress may be followed by final negotiations over demobilization, the 

withdrawal of international forces, and the means for verification of counterterrorism provisions including a clear break between insurgents and Al Qaida militants, as these are likely to 

be among the last cards “played” in a peace process. 

A key advantage of such a process is that it can be paced in such a way that there is an 

opportunity for shuttling and consensus building not just between but also within incoherent 

parties. In South Africa, where the groups’ goals and command structures were quite clear, the 

Box 5. El Salvador—Sequential Negotiations, Resilience, and Consensus Building

The Salvadoran peace agreements were reached sequentially, with consecutive agreements building 

on earlier pacts. After transformations within both the regime and the insurgent Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN, itself comprised of five separate insurgent parties) that enabled both 

to envision negotiating their core objectives, talks began in 1989.1 Violent escalation on both sides 

followed, but served to weaken militant elements and heighten momentum for a settlement. The 

government wanted minimal UN involvement and continuous negotiations, while the FMLN needed 

active UN mediation and long breaks to consult its field commanders to balance the playing field.2

The resulting “road map” signed in Geneva in 1990 specified alternating continuous and shuttle 

diplomacy, and set an agenda of future agreements on the armed forces, human rights, the judicial 

system, the electoral system, constitutional reform, economic and social issues, and UN verification. 

How to time the beginning of the cease-fire was a key question: it was agreed that each of these 

substantive issues would be negotiated prior to an “armed cease-fire,” which would then last until 

provisions for demobilization and reintegration of combatants were agreed.

However, the future of the Salvadoran Armed Forces was a major point of disagreement, and could 

not be settled first. Alvaro de Soto, the secretary-general’s appointed mediator, passed over this 

agenda item and provided text for an accord on human rights that was agreed easily, rebuilding 

some momentum. Subsequent active UN promotion of solutions for the security forces achieved 

several interrelated agreements, including purging the military with an ad hoc commission, dissolving certain special forces battalions and the police, and creating a new National Civilian Police. 

In a parallel process, constitutional reforms agreed to by the government, insurgents, and civilian 

political parties included a powerful human rights ombudsperson, a requirement that Supreme Court 

justices be approved by two thirds of the National Assembly, and a new Supreme Electoral Tribunal 

with multiparty representation in its leadership. 

In order to achieve agreement on sequencing its demobilization with these other steps, the FMLN 

needed time and opportunity to intensively lobby its own commanders, even bringing them to Mexico to observe negotiations.3

 Following the resolution of these key issues, a “compressed agenda” 

allowed settlement of outstanding points and details quite quickly, and an ad hoc temporary ceasefire became permanent when a comprehensive accord was signed in January 1992.

1. United Nations Department of Public Information, “The United Nations and El Salvador, 1990–1995,” 11.

2. Alvaro de Soto, “Ending Violent Conflict in El Salvador,” in Herding Cats: Multiparty Mediation in a Complex World, ed. Chester Crocker, 

Fen Osler Hampson, and Pamela Aall (Washington, DC: United States Institute for Peace Press, 1999).

3. Sir Marrack Goulding, Peacemonger (London: John Murray, 2002), 229–230.
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African National Congress still required several months to bring lower-level cadres around to 

some aspects of the agreements. In addition, when difficulties or setbacks arise, attention can 

be shifted to different agenda items or onto new tracks, as occurred in El Salvador during the 

sequential negotiation of six separate accords (see box 5). These features enhance the resilience 

of the peace process compared to a “big bang” peace conference to produce a comprehensive 

settlement. As also occurred in El Salvador, as momentum builds the configuration of talks can 

be adjusted to cover ground more quickly.

A procedural framework for Afghan negotiations might take a number of forms, but 

the need to generate confidence among the parties, especially insurgents, suggests a few 

features that might be helpful. A mediation mechanism will be needed that can be flexible, 

that can draw upon wide-ranging resources, including some that confer Islamic legitimacy, 

and that can actively promote solutions around sensitive issues like representation of the 

parties. A negotiation structure that can gradually generate momentum and provides space 

to build coherence within and between the multiple incoherent actors is also needed, suggesting that at least initially a procedural accord might seek to set a sequential and punctuated agenda. Of course, practical logistics and security issues will also be crucial, but they 

will depend on the mediation and support arrangements discussed in the previous section 

and lie beyond the scope of this report. 

Once a procedure is established, one might assume the natural sequence is that parties decide 

to negotiate, and then through negotiations determine the nature of a settlement. In fact, it is 

more likely that further elaboration of the terms of a settlement will help initiate the process:

experience suggests that parties can only enter into negotiations when they have some 

idea of the parameters of a settlement. A framework document outlining these parameters has often been an effective element in bringing about a ceasefire and peace 

process.75

A negotiating framework may benefit from an agreement or declaration that establishes 

some fundamental principles of the peace process, lays out key issues for negotiation, and may 

even suggest the overarching structure of a peace agreement. This process does not need to go 

into great detail, but a broad outline can help clarify areas of common interest and key issues for 

negotiation, and help reassure stakeholders on some fundamental issues. In South Africa a road 

map between the government and the African National Congress (ANC) developed in a series 

of “minutes” addressing issues such as defining political offenses, releasing prisoners, suspending 

armed action by the ANC, leveraging national, regional, and local structures to address situations 

of conflict, and reaching agreement for the commencement of constitutional exploratory talks.76

In Afghanistan such principles might try to incorporate core concerns of different stakeholders to the conflict. For example, goals of the peace process might be stated along the following lines: 

■ establishing the conditions for Afghanistan’s independence from any foreign interference 

and the removal of foreign forces of any origin from its soil;

■ preventing the use of Afghanistan’s territory for attacks outside the country or against the 

interests of other states;

■ ending the suffering of the Afghan people by achieving a cease-fire, protecting civilians, 

and establishing means for resolving conflicts through peaceful means;

■ promoting the development and well-being of Afghanistan’s people through the 

strengthening of national unity and participation of all members of society in national 

life, governance in accordance with Islamic principles, and respect for the rights of men, 
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BEYOND POWER SHARING: INSTITUTIONAL OPTIONS FOR AN AFGHAN PEACE PROCESS

women, and children, including access to education, economic development, justice, and 

protection from crime and corruption;

■ providing for adequate verification acceptable to all signatories.

Without doubt, even principles such as these may prove difficult, but any agreement, even 

if purposely vague, may be of use in generating momentum. Additionally, it may be possible to 

establish key structural elements of the agreement by linking these goals together with specific 

means or elements of a procedural framework in some form of x will do this when y has done that. 

For example, the removal of all foreign troops may be linked to the establishment of an agreed 

mechanism for international verification that terrorist groups cannot operate from Afghanistan 

and that all Afghan groups have broken ties with Al Qaida militants. 

The development of such a negotiating framework may occur through engagement by a 

mediator or members of a support group with leaders of the conflict parties and other stakeholders through informal channels or shuttle diplomacy. However, the process can also be 

prompted by unilateral proposals or declarations of basic principles by third parties or even the 

primary conflict actors. For example, in the Mozambique conflict, a negotiating framework 

grew out of unilateral declarations by the FRELIMO of “twelve principles” for direct dialogue, 

answered by an alternative “sixteen-point declaration” by the opposition RENAMO. These 

clarified both the considerable gaps that needed to be overcome procedurally, while establishing agreement on seeking a peaceful settlement.77

Alternatively, ideas to fill out a negotiating framework can emerge through track II or track 

“1.5” efforts that focus on dialogue among unofficial representatives or mid-level players before 

an official mediation begins, as occurred through the inter-Tajik dialogue (see box 6). A track 

II process can also contribute to solving a problem that has been prominent in engagement 

efforts in Afghanistan, namely identifying who to talk to.

It is a kind of catch-22 that a conflict actor may not have enough confidence to enter into 

negotiations without some assurances about the process and outcomes, yet these will not be 

certain until a negotiation takes place. Developing a negotiating framework provides a bridge 

between phases of the peace process, and developing such frameworks can help transform a 

passive strategy for initiating negotiations into a more active one. However, beyond the conflicting parties, mechanisms in the negotiating framework for the inclusion and influence of 

other interests are also very important for the viability and durability of the peace process as 

it progresses.

The Importance of Broadening Inclusion in the Peace Process

The preceding discussion has focused on gaining the consent of the conflicting parties to 

negotiate. Often this process is delicate and undertaken through confidential channels 

focusing on the leaders or representatives of conflict parties before a formal process can 

begin. Experienced diplomats or conflict resolution theorists often stress the need for confidentiality during this phase, though some emphasize that a separate “public arena” still has 

a contribution to make by providing ideas and honing understandings of the conflict during 

“prenegotiations.”78

However, there are a number of arguments for peace processes to include other actors and 

interests, with interrelated normative and pragmatic dimensions. The normative argument 

is that civilians and vulnerable groups are often the biggest victims of armed conflict, and 

therefore deserve to have a voice in efforts to resolve it. Leaders and groups that have pursued 
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their aims through force should not be rewarded with the only seats at the table. Instead the 

peace process should try to redress the imbalance between the powerful and the powerless 

in conflict situations to prevent widespread “alienation” from the outcome and bolster the 

protection of vulnerable groups such as religious minorities and women, a particular concern 

in Afghanistan.79

However, this inclusion should not be considered simply desirable yet optional. Case studies by practitioners and increasingly systematic studies by researchers are showing that peace is 

more durable when peacemaking goes beyond the inclusion of conflict elites to provide structures for civil society and mass inclusion, representation, or consultation.80 The causes of this 

positive impact may include wider acceptance of a settlement because groups feel they were 

consulted, a settlement that deals better with root causes of the conflict because it addressed a 

wider cross section of interests, or better preparation for peaceful politics in the future by not 

only privileging armed groups.81

In short, the way that the negotiations take place is important for the quality and durability 

of the outcome they are likely to produce:

The complexity of a conflict situation may require a comprehensive response. It may 

require a negotiation structure capable of addressing a number of interconnected conflicts within the state or region. . . . Substantively, a comprehensive negotiation agenda 

deals with the multiple causes of conflict and addresses the needs and rights of the wider 

society as well as those of the belligerents.82

The impact of lack of inclusion on the resilience of a peace settlement is “a particular concern in situations where the government and the armed groups lack a strong social support 

base and thus neither are seen as legitimate representatives of public interests.”83 As described 

earlier in this report, the Afghan conflict consists of several overlapping structures, and the 

legitimacy of the conflict parties is a particular issue. Afghan politics over the last decade has 

been largely rebuilt around the leaders and networks of jihadi parties with ethnic bases, privileging them over other forces that may be legitimate. The Afghan government is widely seen as 

corrupt and captured by narrow interests, the insurgency is considered a tool of foreign influences, and historical jihadi ethnic leaders are losing credibility even as they stoke ethnic fears to 

bolster their positions.84 Just as the Taliban do not represent majority Pashtun opinion, a wider 

range of social forces exists in mainstream Afghan society, and their exclusion has weakened 

the center ground of politics. 

Box 6. The Inter-Tajik Dialogue—Helping to Frame the Peace Process

The inter-Tajik dialogue was initiated in 1993 via the Dartmouth Conference, a long-standing bilateral 

U.S.-Russian informal negotiating mechanism, to see if “a group can be formed from within the civil 

conflict to design a peace process for their own country.” The participants were chosen from among 

the second or third layer of decision makers in the conflict factions. A conflict-mapping exercise 

was carried out, identifying key problems for a peace process, such as allowing displaced people to 

return home or developing a platform to represent the dispersed opposition—later resembled by 

the United Tajik Opposition. The dialogue group recorded its deliberations and contributed to the 

perception that negotiations were viable, meeting six times before track I negotiations began.

As official UN-mediated negotiations began in April 1994, the dialogue prepared the first of eighteen memoranda that conveyed ideas and suggestions about the peace process, and members 

served on the official delegations. The dialogue had an impact on the measures to monitor implementation of the eventual General Agreement through a multiparty commission. While the dialogue 

was very focused on the conflict parties, it continued to meet after the agreement and implementation concluded, turning its attention to civil society and other issues.1

1. Randa M. Slim and Harold H. Saunders, “The Inter-Tajik Dialogue: From Civil War toward Civil Society,” in Politics of Compromise: The 

Tajikistan Peace Process, ed. Kamoludin Abdulaev and Catherine Barnes (London: Conciliation Resources, Accord, 2001), 44–47.
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BEYOND POWER SHARING: INSTITUTIONAL OPTIONS FOR AN AFGHAN PEACE PROCESS

If the multilayered structure of the Afghan conflict is to be adequately addressed, it is imperative that a negotiation process broaden beyond combatant groups or leaders to encompass 

diverse representatives of other social groups and forces. Contrast this need with the approach 

taken in formulating the Bonn Process in 2001, since acknowledged by Lakhdar Brahimi 

himself as incomplete:

The group assembled in Bonn did not represent the people of Afghanistan, either 

directly or indirectly. The UN veteran and former Algerian foreign minister Lakhdar 

Brahimi . . . repeatedly stressed that no one would remember how unrepresentative the 

meeting had been if the participants managed to fashion a process that would lead to a 

legitimate and representative government.85

In addition, such inclusion can have the advantage of diluting the impact of allowing 

the insurgency representation, and increase the palatability of negotiating with the Taliban 

for both internal opponents and skeptical international actors. For these reasons, any negotiating framework should include as a fundamental principle the incorporation of a range 

of unarmed actors and representatives throughout the peace process. 

What should be the specific means for ensuring this kind of inclusion takes place in 

Afghanistan’s peace process? There is a range of experience for including noncombatants in 

peace processes, and the best combination should be determined by Afghan stakeholders. 

However, three broad approaches are sometimes described:

■ representative participation through political parties or other organizations;

■ consultation, in which parallel public processes influence and contribute to negotiations;

■ direct participation, where civil society is able to participate in negotiations directly, either 

at local or national levels.86

To this list can be added debate facilitated by the media, and ratification or legitimation 

of negotiated agreements through election or referendum—a more ex post form of consultation. Each of these modes of participation may have a role to play in Afghanistan, and 

Lisa Schirch has developed in some detail examples for consideration in Afghanistan, such 

as a civil-society assembly as was created in Guatemala, or local-level direct conflict resolution as in Mali and already found in Afghanistan through diverse initiatives.87 Whatever 

means are chosen, a few key issues specific to Afghanistan need to be considered.

First, Afghan civil society must be viewed broadly, going beyond Western-style nongovernmental, women’s, or professional organizations to encompass a wide range of customary, 

tribal, and religious networks.88 It should not be expected that this “sector” can or will speak 

with one voice, especially on issues as controversial as an acceptable peace settlement and 

the political future of the country. However, consultation with these social forces in recent 

years has repeated a quite superficial and narrow pattern. It has typically involved the convening of large assemblies under the Loya Jirga (Grand Assembly) label to ratify policies 

already determined among key domestic and international actors, and/or the opportunity 

to present a list of recommendations by a nominal number of “civil-society representatives.” 

This pattern has been repeated in both domestic fora such as the National Consultative 

Peace Jirga in June 2010, and international conferences like the London conference of 2010 

and the Bonn international conference in December 2011. Future arrangements need to go 

beyond imagining civil society as a coherent sector and structure mechanisms to represent 

the diversity of interests beyond the conflict parties and major political factions.

A second issue is how actively civil society should relate to the peace process. The described pattern of consultation has meant that civil society in Afghanistan is cast in a passive or 
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reactive role, having to respond to political steps and developments that are determined without its input. Given the fitful progress of engagement with the insurgency, and doubts about 

the rapid development of a regional atmosphere more conducive to progress, is there scope for 

civil-society actors to take a more active role in framing a potential peace process, as women’s 

networks did in Liberia in 2003 (see box 7)? 

This approach implies a considerably more active role for civil society than the current one 

of hoping to be recipients of commitments that the conflict parties will widen a future negotiation to noncombatant representatives:

If civil society organizations and a broader proportion of the overall public are sufficiently prepared to engage in peacemaking, it can both create a climate conducive to 

negotiations and help to ensure that the social infrastructure is developed for their voices 

to be heard at formal peace talks.89

What structures should be adopted to advocate for representation? Should civil society 

seek to create broad alliances of noncombatants to advocate for civilian representation in a 

peace process, or pursue specific issue-based agendas, for example, in focusing on issues related 

to women specifically or victims of violence?

Finally, how can these efforts be supported? Just as initiation of a peace process may be encouraged by support to conflict parties, it should be asked what can be done for noncombatants 

and civil society in their efforts to overcome the disadvantages of their nongovernmental and 

pacific status to play meaningful roles. Such support may be material, but it can also be moral 

through consistent assertion of the need for broad participation beyond the conflict parties, 

and institutional through promotion and support of new mechanisms and reforms that foster 

ongoing participation. 

Progress toward mechanisms for deliberation, debate, and the emergence of an active peace 

agenda among civil society should also translate to a broader conception of power sharing than 

the division of spoils or influence among the current government and the insurgents. In this 

sense, the shape of the negotiation process is in fact intimately connected to the forms of power 

sharing that emerge from it:

The negotiations at the center of most war-to-peace transitions have profound implications for the political settlement and even the state itself. . . . A process that includes 

formerly excluded groups can lead to a more inclusive and therefore resilient settlement 

in the future.90

Transitional Arrangements and Implementation Challenges

A key dimension of any negotiated settlement to the Afghan conflict will be a set of transitional arrangements to govern the period between the signing of a peace settlement, a ceasefire, and the entry into force of more permanent institutions for the management of conflict. 

These interim arrangements are important because they can influence actors’ commitment to 

the peace. They may take many forms, make limited or more dramatic alterations to the current institutional order, and involve different actors during the implementation period. This 

includes civil-society organizations, which may be able to exercise considerable influence, as 

well as third parties called upon to play a role in implementing these transitional arrangements. Finally, actors must keep in mind that the transitional arrangements they select create a 

political order that shapes long-term institutional choices and the nature of the peace that will 

be consolidated. 

When deciding on transitional arrangements, it is important to consider the functions of 

the arrangements and the particular transition issues they must address. Typically, it is during 
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BEYOND POWER SHARING: INSTITUTIONAL OPTIONS FOR AN AFGHAN PEACE PROCESS

this period that “war-torn societies initiate the lengthy struggle to construct legitimate political institutions, demobilize soldiers and resettle displaced populations, come to terms with past 

human-rights abuses and institutionalize rule of law, and begin moving their economies from 

relief to development.”91 The transition period in Afghanistan will be particularly sensitive 

given the failure to complete these tasks in the preceding decade despite progress in many areas. Based in part on the conflict analysis earlier in this report, four functions in particular may 

stand out for transitional arrangements in an Afghan peace process:

■ overcoming mistrust and insecurity among the parties; 

■ addressing governance drivers of the conflict; 

■ defining the political order, including balancing the relationships among the conflict 

parties and other stakeholders during the transition;

■ setting the role of third parties in verification and providing resilience against challenges 

and setbacks.

Overcoming Security Dilemmas

Before a sustainable peace can be constructed, the parties to the conflict and the Afghan population must feel more secure. In the absence of such a sense of security, actors’ commitment to 

the peace process will rapidly erode. However, the range of potential spoilers and the transition 

away from the security umbrella provided by ISAF will present acute challenges during the 

interim period of any Afghan peace process. In the words of one thorough assessment,

The most difficult challenge confronting any peace process in Afghanistan will be establishing and sustaining, despite the many potential spoilers, a minimum of law and order 

going into and lasting throughout the resultant political transition. It will be important—and difficult—both for the parties to an accord and for international peacekeepers 

Box 7. Liberia—Women Take the Lead in the Peace Process

In Liberia, women’s organizations and individual women, supported by the Women in Peacebuilding 

Network (WIPNET) and the Mano River Women’s Peace Network (MARWOPNET), played an active 

role in pushing for peace at various points in the conflict. A defining moment for WIPNET’s inclusion occurred when President Charles Taylor challenged its members to find the rebel leaders. The 

women funded a small delegation to Sierra Leone and arranged meetings between Taylor and the 

rebel leaders, earning them a reputation as objective intermediaries. In 2003, the Women of Liberia 

Mass Action for Peace Campaign engaged rebels by traveling all over the country. 

MARWOPNET mediated a cease-fire between President Taylor and Liberia’s rebels, the Liberians 

United for Democracy (LURD) and the Movement for Democracy in Liberia (MODEL). As a result, the 

Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), which sponsored subsequent peace negotiations, officially invited MARWOPNET to participate. It was the only women’s group that received 

accreditation for the talks, and with the Liberian Bar Association and the Inter-Religious Council for 

Liberia was among the civil-society groups and political parties that signed the agreement. 2011 

Nobel Laureate Leymah Gbowee also led a delegation of Liberian women to Ghana to continue 

to apply pressure on the warring factions during the peace process. They monitored the talks and 

staged a silent protest outside the presidential palace in Accra. When the talks stalled, the women 

closed the exits, refusing to let the negotiators out until progress was made.

After the Accra 2003 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) was signed, WIPNET shifted its focus 

from mediation to implementation. WIPNET demystified the peace agreement and empowered civil 

society to monitor its implementation by disseminating clear information to the Liberian public and 

women in particular.1

1. UN Women, “Case Study: Liberia,” http://progress.unwomen.org/2011/07/case-study-liberia/; Desirée Nilsson, Crafting a Secure Peace: 

Evaluating Liberia’s Comprehensive Peace Agreement 2003 (Uppsala: Uppsala University, Department of Peace and Conflict Research, 

2009), 22.
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to identify deliberate violations of cease-fires that occur against the country’s high level 

of background violence.93

This makes it imperative to achieve real security gains during the transitional period. Although minimizing the role that violence plays in society will take time, requiring as it does 

the building of the rule of law, reform of the security sector, and changes in political culture, 

significant steps toward providing for the security of conflict actors and the population can be 

taken during the transitional period.

In light of the security dilemma, one of the most difficult steps for adversaries to take 

during the transition period is to demobilize their forces.94 This step is a critical one, though, 

in the process of establishing an increased sense of security for the population and for the 

demilitarization of politics. As Afghans well know, having already experienced an internationally led disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration (DDR) program (the Afghan New 

Beginnings Program), long-term peace is not possible in the absence of a commitment to 

demobilization by powerful actors who benefit from armed conflict. It is also not possible with 

politicians who are determined to use the demobilization process to fulfill their own goals and 

distracted international actors who are not, for whatever reasons, fully committed to demobilization. 95 Fortunately, there is a range of transitional arrangements that can lay the groundwork 

for a successful DDR program and help foster security in the post-conflict environment.

Interim security arrangements can be conceptualized along a continuum, with the most 

basic and (supposedly) easiest-to-agree-upon options appearing at one end and the more politically and logistically difficult measures at the other. Among the first tasks that occur once 

a cease-fire has been agreed are a disengagement of forces and the disclosure by contending 

factions of their military dispositions. Because these processes will require some form of verification, decisions regarding the interim institution that is to be charged with that responsibility 

should already have been made. Formerly warring groups can work together to jointly monitor a cease-fire, as was done in Mozambique, combine with civil-society actors to monitor a 

cease-fire, as in the Local Monitoring Teams used in the Philippines, or rely on a third party to 

perform that function, as in the many examples of UN peacekeeping or military observation.96

Some combination may be needed in Afghanistan, as well as the ability eventually to confirm 

a break with Al Qaida and other outside terrorist organizations.

A number of arrangements can help provide for the security of contending factions during 

the period following a cease-fire and before demobilization and disarmament take place. One 

of these is buffer or confidence zones, areas patrolled by a neutral force designed to keep rivals 

apart. This mechanism was employed in Côte d’Ivoire, where 11,000 French troops and UN 

peacekeepers separated rebel and government forces across a 600-kilometer-long buffer zone. 

Alternately, fighting forces can be assigned to cantonment areas agreed among the parties, with 

arrangements for the storing and management of arms. The 2006 peace agreement in Nepal, 

for example, agreed to United Nations assistance to monitor “the confinement of Maoist army 

combatants and their weapons within designated cantonment areas and monitor the Nepal 

Army (NA) to ensure that it remains in its barracks and its weapons are not used against any 

side.”97 Similar arrangements were used to contain insurgents and military forces in El Salvador while confidence was built in the political process.

Not all of the arrangements will be suitable for use in every conflict environment (see box 

8). If successfully implemented, cantonment arrangements in particular can serve to provide 

not only for the security of the rival fighting groups but also for populations that have borne 

much of the brunt of armed violence, and may cope better with the intermixing of rival 

Long-term peace is not 

possible in the absence 

of a commitment to 

demobilization by powerful 

actors who benefit from 

armed conflict. 
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BEYOND POWER SHARING: INSTITUTIONAL OPTIONS FOR AN AFGHAN PEACE PROCESS

forces implied by asymmetric warfare in Afghanistan. It may also be particularly useful to 

consider monitoring models that put weapons “beyond the use” of demobilizing factions in 

order to avoid the cultural and security implications inherent in “laying down” or “surrendering” arms to the government. In addition, some arrangements are more complex and costly 

and require considerable commitment of third parties, including military observers (as in 

Guatemala, Cyprus, and Macedonia) or UN or other peacekeeping forces. United Nations 

Civilian Police (CIVPOL) have also been used widely, but typically in smaller peacebuilding 

cases such as Kosovo. 

The availability and capacity of third-party options to implement or monitor the security 

provisions of an Afghan peace agreement will have to be considered carefully given the current 

trend to reduce international involvement in Afghanistan, the inherent risks due to spoilers, 

and the demands presented by the terrain. It may be that joint monitoring of security provisions by the Afghan parties themselves, preferably with civilian participation via civil society 

or institutions such as the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC), 

will be needed, and international monitoring might be focused on areas of particular concern, 

such as borders.

More generally, civil-society representatives should have an important role in the design 

and implementation of security-related measures. As actors who have been affected by the 

conflict, they wield influence within communities that can shape local commitment to security 

initiatives, including the reintegration of ex-combatants into society. 98

Addressing State Weakness and Governance

Second, the transitional arrangements should confront sources of state weakness and governance issues that have been identified as key drivers of the conflict. In Afghanistan these issues 

include a perception that the state has been captured or divided among a small elite, high levels 

of corruption, and the inability of the state to provide security to the general population.99 

Although it is unlikely that these problems can be wholly resolved during the transition period, 

some progress on such issues must be achieved in order to shore up commitment to the peace 

process. In addition, unless the state becomes effective enough to perform key functions once 

third-party actors have departed the scene, long-run peace is unlikely to prevail. These arrangements may also need to provide for some alterations to the political order and the distribution 

of decision-making power.

Specialized arrangements can be designed to deal with governance during the transitional period. In Liberia, several innovative interim institutions were established to address 

serious government shortcomings in terms of capacity, corruption, and accountability that 

Box 8. Selected Interim Security Institutions and Cases

Cease-fire: including cessation of hostilities and disengagement of forces; disclosure of military 

disposition; verification

Buffer zones (Côte d’Ivoire)

Cantonment of troops (El Salvador; Burundi; Nepal)

Storage and management of arms (Nepal; Northern Ireland)

DDR (Mozambique; Sierra Leone)

CIVPOL (East Timor; Kosovo)

Military observers (Guatemala; Cyprus; Macedonia)

Peacekeeping forces (Liberia; Democratic Republic of Congo; Timor-Leste)
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had contributed to the conflict. These institutions included an independent Governance Reform Commission to recommend public administration, decentralization, and anticorruption 

reforms, and an intrusive joint international-Liberian management and monitoring system for 

key economic governance tasks (see box 9).

Similar institutions in Afghanistan have been created to address some key governance 

challenges. However, unlike the Liberian Governance Reform Commission, the leadership 

of Afghanistan’s nominally independent Independent Administrative Reform and Civil 

Service Commission (IARCSC) and its Independent Directorate of Local Governance 

(IDLG) are appointed by the president alone, and do not enjoy financial or operational 

autonomy or a clear mandate. The Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund (ARTF) and 

related public financial management reforms also involve joint oversight by international institutions and the host government. They have been remarkably successful in putting in place 

a sound core public financial management system for resources channeled to the national 

budget or national programs, but this system is not comprehensive as huge flows of development assistance remain outside it.100 Consideration might be given to measures with greater 

independence or more comprehensive buy-in by partners to address governance challenges 

more effectively.

In contrast to technocratic arrangements that rely on third-party actors or independent 

commissions, interim institutions can also place an emphasis on process and encourage joint 

decision making to create resilience during implementation. Institutions constructed on the 

Box 9. Liberia—Interim Arrangements for Addressing Governance Problems

The site of brutal civil wars in 1989–1996 and 2000–2003, Liberia has suffered decades of corrupt, 

inefficient, weak, and unaccountable government. A Governance Reform Commission (GRC) was 

created by the August 2003 Accra Comprehensive Peace Agreement to “promote the principles of 

good governance” by developing public sector reforms, improving decentralization and participation, supporting regional balance, quality, and integrity in appointments, and ensuring transparency 

and accountability by acting as a public ombudsperson.1 The GRC wrote anticorruption legislation 

and a code of conduct for government employees, and designed decentralization reforms. The 

commissioners were appointed by the transitional government after confirmation by the transitional 

legislature: prior to her 2005 election to the presidency, Nobel Laureate Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf served 

as chair. In 2007, the Liberian government transformed the GRC into a permanent, financially and 

operationally autonomous Governance Commission to “promote good governance by advising, 

designing, and formulating appropriate policies and institutional arrangements and frameworks . . . 

and promoting integrity at all levels of society and within every public and private institution.”2

Concerned about the effects of corruption and mismanagement of public finances on the prospects 

for stable peace in Liberia, the country’s international partners—the United Nations, the World Bank, 

the International Monetary Fund, the European Community/European Union, Ghana, Nigeria, the 

United States, ECOWAS, and the African Union—initiated the Governance and Economic Management Assistance Program (GEMAP). GEMAP, signed by the National Transitional Government 

of Liberia (NTGL) in 2005, targeted management and accountability of public finance in revenue 

collection, expenditure controls, and government procurement and concession practices. It included 

a set of international controls, including placing international experts with cosignature authority in 

selected government ministries, agencies, and state-owned enterprises; international management 

contracts for selected institutions; and an international administrator in the Central Bank. GEMAP 

provided for the establishment of an Anti-Corruption Commission to enforce the law and a steering 

committee, chaired by the head of state with a representative of Liberia’s international partners as 

deputy, to oversee implementation.3

1. Republic of Liberia Governance Reform Commission, “First Quarterly Report,” June 30, 2004, http://codexijoma.ws/gvn/First_Progress_

Report_of_GRC.html.

2. Government of the Republic of Liberia, “An Act of the Legislature to Establish the Governance Comission,” Section 3.1, August 2007.

3. Renata Dwan and Laura Bailey, “Liberia’s Governance and Economic Management Assistance Program (GEMAP)” (joint review by the 

Department of Peacekeeping Operations’ Peacekeeping Best Practices Section and the World Bank’s Fragile States Group, May 2006), www.

peacekeepingbestpractices.unlb.org/PBPS/Library/DPKO-WB%20joint%20review%20of%20GEMAP%20FINAL.pdf.
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BEYOND POWER SHARING: INSTITUTIONAL OPTIONS FOR AN AFGHAN PEACE PROCESS

basis of “collaborative decision-making, transparency, and confidence-building” have proved 

effective in countries ranging from El Salvador to Mozambique.101 Widening participation 

in governance institutions by structuring them to include representatives of various groups, 

including civil society, might also help to address “negative-sum” perceptions regarding state 

capture and introduce more checks and balances.102

Civil-society organizations and third-party actors have been involved in post-conflict transition settings in a variety of ways. They may do this through actual participation in interim 

arrangements or by acting as “a pressure group and a monitor of the implementation of agreement provisions.” 103 The extent of the impact that civil-society groups are able to have during 

the transition period ultimately will depend on how well organized they are, their ability to 

propose and assess policy options, the resources they command, and the extent to which opportunities are structured for them to participate in the transition process.104 Such structures 

for inclusion will form an important part of defining the interim political order. 

Establishing the Nature of the Interim Political Order

The transitional arrangements established during the unsettled period following the end of a 

civil war act as a bridge between an environment in which violence is used as a means of settling conflicts and one in which legitimate and established institutions become the basis for 

managing conflict. By creating “precedents, expectations, and patterns of behavior,” the interim 

institutions that are put into place during this period can shape the manner in which politics 

will function in the longer term.105 These interim arrangements thus constitute an important 

first step in the process of establishing a post-conflict political order. The types of interim 

arrangements that may be put in place during this period can vary in two broad respects:

■ the extent to which they preserve the government in power or confer some degree of 

power on previously excluded groups through power sharing;

■ the extent to which they retain the institutions of the state or reform them or create new 

institutions designed to constrain the government’s power.

Based on these factors, it is possible to distinguish among three general types of transitional 

political orders—those that are status quo–oriented, those that are hybrid in nature, and those 

that are power sharing.

Generally speaking, interim political orders that are status quo–oriented resemble the political order that was in place prior to the settlement that ended the fighting. In these instances, 

settlements do not call for a transitional government. Rather, the government in power at the 

time of the settlement remains in office. Status quo interim political orders also tend to be 

ones where few or no reforms take place to constrain the government’s power. Finally, although 

this type of political order may allocate some type of influence to previously excluded groups 

or allow for their future participation in politics, the power(s) granted are not likely to give 

those groups any real ability to hold the government to the commitments it made as part of 

the settlement. Status quo interim political orders tend to be the product of negotiated truces 

rather than fully negotiated settlements of intrastate conflict.106 Moldova and Morocco serve 

as examples of this type of interim political order. In the case of Moldova, although the 1992 

cease-fire agreement did create a tripartite Joint Control Commission to work on an agreement to prevent future violence, it also deferred issues regarding the Transdniestrian region’s 

status to a future political settlement. Morocco’s 1991 Settlement Plan put off any real type 

of political change by calling for a referendum on Saharawi self-determination that has yet to 

be held.
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At the opposite end of the spectrum, purely power-sharing peace settlements call for a 

transitional government to be established that includes opposition groups at the political center. In the case of these interim political orders, governments of national unity see contending groups share—or divide—power. Power can be distributed among groups politically, with 

cabinet seats being allocated to different factions, militarily (groups integrate their military 

forces during the transition period), or based on the division of economic or territorial spoils. 

During the Cambodian transitional period, state sovereignty was vested in a twelve-member 

Supreme National Council whose seats were divided between the incumbent governing party, 

the political opposition, and the insurgents. However, the incumbents’ retention of the public 

administration and military apparatus allowed them to leverage a dominant position after the 

elections at the transition’s end.

In between these extremes, a wide range of hybrid interim political orders are possible 

that combine some degree of continuity with power sharing and reform of institutions. Such 

combinations may be able to balance a need for stability with the demands of a negotiation 

for change in sensitive situations such as the multipolar Afghan context. Whether or not a 

transitional government is put into place, the settlements associated with this type of interim 

political order generally call for reforms that create institutions or rules that can constrain the 

government. Liberia and El Salvador offer two contrasting examples of hybrid political orders. 

The Liberian settlement established power sharing within the framework of an interim government with the added participation of civilian political parties and civil society (see box 10).

In contrast, the Salvadoran settlement maintained the constitutional framework and incumbent government during the transition, retaining considerable continuity and forcing the 

insurgents to gain access through competing within a democratic framework. However, it also 

introduced significant reforms that constrained the regime and gave both the insurgents and 

members of political and civil society a role in determining the nature of key institutions, such 

as the security organs and the electoral system (see box 11).

Given the concern over the protection of elements of the constitutional framework and international acceptance of the current government, the right combination of continuity, power 

sharing, and reform will be key to including but also constraining armed groups in general, and 

the Taliban in particular, in an Afghan peace settlement. A judicious combination of retaining 

the broad features of the constitution and government, but addressing significant reforms that 

provide both insurgent leaders and unarmed political and civil actors real influence and control 

over important decisions, such as security forces and the electoral system, may hold the best 

chance of managing a delicate transition.

Box 10. Liberia—Hybrid Political Order with an Interim Government

Liberia’s 2003 CPA established an interim government that combined power sharing by the warring 

parties with the inclusion of political parties and civil-society representatives at the political center 

through two transitional institutions. The CPA established the NTGL and the NTLA. The transitional 

government was headed by a chairman and a vice-chairman from political parties or civil society, and 

the twenty-one ministries were divided among the government and two armed factions (LURD and 

MODEL), political parties, and civil society. The warring factions each received five ministries, with 

the remaining six going to the political parties and civil society. 

Seats in the Transitional National Assembly were also distributed in an inclusive manner with the 

three warring parties—the government of Liberia, LURD, and MODEL—each receiving twelve seats, 

political parties getting eighteen seats, civil society and interest groups taking seven seats, and each 

of Liberia’s fifteen counties being assigned one seat. Other institutional reforms supported the more 

consensual politics based on these inclusive power-sharing bodies.1

1. Nilsson, Crafting a Secure Peace.
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BEYOND POWER SHARING: INSTITUTIONAL OPTIONS FOR AN AFGHAN PEACE PROCESS

Third-Party Roles in Verification and Creating Resilience

The signing of an agreement marks the beginning of new challenges, and the line between settlement and implementation may become blurred as unexpected events, new issues, questions, 

and disagreements arise. In Afghanistan the complexity of the conflict drivers, the multiplicity 

of actors and interests, and the prevalence of spoilers mean that setbacks and unforeseen challenges will be inevitable. Transitional arrangements will be needed that provide means for actors 

to consult with one another regarding issues that were not addressed during the process of negotiating the settlement and to contend with problems or setbacks that arise during the settlement 

implementation process. Provisions for inclusion and consultation among the conflict parties 

are key to providing this resilience, but they will also need to be supported by outsiders. 

Third-party actors—states, coalitions of states, regional and international organizations, 

and NGOs—may play a relatively limited or an extensive and even intrusive role during 

the post-conflict transition process. Third parties have in some instances limited themselves 

to providing oversight during the transitional period, while in others they have committed 

personnel to perform active roles in the political, security, and economic realms. For example, 

the OIC performed a narrow oversight function for the 1996 peace agreement signed by the 

government of the Philippines and the Moro National Liberation Front, while by far the most 

intrusive type of third-party involvement—and thus one of the least frequently employed—is 

the international trusteeship model seen in Bosnia and Herzegovina. 

The impact that third-party involvement in transitional arrangements has on the duration 

and shape of the peace is likely to depend on a number of factors, including the nature of the 

conflict, the number and identity of the third parties that play a role, and the level of resources 

these parties commit. Evidence indicates that the weaker the capacity of the post-conflict state, 

the more important international assistance during the transition stage is likely to be in helping 

to build the basis for a durable peace.107 Third-party commitments in relatively limited conflicts 

and small states such as Sierra Leone and Timor Leste have been dramatic indeed. 

However, there are limits to international involvement based on third-party interests and 

commitment and the complexity of the recipient post-conflict milieu. The risks of very intrusive approaches are considerable, particularly in large and complex environments such as 

Afghanistan. Intensive international involvement can crowd out domestic capacity and create 

a form of unsustainable rentier state, with external resources contributing to corruption and 

Box 11. El Salvador—Hybrid Political Order with Continuity and Reform

El Salvador’s peace settlement produced a hybrid interim political order. The country’s 1992 settlement retained the constitutional framework and did not call for an interim government before the 

national elections in 1994, instead allowing the incumbent government to remain. However, it did 

mandate a number of reforms that constrained the power of the government and began to address 

key causes of the conflict. 

These reforms included establishing a civilian commission to purge the officer corps of human 

rights violators, reducing the size of the army and disbanding the national police, treasury police, 

and national guard. In addition, it set up a National Commission for the Consolidation of the Peace 

(COPAZ)—including two government representatives, two representatives of the insurgent FMLN, 

and two representatives of other political parties in the legislative assembly—to monitor the implementation of the peace settlement. COPAZ, with its multiparty membership, was given key responsibilities that affected all the parties during the transitional period, such as drafting a revised electoral 

law, appointing the Supreme Electoral Tribunal, and recommending leadership of a new military 

academy.1

1. “The New York Agreement,” Section I. Text available in United Nations Department of Public Information, The United Nations and El 

Salvador, 1990–1995 (United Nations, 1995), 159.
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conflict through the distortion of heavy aid economies.108 Deep involvement in implementation can reduce the ability of third parties to retain a neutral role in mediating disputes as 

they arise. This problem has arguably occurred with the United Nations Assistance Mission in 

Afghanistan (UNAMA) as its mandate to support the Afghan government has increasingly 

conflicted with the need for good offices in the country. The United Nations Mission in El 

Salvador (ONUSAL) was a small, limited verification mission, but this hands-off orientation 

meant the United Nations was able to retain sufficient credibility with all parties to mediate 

several serious disputes during settlement implementation regarding cantonment, demobilization and disarmament, and land transfers that could have derailed the peace process.109

Of course, the final function of transitional arrangements in a peace settlement must be an 

agreed manner to transition to a longer-term set of institutions. This process often centers on 

elections, the ratification of a new constitution, or some other legitimating exercise such as a 

referendum. Indeed, the Bonn Process in Afghanistan was structured in such a way. Research 

suggests that most Afghans, and surprisingly even some active Taliban commanders, continue 

to support using elections to choose who governs Afghanistan, though concerns about foreign 

imposition of these mechanisms or the corruption of the process are also widespread. Some Afghan stakeholders still point to the Emergency and Constitutional Loya Jirgas held during the 

Bonn Process as legitimate forms of representation due to their inclusion of representatives from 

throughout the country, but they also view their outcomes as having been manipulated and hijacked by foreigners and leaders of armed factions.110 A key question for an Afghan peace process, 

given the political orientation of some parties and recent negative experience with elections, will 

be the acceptance across parties of elections, and if so, under what reform circumstances.

Beyond Power Sharing: Institutional Arrangements for the 

Long Term

Transitional and implementation arrangements can be considered successful if they solidify actors’ commitment to the peace during the uncertain period following the end of armed conflict. 

These arrangements do not provide a means for consolidating the peace, however:

If negotiations are conceived only as a means to reach agreement on ending a war, too 

often the results are a recycling of power within the same basic structures leaving the 

underlying causes largely untouched. . . . A peace process can present an opportunity that 

can be seized to develop a more peaceful future by addressing the issues generating 

conflict, reforming state institutions and key policies, as well as forging a sound basis for 

future relationships between those involved in the conflict.111

Divided societies that have experienced armed conflict face critical choices regarding the 

institutions they will rely upon in order to peacefully manage conflict. Rules or institutions regarding the nature and distribution of decision-making rights within the state must be agreed 

if a functioning state is to reemerge. Those rules must provide the state with sufficient power to 

establish and maintain domestic order, enforce rules for the management of conflict, and make 

decisions regarding the distribution of resources. 

Yet it is precisely this power that concerns groups in conflict. What if a rival faction comes 

to rule the state? How can a group ensure that its rival will not use its control of political power, 

coercive force, and economic resources to benefit some and against others?112 These concerns 

are particularly pronounced in Afghanistan, where a history of contests over central power and 

widespread perceptions that the state is captured are drivers of conflict. While enabling governance, institutions must not threaten the survival of any of the key parties to the conflict. One 

type of institutional arrangement that has been used to bridge these contending interests is 

Most Afghans, and 

surprisingly even some 

active Taliban 

commanders, continue 

to support using 

elections to choose who 

governs Afghanistan. 
33

BEYOND POWER SHARING: INSTITUTIONAL OPTIONS FOR AN AFGHAN PEACE PROCESS

political power sharing among contending factions. Sometimes power sharing is used to 

describe measures such as the division of cabinet posts or the ceding of territory among rival 

groups. As noted in the introduction, the prospect of this kind of division of spoils among 

conflict leaders is the source of considerable opposition to a peace process among Afghan 

political and social forces. Indeed, such a crude form of power sharing may present serious 

problems. 

First, to the extent that peace agreements distribute state power among contending groups 

based on their military strength, power-sharing arrangements prevent weak or noncombatant 

parties from participating in government. Excluding weak armed groups can produce spoilers, and excluding nonarmed actors such as civil society or nonmilitarized political parties neglects the interests of stakeholders not represented by armed groups. Power sharing may thus 

limit representation in government to extremists at the expense of moderates, and leave the 

elites least likely to uphold norms of nonviolent bargaining and conflict resolution in control 

of the state.113 The continued influence of the leaders of Afghan mujahedin factions in central 

or provincial government provides a salient example of this form of politics. A final concern 

is that the patronage networks connected to such leaders will have to share a potentially 

decreasing resource pool as transition proceeds, worsening the destabilizing implications of 

simply expanding inclusion in the current patronage setup to new armed parties.

However, power sharing can be seen more broadly than as the inclusion of war leaders 

in executive power. While definitions vary in the academic literature, power sharing is fundamentally about the distribution of decision-making rights among different political actors, 

especially when “designed to marry principles of democracy with the need for conflict management in deeply divided societies.”114 The concept often encompasses constitutional forms 

that give conflicting groups a stake in government through means such as coalition government, territorial autonomy, and minority rights. Some widen the idea to include procedures 

(such as electoral systems that encourage candidates to appeal across group lines) that aim to 

integrate conflicting groups.115

Many current conceptions of power sharing, particularly as it relates to peace processes, 

emphasize any of a wide range of institutions that distribute decision-making powers among 

groups in the society rather than concentrating powers in a narrow elite or single party.116 

Rigorous studies of a large number of conflicts have correlated such institutions with successful conflict settlement and more durable post-conflict peace.117 Recently two important findings in research on power sharing and conflict have been emerging. One is that the diversity 

of power-sharing configurations allows that combinations of more than one power-sharing 

institution can be used to reinforce each other and in turn greatly prolong peace.118 A second trend—discussed earlier—is the finding that peace is more durable when peacemaking and the resultant power-sharing institutions foster civil society inclusion, representation, 

or consultation.

Many analyses already recognize that an Afghan peace process must go beyond a narrow 

deal between the government and Taliban to encourage an “enlarged coalition government” 

on the one hand, or more “comprehensive” arrangements for social groups outside the main 

combatant factions.119 This also means going beyond the narrow and misplaced application of the term “reconciliation” to describe such a narrow negotiation between the Afghan 

government, the Taliban, and potentially Pakistan.120 In addition, any arrangements in an 

Afghan peace process should aim to reduce the current great distance between the formal 

institutions that are found in the constitution and political sphere, and the informal practices 
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that currently shape decision-making through negotiations among a range of patronage networks, outside or alongside the channels of institutionalized politics. The concentration of 

formal powers in the presidency is a key facilitating condition creating this distance. 

But specifically what means can be used to distribute decision-making powers beyond 

sharing power in the executive? This section describes how a combination of power-sharing, 

power-dividing, power-creating, and power-diffusing mechanisms can provide groups within 

divided societies with assurances that they will not be permanently excluded from state 

power and resources, or shut out of the policymaking process. In addition, such mechanisms 

can distribute decision-making powers and rights across a number of different dimensions 

of state power—that is, political, military, territorial, and economic. Building on this diversity, 

it is possible to get beyond the idea (and fears) of a political power-sharing arrangement 

among a narrow elite of war leaders to more varied and multidimensional solutions.121 Not 

all of these will be equally well suited to the Afghan context. Nevertheless, knowledge of the 

array of institutional options that exists as well as the different types of conflicts in which 

these institutions have been employed can help actors to design those arrangements that are 

most suitable given the parameters of the Afghan conflict. 

Dimensions of State Power

State power may be viewed as having political, military, territorial, and economic dimensions. 

As any one of these can add to a conflict party’s power, potentially to the detriment of other 

groups, rules (that is to say, institutions) regulating the exercise of power across each of these 

dimensions are of interest to groups in divided societies. However, each of these dimensions of 

state power is also divisible in ways that are different from the others, meaning it is possible to 

create institutions that impede any single group from exercising overall control over too many 

dimensions of state power.

■ The political dimension. The political dimension encompasses the exercise of power by 

actors at the political center via their control of decision-making and/or agenda-setting 

processes. Groups in divided societies are concerned that politics could become a zerosum game in which one group seizes control of the government and uses it to dominate 

or marginalize other groups. Power at the political center is generally allocated via one 

of three means—elections, executive appointments, and administrative appointments.

■ The military dimension. Military power, particularly the extent of the state monopoly on 

the legitimate means of violence, is a central dimension of state power. Who controls the 

military and other state security forces in the aftermath of armed conflict is of particular 

concern to groups in a divided society. Leaders and followers fear that, once they disarm, 

those who control the state’s coercive forces may use them to eliminate rival groups or 

damage their interests in some other way. Citizens and civil-society actors not represented 

by armed groups also have reason to fear this dimension of state power in the absence of 

checks on those who control the military levers of the state.

■ The economic dimension. The economic dimension of state power centers on the control 

and use of economic assets under the jurisdiction of the state. One form this may take is 

state ownership or control of subsoil resources. States may have the power to distort or 

limit market competition or define and alter property rights to direct resources and 

economic opportunities to favored groups. Although fostering distributive justice among 

groups may be necessary for long-term peace and development, groups in divided societies are likely to have a more immediate concern—ensuring that control of the state’s 

economic power does not provide some group with the means to exclude or threaten 

rivals—for example, by financing a return to armed conflict.
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BEYOND POWER SHARING: INSTITUTIONAL OPTIONS FOR AN AFGHAN PEACE PROCESS

■ The territorial dimension. This dimension of state power focuses on the exercise of political 

and administrative control over subnational units of the national territory. Political influence 

can be divided among different levels of government through territorially based decentralization (i.e., federalism, regional autonomy, or more modest forms of political decentralization) 

that provides groups with some degree of power and autonomy vis-à-vis the central government through locating certain kinds of decision making at subnational levels.

One may distinguish between power-sharing, power-dividing, power-creating, and 

power-diffusing mechanisms for distributing decision-making powers within the state. When 

combined with the four different dimensions of state power, this yields a wide variety of potential institutional arrangements. The most significant combinations are discussed next. 

Power Sharing

Power-sharing mechanisms balance state power among former adversaries by including multiple elites in decision making. Power sharing can occur along political, military, and economic 

dimensions of state power.

Political power sharing.

122 When groups feel threatened by majority rule, political power 

sharing can be designed to provide them with some guarantee of access to political power. 

Political power-sharing institutions rely on proportional strategies that share political power 

on the basis of some demographic (e.g., ethnicity or race) or political (e.g., party affiliation) 

principle. Groups are guaranteed representation within governing institutions by virtue of their 

group affiliation. The institutions at the heart of a proportional strategy for distributing political power are electoral proportional representation, administrative proportional representation, 

and proportional representation in the executive branch. 

Electoral proportional representation uses systems that tend to lower the level of voter 

support a candidate or party must achieve to gain political office, decreasing the intensity 

of political competition and minimizing the disparity between a party’s share of votes and 

the number of parliamentary seats it occupies. Administrative proportional representation 

guarantees groups’ access to influence through positions on courts, commissions, the civil or 

foreign services, and other offices. Finally, proportional representation in the executive branch 

ensures groups a voice in the innermost circle of political power by appointing representatives 

to cabinet positions. 

Political power sharing may utilize just one of these types of institutions or some combination of two or three of them. Consociationalism is a form of political power sharing using 

several proportional measures to guarantee ethnic, religious, or cultural groups representation 

at the political center. These measures include coalition cabinets in which executive power is 

shared among the parties, equality of power among ministers, and electoral proportional representation.123 These features aim to produce a mutual veto among groups over issues of mutual 

concern such as economic policy, and control by a single group over issues of concern to the 

group, such as cultural affairs. Consociationalism also calls for other measures such as balance 

of power between the executive and the legislature that might be classified as power dividing 

rather than power sharing.

While consociationalism can be an effective way of enabling deeply divided societies to 

manage ethnic or other group differences, it also broadly defines politics according to those differences, and may introduce rigidity over the long term, as shown by the provisions in Burundi 

or Lebanon’s consociational pacts (see boxes 12 and 13).

Military power sharing. To allay adversaries’ concerns about a rival group’s ability to 

use the state’s security forces to threaten their interests, the state’s coercive forces must 
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PEACEWORKS 78

somehow be neutralized or balanced. One way to achieve this is through military power 

sharing. Military power sharing calls for integrating rival factions’ armed forces and reconstituting them as the state’s security forces. This can be done either on the basis of some 

proportional formula representative of the size of the armed factions or on the basis of a 

strict balance in troop numbers among the contending parties. A military power-sharing 

arrangement has been put into effect in Burundi, where the state’s security forces are to 

include equal numbers of Hutus and Tutsis.

Economic power sharing. Economic power sharing attempts to mitigate contending groups’ 

concerns regarding state control of resources. Rules distribute wealth and income on some 

group basis, or at least prevent any one group from dominating economic resources. Economic 

power-sharing institutions may call for the state to allocate some specific pattern of resources 

to disadvantaged groups or to direct economic assets toward groups on the basis of geographic 

location. Sudan’s 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement roughly divides net revenue from oil 

between North and South Sudan.124

Power-sharing institutions in general are based on the logic that an assigned part of the 

influence available in a given domain should be allocated to contending factions on some 

group basis. This allocation is assumed to encourage a sense of mutual security. However, 

there are other ways to distribute such influence that may also be able to secure the assent 

of competing groups.

Power Dividing 

Power-dividing institutions distribute decision-making powers by providing checks and 

balances that avoid the concentration of power within any single part of the government, 

thereby preventing one actor from dominating decision making within a particular dimension of power. 

Political power dividing. Political power-dividing institutions allocate decision-making 

powers horizontally among the different branches of the government. A typical division of 

power is among the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of the state. Each of these 

branches is endowed with separate and independent powers and responsibilities, with no single 

branch to have more power than the others. Following Costa Rica’s civil war in 1948, a new 

constitution established the three supreme powers as the executive, legislative, and judicial 

branches, with the Congress and judiciary seeing an increase in their powers, thus ensuring a 

balance of power among all three branches of the government. Lack of clarity and poor impleBox 12. Burundi—Consociational Power Sharing in an Ethnically Divided Society

Burundi has experienced several ethnically based civil wars between the dominant Tutsi minority and 

the Hutu majority since the country became independent in 1961. The country’s most recent conflict, 

which began in 1993, ended with agreements signed in 2000, 2003, and 2006 calling for Tutsis and 

Hutus to share power at the political center. This is done within the executive branch by having the 

president assisted by two vice presidents who must be a Hutu and a Tutsi. In addition, the government is to include 60 percent Hutu and 40 percent Tutsi in its cabinet. 

Within the legislative branch, Hutu and Tutsi representation is to hold at the same proportion. The 

Senate is to consist of an equal number of Hutu and Tutsi representatives. Should elections fail to 

produce the required quota, the constitution allows “the rectification of the imbalances through the 

co-optation mechanism provided by the electoral code” (Article 164). Finally, Burundi’s postwar constitution also calls for political power sharing at the communal level, with no more than 67 percent of 

the country’s mayors to belong to either the Tutsi or the Hutu group.1

1. René Lemarchand, “Consociationalism and Power-Sharing in Africa: Rwanda, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo,” 

African Affairs 106, no. 422 (2006): 8.
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BEYOND POWER SHARING: INSTITUTIONAL OPTIONS FOR AN AFGHAN PEACE PROCESS

mentation in the constitutional relationships between branches of the Afghan government 

have bedevilled politics since the election of the National Assembly in 2005, with the executive 

branch using a range of methods to subvert and minimize the role of the Assembly. 

Military power dividing. Military power-dividing mechanisms attempt to provide a means 

of checking the ability of a majority group to use the coercive apparatus of the state to damage 

the interests of weaker groups. A principal means by which this has been done is to mandate the 

appointment of members of a subordinate group to key leadership positions including general, 

commander, director, or defense minister in the state’s security forces, thereby ensuring that 

the chain of command is shared among groups. An example of this type of institution is the 

commissioning of Southern Sudan Liberation Movement leader and Anya-Nya commanderin-chief Major General Joseph Lagu as major general in the unified Sudanese army at the end 

of Sudan’s civil war in 1972. Concerns about the ethnic composition of the leadership of the 

security forces in Afghanistan are frequently cited by leaders of various political factions.

Territorial power dividing. Power may also be divided vertically among levels of government, and may involve the allocation of territorial power among groups. By strengthening 

territorial units, territorial power-dividing institutions provide groups at the subnational level 

with some degree of autonomy vis-à-vis the central government. Examples of territorial powerdividing institutions include decentralization (also called devolution; see box 14), regional 

autonomy, and federalism. 

Territorial power-dividing institutions can also be shaped to address specific groups or conflict drivers more directly. In Macedonia, following a brief ethnic conflict, decentralization to municipalities aimed to pass ethnically based cultural protections down to local levels (see box 15).

Economic power dividing. Generally used in conjunction with territorial power-dividing 

institutions, economic power-dividing measures are ones that transfer responsibilities over certain areas of activity and corresponding fiscal powers—that is, taxing and spending rights—to 

political subunits. Examples can be the use of community development funds (CDFs) in which 

communities or other subnational units choose their own priorities for the use of development 

spending, as in the National Solidarity Program in Afghanistan or the Indonesian Kecamatan 

Development Program.

Power Creating

Institutions that create new centers of power can act as a counterweight to existing centers 

of decision making. New centers of power or decision-making rights can be created from 

scratch. They can also be developed by giving formal recognition and legal structure to powers 

Box 13. Lebanon—Religious Consociationalism

Lebanon’s Ta’if Accord, signed in 1989 as a means of ending the country’s fifteen-year civil war, is 

a reformulation of a previous conflict management agreement, the National Pact of 1943. Both 

agreements are organized along religious confessional lines. Sectarian proportionality is still a 

characteristic of the agreement, but the proportion of Muslim to Christian legislators and officials has 

been increased to 50/50. The president of the republic remains a Maronite Christian, but his powers 

have been substantially reduced. The prime minister remains a Sunni Muslim, but the powers of the 

Council of Ministers, which he chairs, have been increased. The office of president of the Chamber of 

Deputies still goes to a Shiite, but his term is increased from one year to four, as is his influence. The 

power of the chamber has been increased by the elimination of the old provision allowing the executive to pass “urgent” legislation without parliamentary involvement. Finally, the Ta’if Accord calls for 

a gradual phasing out of political sectarianism.1

1. Michael C. Hudson, “Lebanon after Ta’if: Another Reform Opportunity Lost?” Arab Studies Quarterly (1999).
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heretofore exercised informally by customary institutions or actors, or indeed by creating new 

functions for customary institutions. Numerous examples of power-creating institutions exist 

for the political dimension of state power, with some countries devising new institutions of 

government as a means of checking the power of the executive, for example. An example of 

an economic power-creating institution is an independent central bank which is empowered 

to set monetary policy. Costa Rica, after its 1948 civil war, created new centers of power and 

diminished executive dominance by moving key functions such as elections and oversight of 

public finance to newly created autonomous institutions (see box 16).

In Afghanistan, new institutions such as the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights 

Commission, the Independent Administrative and Civil Service Reform Commission, and 

the Independent Electoral Commission have been created. However, these notably lack 

independence or a clearly mandated set of roles that would enable them to act as powercreating institutions.

Power Diffusing

Power-diffusing mechanisms spread decision-making rights and powers that had previously 

rested with one actor to multiple actors, thereby involving multiple influences in a consensual 

process. This type of institution has typically been used within the political dimension as a 

means of reducing the power of the executive, and often relates to appointment processes. 

One illustration of the diversity of power-diffusing arrangements is the power to appoint 

ministers, particularly where legislators are able to use proportionality or other rules to introduce balance vis-à-vis partisan, identity, or regionally based appointments made by the 

executive. In some countries, such as Mongolia, the legislature appoints ministers outright. 

In others, the legislature exercises appointment powers on the recommendation of the executive, as in Bulgaria and Ireland, or the executive may be required to appoint ministers in 

proportion to the representation of parties in the legislature, as in Fiji. Another form of this 

power diffusion is the right to approve the government as a whole, though not individual 

ministers, as is found in Romania. 

In Afghanistan the constitution requires appointed ministers to receive approval from the 

legislature, as is also the case in China, but this requirement has been flouted in practice. In 

the absence of a developed party system or a proportional electoral framework, such power 

diffusion can also act as an opportunity for corruption. Furthermore, diffusing power over the 

Box 14. Rwanda—Decentralization as a Power-Dividing Process

The Rwandan decentralization policy notes that decentralization is part of the “principle of powersharing as expressed in the Arusha Peace Accord between between the Government of the Rwandan Republic and Rwandan Patriotic Front. Up to now power-sharing has only been seen among the 

political elite at Parliament and Executive levels. The decentralization policy will reinforce powersharing by ensuring that the Rwandese people themselves are empowered to shape their political, 

economic, and social destiny.”1 Decentralization has enabled districts and communities to determine 

their leadership through democratic elections, institutionalized participatory development planning, 

and involved groups such as women, youth, and the disabled in decision making. However, the 

process began as a top-down initiative after the peace agreement, and generating the necessary 

political, civic, and bureaucratic buy-in to effectively decentralize real authority over decision making 

and resources has taken over a decade, and must be considered an ongoing process rather than a 

single reform.2

1. Government of Rwanda, “Decentralization Policy,” Ministry of Local Government, Good Governance, Community Development and 

Social Affairs, May 2000.

2. John-Mary Kauzya, “Political Decentralization in Africa: Experiences of Rwanda, Uganda and South Africa” (discussion paper, Governance 

and Public Administration Branch, United Nations Department for Economic and Social Affairs, December 2007).
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BEYOND POWER SHARING: INSTITUTIONAL OPTIONS FOR AN AFGHAN PEACE PROCESS

Box 15. Macedonia—Power Dividing through Decentralization to Municipalities

The 2001 Ohrid Framework Agreement aimed to provide a political settlement to conflict among 

Macedonia’s majority Macedonians and the Albanian minority. Among its basic principles, the framework agreement declared, “The development of local self-government is essential for encouraging 

the participation of citizens in democratic life, and for promoting respect for the identity of communities” but also that “there are no territorial solutions to ethnic issues,” rejecting federalism and 

autonomy, perceived as possible stepping-stones for secession. Instead, symmetric decentralization 

to an adjusted number of municipalities was pursued to offer limited autonomy to Macedonia’s 

ethnic communities by increasing the number of competencies administered at the municipal level, 

including greater use of national languages and symbols, equitable representation of municipal 

employees, the use of “double-majority” voting in municipal councils, and municipal Committees for 

Inter-Community Relations.

The decentralization process in Macedonia has widely been regarded as a success story and is frequently considered a suitable model of ethnic conflict management that can be replicated in other 

regional contexts. However, the lack of transparency with which the boundaries of the eighty-three 

municipalities were redrawn gave rise to accusations that decentralization was becoming a “zerosum” negotiation over control and access to resources between the two largest ethnic groups, and 

many smaller ethnic communities living scattered throughout the country fail to reach the thresholds 

required to benefit from the protection mechanisms.1

1. A. Lyon, “Municipal Decentralisation in the Republic of Macedonia: Preserving a Multi- Ethnic State?” Federal Governance 8, no. 3 (2011): 

28–49.

Box 16. Costa Rica—Political Power-Creating Institutions

Following the country’s civil war in 1948, Costa Rica created two autonomous state organs that are 

equivalent in power to the legislative, executive, and judicial branches, although they are not equivalent in rank. The first is the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE), an independent constitutional agency 

with full power to administer elections. The judges that make up the TSE are appointed by two thirds 

of the members of the Supreme Court of Justice for a period of six years with the possibility of a 

renewed appointment. The TSE has the power to organize, implement, and supervise all elections, 

including presidential, legislative, and local elections. Its decisions on the outcome of these elections 

are not subject to appeal.1

The second institution to be created in Costa Rica at this time was the Office of the Comptroller 

General, an autonomous and independent state organ nominally subordinate to the Legislative 

Assembly. The Comptroller General’s powers lie in the area of the vigilance of public finance. It is 

responsible for approving all budgets and can initiate actions leading to the removal of actors who 

have misappropriated public funds.2

1. Rubén Hernádez Valle, “Costa Rica: A Powerful Constitutional Body,” in Electoral Management Bodies (Stockholm: International IDEA), 

www.Idea.int/publications/emd/upload/EMD_CS_Costa_Rica.pdf.

2. Costa Rica, Office of the Comptroller General of the Republic, “Political Constitution,” www.intosaiitaudit.org/mandates/mandates/Mandates/Costa%20Rica.html#Costa_Rica.

composition of the government may be limited as a source of influence if policy making largely 

lies outside the cabinet in informal political arrangements with power brokers, as is often currently the case in Afghanistan.

However, power can be diffused over other kinds of appointments. The president of Afghanistan enjoys an extraordinarily high degree of autonomy in the power of appointment to 

judicial, administrative, and subnational posts, a problem that has also been known to contribute to governance problems in divided societies such as the Philippines. Such concentration of 

appointment power is not an inherent feature of presidential systems, and when it is present it 

tends to encourage a personalistic, zero-sum, and transactional form of politics, rather than the 

institutionalization of processes, checks, and balances (see box 17). 

Legislatures might play a role in appointing or approving members of the judiciary or 

the civil service, perhaps making use of proportionality or other types of rules (the nature 

of these rules should be made as transparent as possible) to ensure that power is diffused 

in conflict-sensitive ways. Other actors could also play a role in appointment processes. 
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Members of civil society or the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission 

might serve on commissions charged with vetting candidates for public administrative or 

military positions, for example. It is important to note that the enforcement of these rules 

must be strongly incentivized—half-hearted attempts to give a relatively neutral Senior 

Appointments Panel or the Independent Directorate of Local Governance roles in choosing key administrative appointees have both foundered in Afghanistan. Given the role of 

the international community in funding the expenses and salaries of many officials, more 

could be done to encourage such diffusion of power.

Distributing Decision-Making Power

Table 1 illustrates some examples of the different categories of institutions discussed, and thus 

illustrates the breadth of the menu of options available to describe the allocation of decisionmaking powers in a political settlement. Some mechanisms that may have particular potential 

for addressing aspects of the Afghan conflict appear in bold font. These are but some examples of the range of institutions beyond executive power sharing that can distribute decisionmaking powers, contribute to actors’ security in the long term, and involve new players such 

as civil society. They are offered in order to prompt discussion, and not as a definitive or exhaustive list.

Much of the debate about a peace settlement with insurgents in Afghanistan focuses only 

on two of the sixteen available cells in this matrix: political or territorial power sharing through 

assignment of central or provincial executive positions. However, a wide range of potential 

measures could create opportunities among the conflicting parties in Afghanistan to share 

influence, as well as balance that influence among conflict parties with more roles for noncombatants, civilian political actors, and vulnerable groups.

Decisions regarding how state decision-making rights and powers are to be distributed 

are not the only challenging issues facing Afghanistan. Nevertheless, an awareness of the 

different types of institutions that have been used to manage conflict in countries emerging from violence, coupled with an assessment of those most appropriate for the Afghan 

context, can serve as a basis for structuring a peace that addresses the sensitivities and mistrust, legitimacy crisis, and sense of lose-lose politics that are currently rife in the country. 

Box 17. Inadequate Diffusion of Appointment Powers in the Philippines

The president of the Philippines appoints the following officials with only nominal and ineffective 

checks by the legislature:

■ secretaries (ministers) and undersecretaries of departments

■ chairpersons or heads of bureaus or offices

■ members of Constitutional Commissions (including on human rights), and the Office of the 

Ombudsman

■ ambassadors and consuls

■ officers of the armed forces, from the rank of colonel or naval captain

■ heads of government-owned or -controlled corporations and their subsidiaries

■ all other officers of government whose appointments are not otherwise provided by law.

These broad powers of appointment encourage patronage politics and corruption, and result in an 

“imperial presidency” that overwhelms the other branches and politicizes the judiciary. This undermines the creation of professional institutions that could render the presidency accountable, and has 

threatened government legitimacy, prompting calls for more effective checks.1 

1. Aquilino Q. Pimentel, “The Presidential Form of Government in the Philippines: A Critique,” in Comó Hacer Que Funciona el Sistema 

Presidencial, ed. Andrew Ellis, J. Jesús Orozco Henríquez, and Daniel Zovatto (Mexico City: UNAM/International IDEA 2009), 151–156.
41

BEYOND POWER SHARING: INSTITUTIONAL OPTIONS FOR AN AFGHAN PEACE PROCESS

Table 1: Distributing Decision-Making Powers in Divided Societies

Dimension of 

State Power

Power-Sharing Power-Dividing Power-Creating Power-Diffusing

Political Political assignment of vice 

presidencies or 

cabinet positions; electoral 

proportional 

representation; rotating 

presidency

Improve balance 

of power among 

branches of 

government

Genuinely independent electoral commission; 

independent 

public finance 

authority

Effective 

legislative role 

in cabinet selection; approval 

of judicial and 

administrative 

appointments 

shared among 

political and civil 

society actors

Territorial Assignment 

of provincial 

governorates

Political and 

administrative 

decentralization; territorial autonomy; 

federalism

Formation of 

new levels of 

government

Elected provincial governors

Military Integration of 

rival militaries

Appointment of 

member of rival 

military as head 

of military forces

Disbandment 

and recreation of 

civilian military 

forces

Party-based, 

civil, or human 

rights vetting of 

military appointments; allow 

rival groups to 

retain security 

forces

Economic Revenues shared 

on group basis

Fiscal 

decentralization

Independent 

central bank

Types of Mechanisms

These power-sharing, power-dividing, power-creating, and power-diffusing institutions 

are not without their limitations. For one, they reflect the formal institutional channels of 

politics, which as noted earlier are often supplanted in Afghanistan by a government of 

relationships. However, the creation of mechanisms that include more stakeholders in formal decision making can over time lessen the distance between state institutions and the 

informal practices of power by increasing the need to negotiate and build consensus and 

improving transparency. These types of institutions tend to be elite-centric and, focused as they 

are on balancing power among various groups, may be limited in their potential to generate new 

interests that cut across group lines. While it is important to be mindful of these limitations, 

these institutional arrangements may also reflect the art of the possible given current conditions, 

and could play a role in laying the ground for a future defined not by violent competition but by 

political interaction. 

Conclusions 

This report has addressed broadly the impacts that the complexity of the Afghan conflict 

may have on the various phases of a peace process to bring the country to a durable negotiated political settlement, and introduced a selection of theoretical and practical institutional options that might help address these impacts. Some general conclusions about those 

options at each phase are presented here, building on the more detailed discussion in the 

body of the report. 
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PEACEWORKS 78

A peace process requires still more active engagement. Outright military victory for any side 

appears unlikely, but the military situation is not sufficiently stable or acute to bring the parties 

to the table. While there is an increasing awareness of the need for a negotiated solution, the 

emergence of a peace process is also blocked by deep mistrust, incoherence, and insecurity on 

the part of the primary actors, whether domestic, regional, or international. Active engagement 

is needed to encourage the initiation of a process. 

■ A framework of interested (but not overly implicated) and resourceful supporters from 

other states and potentially NGOs, Islamic institutions, or multilateral associations, 

coupled with an impartial mediator, could introduce confidence. The involvement of 

third-party actors who have an unambiguous pro-peace process agenda can add credibility to the process by bringing proposals and resources to the problems of initiating 

negotiations. 

■ Despite concerns about full recognition of insurgent actors, support structures will need 

to increase the confidence of insurgents that negotiations represent a viable path to 

achieving security and some core aims in order to strengthen pro-dialogue arguments 

among hard-line conflict actors. At the same time, these structures need to reassure other 

actors and potential political and regional spoilers. 

A negotiation may be preceded by efforts to agree on a negotiating framework. Part of the decision to enter negotiations with serious intent will rest on the negotiating framework for such 

talks and some parameters for the goals of the talks being agreed to by key parties. Even a set 

of minimally acceptable principles and basic procedures will help generate confidence. These 

are not the same as unilateral preconditions, though constructive unilateral declarations can 

play a role in developing them.

■ More detailed proposals are needed for a negotiating framework that reflects procedural and substantive concerns of the parties in formulae for participation, agenda, 

sequencing, and verification; these could emerge through unilateral declarations, active 

mediation, exchanges between the parties, track II engagement, or combinations of 

these means.

■ It should not be expected that such a negotiating framework can be agreed to quickly. 

Time and effort will be needed to establish some degree of consensus among and within 

the relevant parties and establish necessary practical confidence measures to facilitate 

negotiations, and in doing so generate some momentum toward talks. 

Beyond gaining the assent of the primary conflict parties to initiate a peace negotiation, it is vital that the process be framed to include other political and social interests. It is not only desirable 

but essential for the quality and the durability of the outcome that diverse political actors 

and civil-society opinions have avenues for expression and inclusion in the peace process.

■ The conflict in Afghanistan consists of a number of overlapping structures, and the 

dynamics of these conflict structures will change as transition proceeds. It is important 

that stakeholders beyond the government and the insurgents be represented in order to 

support a process that addresses a wider range of root causes or risk factors, such as 

governance, ethnicity, and gender. 

■ Broadening inclusion beyond the government and insurgents can move negotiation of 

political elements of a peace settlement beyond the extremes normally represented by 

armed actors in a conflict to reflect the range of—possibly more moderate—opinions 

represented by civilian social forces. 

■ There is a range of ways to facilitate expanded inclusion, such as through representation 

by civilian politicians, consultation with civil-society assemblies, or direct representation 

Broadening inclusion 

beyond the government 

and insurgents can move 

negotiation of . . . a 

peace settlement beyond 

the extremes normally 

represented by armed 

actors in a conflict to 

reflect the range of . . . 

opinions represented by 

civilian social forces. 
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BEYOND POWER SHARING: INSTITUTIONAL OPTIONS FOR AN AFGHAN PEACE PROCESS

of civil society in negotiations locally or nationally. Civil-society actors should also consider how active to be in leading discussion or pressuring for certain processes, and 

around what issues or interests organization and action will be most effective. 

Transitional arrangements will need to be designed and agreed on that can help address difficult 

security, governance, and verification concerns in order to generate confidence in a peace process. 

Reaching a settlement will require considerable detail on certain key challenges for the transitional period.

■ Security is and will continue to be a paramount risk to any process, given the incoherent 

conflict actors and likely spoilers and the difficulties inherent in providing security support in Afghanistan. Creative use of armed cease-fires, cantonment, joint monitoring, 

and third-party support will likely be needed. 

■ The outlines of a hybrid interim political arrangement that combines aspects of the 

current regime and assurances for stakeholders invested in it with necessary checks and 

reforms for new actors will be needed. Transitioning from this interim order to a longerterm settlement may require careful consideration of means such as elections or representative assemblies, given the challenges these means have faced already. 

■ Given the mistrust and the incoherence of the parties, robust monitoring, verification, 

and problem-solving institutions will be needed and will be difficult to establish. These 

mechanisms may be a good avenue for including civilian actors along with conflict parties in joint monitoring and implementation support mechanisms. The balance between 

intrusive and more neutral third-party support will also be an important consideration: 

while robust international support may be warranted, this must also be weighed against 

appetite and the risks for third-party neutrality and flexibility in assisting with problems 

during implementation.

Power sharing and reform are not mutually exclusive approaches to addressing the political dimensions of the conflict in Afghanistan. A false dichotomy has at times been drawn between 

negotiating peace with insurgents and pursuing necessary governance reforms. Power sharing 

will be part of any long-term agreement, but this should not be conceived of as simply sharing posts between government and insurgent, but as a range of mechanisms to include many 

stakeholders in generating more effective and accountable governance and in establishing the 

foundations for a more capable, accountable, and resilient state. 

■ Discussions among political, social, and civil-society elements in Afghanistan can consider the range of institutional options available that help share, divide, diffuse, or even 

create decision-making power across different dimensions of state power.

■ Broadening the agenda to include a range of potential reforms across many institutions may 

be a good way to make space for the concerns of a larger range of stakeholders, and protect 

the interests of more groups, whether conflict parties or unarmed civilian actors, against the 

consequences of actual or perceived domination of decision making by others. 

An important theme running through this report is the interdependence of the phases of 

the peace process. To prepare and then begin a negotiation process requires not just a conducive military situation, but also the development of options for future phases that can induce 

interest from all parties and generate the confidence needed to take the initial steps. Establishing a negotiating framework in turn requires some determination of key issues and parameters 

for the peace settlement even in advance of that negotiation, as well as preparing for the challenges of maintaining coherence and addressing setbacks and spoilers.

Conversely, the kind of process established to handle negotiations will influence the comprehensiveness, quality, and therefore sustainability of the outcomes both in the transitional 
44

PEACEWORKS 78

period and over the longer term. In this sense, all the phases of a peace process are linked. That 

is why, precisely when doubts about the likelihood of a negotiated settlement may weigh heaviest on the parties to the Afghan conflict, it is so important to work hard to imagine options 

that might overcome those barriers.
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BEYOND POWER SHARING: INSTITUTIONAL OPTIONS FOR AN AFGHAN PEACE PROCESS

Notes

1. International Security Assistance Force, “ISAF Violence Trends,” Unclassified Monthly Release (presentation, Kabul, September 30, 2011), 4. 

2. Prominent assassinations in 2011 include General Seyyedkheil (Kunduz police chief, March 10), Khan 

Mohammad (Kandahar police chief, April 15), General Daud Daud (police commander for Northern Zone, 

May 28), Ahmad Wali Karzai (head of Kandahar Provincial Council, July 12), Hikmatullah Hikmat (head 

of Kandahar ulema shura, July 14), Jan Mohammad Khan (senior presidential adviser, July 17), Ghulam 

Haydar Hamidi (mayor of Kandahar city, July 27), and Burhanuddin Rabbani (chairman of the High Peace 

Council, leader of Jamiat-e Islami, September 20). While attribution of all the killings to the Taliban is 

questionable, along with numerous attacks on less prominent figures, they demonstrate a dramatic escalation 

and a chilling effect on state functioning. See Kate Clark, Killings Keep Leaders at Home, blog post, 

Afghanistan Analysts Network, August 4, 2011, www.aan-afghanistan.org/index.asp?id=1983.

3. For concerns with Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) attrition rates, leadership, and sustainment 

costs, see Anthony H. Cordesman, “Afghanistan Win or Lose: Transition and the Coming Resource 

Crisis” (presentation, Center for Strategic and International Studies, September 22, 2011), http://csis.org/

publication/afghanistan-win-or-lose-transition-and-resource-crisis. On concerns with irregular forces, see 

Human Rights Watch, “‘Just Don’t Call It a Militia’: Impunity, Militias, and the ‘Afghan Local Police,’” 

September 2011.

4. The U.S. Treasury estimates of the economic contraction due to decreasing security and aid expenditures 

range from 12 to 40 percent, while the World Bank assesses that some 54 percent of GDP is related to 

services primarily linked to international military and aid spending. Cordesman, “Afghanistan Win or 

Lose,” 2.

5. Kathy Gannon and Anne Gearon, “US-Taliban Talks Were Making Headway,” Associated Press, August 29, 

2011); “Haqqani Network Denies Killing Afghan Envoy Rabbani,” BBC Online, October 3, 2011, www.bbc.

co.uk/news/world-south-asia-15143513; Carlotta Gall, “Insurgent Faction Presents Afghan Peace Plan,” 

New York Times, March 23, 2010. 

6. Thomas Ruttig, “Negotiations with the Taliban: History and Prospects for the Future,” New America 

Foundation, May 23, 2011, 7, 22; Ahmed Rashid, “What the Taliban Wants,” blog post, New York Review 

of Books, August 29, 2011, www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2011/aug/29/what-taliban-wants/. For a rebuttal of Rashid’s analysis, see S. Iftikhar Murshed, “Mullah Omar’s Eid Message,” International News, 

September 25, 2011. For evidence from former Taliban officials and insurgent commanders, see Hamish 

Nixon, “Achieving Durable Peace: Afghan Perspectives on a Peace Process,” PRIO Paper (Oslo: Chr. 

Michelsen Institute/Peace Research Institute Oslo/United States Institute of Peace, May 2011), 16–17. 

7. Susan Sachs, “Failed Peace Council Dashes Hopes Afghans Can Achieve Reconciliation,” Globe and Mail, 

October 16, 2011.

8. I. William Zartman, “Structures of Escalation and Negotiation,” in Escalation and Negotiation in 

International Conflict, ed. I. William Zartman and Guy Faure (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 

2005), 177. For example, in El Salvador in 1989, insurgents pursued “spectacular” attacks in the capital, San 

Salvador, successfully demonstrating that security could not be preserved in the most guarded precincts of 

the country. The Bosnian conflict was marked with large territorial gains, severe massacres, and the widest 

NATO escalation of air strikes in the year before the Dayton agreement was signed.

9. Associated Press, “Head of Islamic School that Spawned Taliban Insurgents Offers to Help Afghan Talks,” 

November 1, 2011.

10. Ruttig, “Negotiations with the Taliban,” 10; CNN Wire Staff, “Karzai Seeks Peace Talks with Pakistan, not 

Taliban,” CNN Online, October 1, 2011. 

11. Moeed Yusuf, Huma Yusuf, and Salman Zaidi, “Pakistan, the United States and the End Game in 

Afghanistan: Perceptions of Pakistan’s Foreign Policy Elite,” Policy Brief/Peace Brief, Jinnah Institute/

United States Institute of Peace, July 25, 2011, 3. 

12. See, for example, Omar Samad, “Afghanistan at a Critical Juncture,” AfPak Channel blog post, Foreign Policy,

October 6, 2011, http://afpak.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/10/06/afghanistan_at_a_critical_juncture.

13. Century Foundation, “Afghanistan: Negotiating Peace, the Report of The Century Foundation 

International Task Force on Afghanistan in Its Regional and Multilateral Dimensions” (New York: 

Century Foundation, 2011), 27; U.S. Department of State, “Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, 

Launch of the Asia Society’s Series of Richard C. Holbrooke Memorial Addresses,” transcript of remarks, 

February 18, 2011.

14. For examples, see “Could a Deal with the Taliban End the war in Afghanistan?” editorial, Washington Post, 

October 7, 2010; Astri Suhrke et al., “Conciliatory Approaches to the Insurgency in Afghanistan: An 

Overview,” in CMI Report (Bergen/Oslo: Chr. Michelsen Institute/PRIO, 2009), 4. The Century 

Foundation report notes that a sharing of ministries is likely and also considers the broader political order 

over the longer term. See Century Foundation, “Afghanistan,” 28. In July 2011, civil-society activists in 
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PEACEWORKS 78

Kabul speculated that certain ministries (Foreign Affairs, Education, Defense) were being kept filled with 

“acting” ministers to ease such a process. Afghan civil society leader, interview, Kabul, July 2011.

15. Nixon, “Achieving Durable Peace,” 13–14; Alissa J. Rubin, “Thousands of Afghans Rally in Kabul to Reject 

Any Peace with Taliban,” New York Times, May 5, 2011. 

16. Ruttig, “Negotiations with the Taliban,” 22. 

17. Catherine Barnes, “Renegotiating the Political Settlement in War-to-Peace Transitions,” paper commissioned by DFID (London: Conciliation Resources, 2009), 20. The concept of “mutually enticing opportunities” (MEOs) as necessary supplements to stalemate is discussed in Thomas Ohlson, “Understanding 

Causes of War and Peace,” European Journal of International Relations 14, no. 1 (2008): 147; I. William 

Zartman, “MEOs and Durable Settlements: A Theoretical and Empirical Evaluation of the Reasons for 

Durability of Peaceful Settlements in Civil Wars” (paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American 

Political Science Association, September 2–5, 2004, http://citation.allacademic.com/meta/p_mla_apa_

research_citation/0/6/0/1/7/pages60174/p60174-1.php.

18. Gretchen Birkle, Michael O’Hanlon, and Hasina Sherjan, “Toward a Political Strategy for Afghanistan,” 

Policy Paper 27 (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, May 2011), 10.

19. A seminal conflict-mapping framework is presented in Paul Wehr, Conflict Regulation (Boulder, CO: 

Westview Press, 1979); see also Dennis Sandole, “A Comprehensive Mapping of Conflict and Conflict 

Resolution: A Three Pillar Approach,” Peace and Conflict Studies 5, no. 2 (December 1998): 1–30. For other 

references, see Paul Wehr, “Conflict Mapping,” in Beyond Intractability, ed. Guy Burgess and Heidi Burgess 

(September 2006), www.beyondintractability.org/essay/conflict_mapping/.

20. For examples, see Swedish International Development Agency, Manual for Conflict Analysis (Stockholm: 

SIDA, 2006), 9–15; Jonathan Goodhand, Tony Vaux, and Robert Walker, Conducting Conflict 

Assessments: Guidance Notes (London: Department for International Development, 2002), 10–17.

21. Corinna Vigier, Conflict Assessment Afghanistan (American Friends Service Committee, 2009), 34–57.

22. The United Nations reported a 39 percent rise in security incidents in the first eight months of 2011 over 

the same period in 2010. United Nations, “The Situation in Afghanistan and Its Implications for 

International Peace and Security,” Report of the Secretary-General, UN Doc A/66/369-S/2011/590, 

September 21, 2011. In contrast, ISAF claimed improved security, noting declines in “enemy-initiated 

attacks” during July–August 2011 as compared to 2010, a discrepancy explained by the exclusion of coalition 

actions as well as several categories of events including assassinations (of which the United Nations recorded 

126 in July and August). ISAF, “Violence Statistics and Analysis Media Brief,” September 29, 2011, www.

isaf.nato.int/article/isaf-releases/isaf-violence-statistics-and-analysis-media-brief-sept.-29-2011.html.

23. Nixon, “Achieving Durable Peace,” 7–14. 

24. Sippi Azarbaijani-Moghaddam, “Northern Exposure for the Taliban,” in Decoding the New Taliban: Insights 

from the Afghan Field, ed. Antonio Giustozzi (New York: Columbia University Press, 2009), 264; Antonio 

Giustozzi, Koran, Kalashnikov and Laptop: The Neo-Taliban Insurgency in Afghanistan (London: Hurst & 

Company, 2008), 48; Antonio Giustozzi, “The Taliban Beyond the Pashtuns,” The Afghanistan Papers 

(Waterloo, ON: Centre for International Governance Innovation, 2010), 12.

25. Bernt Glatzer, “Is Afghanistan on the Brink of Ethnic and Tribal Disintegration?” in Fundamentalism 

Reborn? Afghanistan and the Taliban, ed. William Maley (London: Hurst and Co., 1998); Bernt Glatzer, 

“The Pashtun Tribal System,” in Concept of Tribal Society, ed. G. Pfeffer and D. K. Behera (New Delhi: 

Concept Publishers, 2002) .

26. Martine van Bijlert, The Battle for Afghanistan: Militancy and Conflict in Zabul and Uruzgan (Washington, 

DC: New America Foundation, 2010), 3; Thomas Ruttig, “How Tribal Are the Taliban? Thematic Report” 

(Afghanistan Analysts Network, 2010), 3, 24. For the view that tribe is overemphasized, see Giles 

Dorronsoro, “Focus and Exit: An Alternative Strategy for the Afghan War” (Washington, DC: Carnegie 

Endowment for International Peace, 2009), 4. On the role of drugs in fueling both order and disorder, see 

Tom Coghlan, “The Taliban in Helmand: An Oral History,” in Decoding the New Taliban: Insights from the 

Afghan Field, ed. Antonio Giustozzi (New York: Columbia University Press, 2009), 122–124, and Jonathan 

Goodhand, “Corrupting or Consolidating the Peace? The Drugs Economy and Post-Conflict Peacebuilding 

in Afghanistan,” International Peacekeeping 15, no. 3 (June 2008).

27. The seminal account being Ahmed Rashid, Taliban: The Story of the Afghan Warlords, 2nd ed. (London: Pan, 

2001), ch. 1.

28. Nixon, “Achieving Durable Peace,” 10 12.

29. See for example, Swedish International Development Agency, “Manual for Conflict Analysis,” 11.

30. James Shinn and James Dobbins, “Afghan Peace Talks: A Primer” (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 

2011), 17–69. The authors do take care to enumerate divisions and divergences of interests within the dozen 

actors they identify, a task requiring more than fifty pages of description.

31. For a recent example of such an analysis, see Citha Maas and Thomas Ruttig, Is Afghanistan on the Brink of 

a New Civil War? Possible Scenarios and Influencing Factors in the Transition Process, SWP Comments (Berlin: 

German Institute for International and Security Affairs, 2011). For the model of the “violent political 
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marketplace,” see Alex de Waal, “Mission without End? Peacekeeping in the African Political Marketplace,”

International Affairs 85, no. 1 (2009): 106.

32. Council on Foreign Relations, “Combating Afghanistan’s ‘Malign Governance,’” interview with Stephen 

Biddle, October 1, 2010, www.cfr.org/afghanistan/combating-afghanistans-malign-governance/p23071.

33. On the Kandahari/Paktiawal fissure, see Ruttig, “How Tribal Are the Taliban?” 13; on the “Waziristan 

militant complex,” see Michael Semple, “How the Haqqani Network Is Expanding from Waziristan,” 

Snapshots, Foreign Affairs, September 23, 2011, www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/68292/michael-semple/

how-the-haqqani-network-is-expanding-from-waziristan.

34. For example, on the question of linkage to Al-Qaida, compare Jeffrey Dressler, “The Irreconcilables: The 

Haqqani Network,” Backgrounder (Institute for the Study of War, 2010) with Alex Strick von Linschoten 

and Felix Kuehn, “Separating the Taliban from Al Qaeda: The Core of Success in Afghanistan” (New York: 

University Center on International Cooperation, February 2011).

35. On continuity, emphasis varies between preservation of the leadership structures on the one hand, and 

adoption of new techniques and policies on the other. See Ruttig, “How Tribal Are the Taliban?” 3, and 

Giustozzi, Koran, Kalashnikov and Laptop. On command and control, Kilcullen notes higher cohesion in the 

south than the southeast and east, and Mackenzie observes centralized disciplinary action and revenue 

channels in Helmand. David Kilcullen, “Taliban and Counter-Insurgency in Kunar,” in Decoding the New 

Taliban: Insights from the Afghan Field, ed. Antonio Giustozzi (New York: Columbia University Press, 2009), 

211; Jean McKenzie, “The Battle for Afghanistan: Militancy and Conflict in Helmand” (Washington, DC: 

New America Foundation, 2010), 14. By contrast there are examples of inability to maintain discipline in 

Ghazni, Helmand, and Badghis. See Christoph Reuter and Borhan Younus, “The Return of the Taliban in 

Andar District,” in Decoding the New Taliban: Insights from the Afghan Field, ed. Antonio Giustozzi (New 

York: Columbia University Press, 2009); Coghlan, “The Taliban in Helmand,” 150; Stephen Carter and 

Kate Clark, “No Shortcut to Stability: Justice, Politics and Insurgency in Afghanistan,” (London: Royal 

Institute of International Affairs, 2010), 19. On regenerative capacity, see Graeme Smith, “What Kandahar’s 

Taliban Say,” in Decoding the New Taliban: Insights from the Afghan Field, ed. Antonio Giustozzi (New York: 

Columbia University Press, 2009), 193–194, and van Bijlert, “Militancy and Conflict in Zabul and 

Uruzgan,” 15. For analysis that more could be done to encourage splits via negotiation, see Michael Semple, 

Reconciliation in Afghanistan (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace, 2009). For evidence from 

local commanders of cohesion over negotiations, see Deedee Derksen, “Peace from the Bottom-Up? The 

Afghanistan Peace and Reintegration Program,” PRIO Paper (Oslo: Chr. Michelsen Institute/Peace 

Research Institute Oslo/United States Institute of Peace, September 2011), 19–20.

36. On the sequence of mobilization and radicalization, see Sarah Ladbury and Center for Peace and Unity 

(CPAU), Testing Hypotheses on Radicalisation in Afghanistan (Kabul: CPAU, 2009).

37. Ruttig, “How Tribal Are the Taliban?,” 2. See also Thomas Ruttig, “The Other Side: Dimensions of the 

Afghan Insurgency: Causes, Actors and Approaches to ‘Talks,’” Afghanistan Analysts Network, 2009.

38. Abdul Awwal Zabulwal, “Taliban in Zabul: A Witness’ Account,” in Decoding the New Taliban: Insights from 

the Afghan Field, ed. Antonio Giustozzi (New York: Columbia University Press, 2009), 187; The Liaison 

Office, “Khost’s Tribes: Between a Rock and a Hard Place,” Policy Brief (Kabul: TLO, 2010), 10–11, and 

Mohammad Osman Tariq Elias, “The Resurgance of the Taliban in Kabul: Logar and Wardak,” in Decoding 

the New Taliban: Insights from the Afghan Field, ed. Antonio Giustozzi (New York: Columbia University 

Press, 2009), 50.

39. On the layha, see Kate Clark, “The Layha: Calling the Taliban to Account,” Afghanistan Analysts Network 

Thematic Report, July 2011, 7–15. On cases of decentralization, see Coghlan, “The Taliban in Helmand,” 

140–48, and van Bijlert, “Militancy and Conflict in Zabul and Uruzgan,” 12.

40. Coghlan, “The Taliban in Helmand,” 148.

41. Dorronsoro, “Focus and Exit: An Alternative Strategy for the Afghan War,” 5, and Giustozzi, Koran, 

Kalashnikov and Laptop, 81–146.

42. Nixon, “Achieving Durable Peace,” 12, 23.

43. Pamela Constable, “Rivals to Afghanistan’s President in Disarray,” Washington Post, June 13, 2011; Afghan 

NGO director, personal communication, July 18, 2011. 

44. Derksen, “Peace from the Bottom-Up?” 4–5.

45. Birkle, O’Hanlon, and Sherjan, “Toward a Political Strategy for Afghanistan,” 1–2.

46. Shinn and Dobbins, “Afghan Peace Talks,” 18.

47. In particular, see the volume of essays edited by Antonio Giustozzi, Decoding the New Taliban: Insights from 

the Afghan Field (New York: Columbia University Press, 2009) and the “Battle for Afghanistan” reports 

published by the New America Foundation; Anand Gopal, “The Battle for Afghanistan: Militancy and 

Conflict in Kandahar” (Washington: New America Foundation, 2010); McKenzie, “Militancy and Conflict 

in Helmand”; and van Bijlert, “Militancy and Conflict in Zabul and Uruzgan.”

48. For detailed accounts of attempts by Taliban leaders to retire in return only for security guarantees after 2001 

and the ensuing difficulties they faced in Uruzgan, Zabul, Kandahar, Helmand, Ghazni, and beyond, see 
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Martine van Bijlert, “Unruly Commanders and Violent Power Struggles: Taliban Networks in Uruzgan,” in 

Decoding the New Taliban: Insights from the Afghan Field, ed. Antonio Giustozzi (New York: Columbia 

University Press, 2009), 157–158; Gopal, “Militancy and Conflict in Kandahar”; Giustozzi, Koran, 

Kalashnikov and Laptop, 37–38; Reuter and Younus, “The Return of the Taliban in Andar.”

49. Gopal, “Militancy and Conflict in Kandahar,” 11.

50. Ahmed Rashid, Descent into Chaos: How the War against Islamic Extremism Is Being Lost in Pakistan, 

Afghanistan and Central Asia (London: Allen Lane/Penguin, 2008).

51. There were warnings of failure when international military forces still numbered 30,000 and there had been 

a mere “handful” of suicide attacks. See Seth G. Jones, “Averting Failure in Afghanistan,” Survival 48, no. 

1 (2006).

52. A brief account of the influence of Mullah Dadullah (and behind him al Zarqawi) on Taliban tactics is given 

in Ruttig, “How Tribal Are the Taliban?” 17.

53. Ian S. Livingstone and Michael O’Hanlon, “Afghanistan Index: Tracking Variables of Reconstruction and 

Security in Post-9/11 Afghanistan” (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, September 29, 2011).

54. Analysts note that two fast-growing categories of fighters have been those motivated by revenge for ISAF 

or government attacks and those who are released or related to U.S. or government captives. See Smith, 

“What Kandahar’s Taliban Say,” 199–200; McKenzie, “Militancy and Conflict in Helmand,” 7–8; van 

Bijlert, “Unruly Commanders and Violent Power Struggles: Taliban Networks in Uruzgan,” 159. See also 

Matt Waldman, “Dangerous Liaisons? An Assessment of the Feasibility and Risks of Negotiations with the 

Afghan Taliban,” Special Report (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace Press, 2010), 3–4.

55. Antonio Giustozzi and Christoph Reuter, “The Insurgents of the Afghan North: The Rise of the Taleban, 

the Self-Abandonment of the Afghan Government and the Effects of ISAF’s ‘Capture-and-Kill’ 

Campaign,” Thematic Report 4 (Afghanistan Analysts Network, 2011), 9 10.

56. “Transition” has been adopted by U.S. and international forces and the Afghan government to refer to the 

process of handover of security responsibilities to the Afghan government, as well as accompanying shifts in 

support. 

57. For detail on potential internal and regional interests opposed to a settlement, see Shinn and Dobbins, 

“Afghan Peace Talks,”14, 33, 55–56.

58. The concept of mutually hurting stalemate is laid out in, among others, I. William Zartman, “Ripeness: 

The Hurting Stalemate and Beyond,” in International Conflict Resolution after the Cold War, ed. Paul C. Stern 

and Daniel Druckman (Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 2000).

59. Nicholas Haysom, “Engaging Armed Groups in Peace Processes: Lessons for Effective Third-Party 

Practice,” in Choosing to Engage: Armed Groups and Peace Processes, ed. Robert Ricigliano (London: 

Conciliation Resources, Accord 16, 2005), 86.

60. Clem McCartney, “From Armed Struggle to Political Negotiations: Why? When? How?” in Choosing to 

Engage: Armed Groups and Peace Processes, ed. Robert Ricigliano (London: Conciliation Resources, Accord 

16, 2005).

61. Nigel Quinney and A. Heather Coyne, eds., Talking to Groups that Use Terror, Peacemaker’s Toolkit 

(Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace Press, 2011), 36.

62. Shinn and Dobbins, “Afghan Peace Talks,” 77.

63. Barnes, “Renegotiating the Political Settlement in War-to-Peace Transitions,” 21.

64. Ruttig, “How Tribal Are the Taliban?” 24.

65. Barnes, “Renegotiating the Political Settlement in War-to-Peace Transitions,” 22.

66. Quinney and Coyne, eds., Talking to Groups that Use Terror, 55–56.

67. Century Foundation, “Afghanistan: Negotiating Peace,” 50–53.

68. For a discussion of different groups of friends and their pros and cons, see Teresa Whitfield, Paying the Price: 

Ignacio Ellacuría and the Murdered Jesuits of El Salvador (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1994), 24; for 

an Afghanistan-specific discussion of key questions, see Lisa Schirch, “Designing a Comprehensive Peace 

Process for Afghanistan,” Peaceworks (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace Press, 2011), 

31–32.

69. Century Foundation, “Afghanistan: Negotiating Peace,” 53–54.

70. Whitfield, Paying the Price: Ignacio Ellacuría and the Murdered Jesuits of El Salvador, 16.

71. Conciliation Resources, “Ending War: The Need for Peace Process Support Strategies,” Policy Brief, Accord: 

An International Review of Peace Initiatives (2009), www.c-r.org/our-work/accord/pdfs/cr_support_strategies_brief.pdf. For detailed discussion of support to prepare parties in Afghanistan, see Schirch, “Designing 

a Comprehensive Peace Process for Afghanistan,” 28–29.

72. Barnes, “Renegotiating the Political Settlement in War-to-Peace Transitions,” 5, 28.

73. Conciliation Resources, “Ending War,” 4.
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BEYOND POWER SHARING: INSTITUTIONAL OPTIONS FOR AN AFGHAN PEACE PROCESS

74. Amy L. Smith and David R. Smock, Managing a Mediation Process, Peacemaker’s Toolkit (Washington, 

DC: United States Institute for Peace Press, 2008), 21–22, 46–47.

75. McCartney, “From Armed Struggle to Political Negotiations,” 33.

76. “Pretoria Minute” and “National Peace Accord,” ANC Web archive, www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/history/

transition/npaccord.html.

77. Dínis S. Singulane and Jaime Pedro Gonçalves, “A Calling for Peace: Christian Leaders and the Quest for 

Reconciliation in Mozambique,” in The Mozambican Peace Process in Perspective, ed. Alex Vines and Dylan 

Hendrickson (London: Conciliation Resources, Accord, 1998), 30.

78. Sir Marrack Goulding, “Public Participation and International Peacemaking,” in Owning the Process: Public 

Participation in Peacemaking, ed. Catherine Barnes (London: Conciliation Resources, Accord 13, 2002), 

86–89; Harold Saunders, “Prenegotiation and Circum-negotiation: Arenas of the Peace Process,” in 

Managing Global Chaos, ed. Chester Crocker, Fen Osler Hampson, and Pamela Aall (Washington, DC: 

United States Institute of Peace Press, 1996), 419–432.

79. Catherine Barnes, “Democratizing Peacemaking Processes: Strategies and Dilemmas for Public 

Participation,” in Owning the Process: Public Participation in Peacemaking, ed. Catherine Barnes (London: 

Conciliation Resources, Accord 13, 2002), 6.

80. For case studies of public participation increasing settlement legitimacy, see Catherine Barnes, ed., 

Owning the Process: Public Participation in Peacemaking (London: Conciliation Resources, Accord 13, 

2002); a broader comparative analysis of civil society inclusion is Anthony Wanis-St. John and Darren 

Key, “Civil Society and Peace Negotiations: Confronting Exclusion,” International Negotiation 13 (2008); 

a quantitative analysis of post-conflict “mass” power sharing is in Helga Malmin Binningsbø, “A Piece of 

the Pie: Power Sharing and Postconflict Peace,” doctoral dissertation (Norwegian University of Science 

and Technology, 2011), 64.

81. Barnes, “Renegotiating the Political Settlement in War-to-Peace Transitions,” 24; Schirch, “Designing a 

Comprehensive Peace Process for Afghanistan,” 7–8.

82. Conciliation Resources, “Ending War,” 3.

83. Barnes, “Democratizing Peacemaking,” 6.

84. Nixon, “Achieving Durable Peace,” 7–14.

85. Barnett Rubin, “Crafting a Constitution for Afghanistan,” Journal of Democracy 15, no. 3 (2004): 7.

86. Barnes, “Democratizing Peacemaking,” 8.

87. Schirch, “Designing a Comprehensive Peace Process for Afghanistan,” 23–28; on local peacebuilding initiatives, see Matt Waldman, “Community Peacebuilding in Afghanistan: The Case for a National Strategy” 

(Oxford: Oxfam International, 2008).

88. Schirch, “Designing a Comprehensive Peace Process for Afghanistan,” 11. See also Mary Kaldor and 

Marika Theros, “Building Afghan Peace from the Ground Up” (working paper, Century Foundation, 2011); 

Elizabeth Winter, “Civil Society Development in Afghanistan” (working paper, London School of 

Economics Center for Civil Society, June 2010).

89. Quentin Oliver, “Developing Public Capacities for Participation in Peacemaking,” in Owning the Process: 

Public Participation in Peacemaking, ed. Catherine Barnes (London: Conciliation Resources, Accord 13, 

2002), 91.

90. Barnes, “Renegotiating the Political Settlement in War-to-Peace Transitions,” 3.

91. Terrence Lyons, “Postconflict Elections: War Termination, Democratization, and Demilitarizing Politics” 

(working paper no. 20, Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, George Mason University, 2002), 

http://icar.gmu.edu/Work_Paper20.pdf.

92. Terrence Lyons, “Soft Intervention and the Transformation of Militias into Political Parties,” in Strengthening 

Peace in Post-Civil War States: Transforming Spoilers into Stakeholders, ed. Matthew Hoddie and Caroline A. 

Hartzell (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2010), 147.

93. Shinn and Dobbins, “Afghan Peace Talks,” 83.

94. For a discussion of the security dilemma and its application to internal conflict, see Jack Snyder and Robert 

Jervis, “Civil War and the Security Dilemma,” in Civil Wars, Insecurity, and Intervention, eds. Barbara F. 

Walter and Jack Snyder (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999), 15–37.

95. Caroline A. Hartzell, “Missed Opportunities: The Impact of DDR on SSR in Afghanistan,” Special Report 

270 (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace Press, April 2011). 

96. The Local Monitoring Teams include representatives of the local government unit, the local Moro Islamic 

Liberation Front command, two NGO representatives appointed by the parties, and a local religious leader. 

See Hoffman, “Peace Negotiations in the Philippines: The Government, the MILF and International 

NGOs,” 3.

97. Nepal, “Agreement on Monitoring of the Management of Arms and Armies, 28 November 2006,” www.

satp.org/satporgtp/countries/nepal/document/papers/28nov2006.htm.
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98. Comfort Lamptey, “Engaging Civil Society in Peacekeeping: Strengthening Strategic Partnerships between 

United Nations Peacekeeping Missions and Local Civil Society Organisations during Post-Conflict 

Transitions,” August 2007, http://pbpu.unlb.org/pbps/Library/Engaging%20Civil%20Society%20in%20

Peacekeeping.pdf.

99. Nixon, “Achieving Durable Peace,” 10–11, 17–20.

100. World Bank/DFID, Afghanistan: Public Financial Management Performance Assessment (World Bank/DFID, 

June 2008).

101. Lyons, “Soft Intervention and the Transformation of Militias into Political Parties,” 150.

102. Nixon, “Achieving Durable Peace,” 12.

103. Peter Wallensteen and Mikael Eriksson, Negotiating Peace: Lessons from Three Comprehensive Peace Agreements 

(Uppsala and New York: Uppsala University and the Mediation Support Unit, Department of Political 

Affairs, United Nations, 2009), 27.

104. On the latter point, see Lisa Schirch, “Afghan Civil Society and a Comprehensive Peace Process,” Peace 

Brief 99 (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace, July 21, 2011).

105. Lyons, “Soft Intervention and the Transformation of Militias into Political Parties,” 150.

106. See Caroline A. Hartzell and Matthew Hoddie, Crafting Peace: Power-Sharing Institutions and the Negotiated 

Settlement of Civil Wars (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2007) for details regarding the distinction between negotiated truces and negotiated settlements.

107. Karl DeRouen Jr., Mark J. Ferguson, Samuel Norton, Young Hwan Park, Jenna Lea, and Ashley StreatBartlett, “Civil War Peace Agreement Implementation and State Capacity,” Journal of Peace Research 47, no. 

3 (2010): 333–46.

108. Astri Suhrke, “When More Is Less: Aiding Statebuilding in Afghanistan” (Madrid: Fundación para las 

Relaciones Internacionales y el Diálogo Exterior, 2006).

109. Report of the Secretary-General on the Activities of ONUSAL Since the Cease-fire between the 

Government of El Salvador and the FMLN, UN Document S/23999, Section III, May 26, 1992; Graciano 

del Castillo, “The Arms-for-Land Deal in El Salvador,” in Keeping the Peace: Multidimensional UN 

Operations in Cambodia and El Salvador, ed. Michael W. Doyle, Ian Johnstone, and Robert C. Orr 

(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 347–48.

110. Anna Larson, “Deconstructing ‘Democracy’ in Afghanistan,” Synthesis Paper Series (Kabul: Afghanistan 

Research and Evaluation Unit, May 2011), 28–30; Nixon, “Achieving Durable Peace,” 33.

111. Conciliation Resources, “Ending War: The Need for Peace Process Support Strategies,” 2.

112. Caroline A. Hartzell, “Explaining the Stability of Negotiated Settlements to Intrastate Wars,” Journal of 

Conflict Resolution 43, no. 1 (February 1999): 3–22.

113. Anna K. Jarstad, “Power-Sharing: Former Enemies in Joint Government,” in From War to Democracy: 

Dilemmas of Peacebuilding, ed. Anna K. Jarstad and Timothy D. Sisk (Cambridge: Cambridge University 

Press, 2008); Andreas Mehler, “Peace and Power-Sharing in Africa: A Not So Obvious Relationship,” 

African Affairs 108, no. 432 (2009): 453 473.

114. Timothy Sisk, “Power-Sharing” (Beyond Intractability, September 2003), www.beyondintractability.org/

essay/power_sharing/?nid=1382.

115. The seminal discussion of this “integrative” approach is found in Donald Horowitz, Ethnic Groups in Conflict

(Los Angeles and Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985).

116. Pippa Norris, Driving Democracy: Do Power-Sharing Institutions Work? (New York: Cambridge University 

Press, 2008), 4–5.

117. Key examples include Barbara F. Walter, Committing to Peace: The Successful Settlement of Civil Wars 

(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002); Bumba Mukherjee, “Does Third-Party Enforcement or 

Domestic Institutions Promote Enduring Peace after Civil Wars: Policy Lessons from an Empirical Test,” 

Foreign Policy Analysis 2, no. 4 (2006): 405–30; Michaela Mattes and Burcu Savun, “Fostering Peace after 

Civil War: Commitment Problems and Agreement Design,” International Studies Quarterly 53, no. 3 (2009): 

737–59; and Hartzell and Hoddie, Crafting Peace.

118. Hartzell and Hoddie, Crafting Peace; and Malmin Binningsbø, “A Piece of the Pie,” 110.

119. Shinn and Dobbins, “Afghan Peace Talks,” 72, 101; Schirch, “Designing a Comprehensive Peace Process 

for Afghanistan,” 5–8. See also for examples, Waldman, “Dangerous Liaisons?” 13–14; Martine van Bijlert, 

“The Government’s New Peace Strategy: Who to Talk To?” blog post, Afghanistan Analysts Network, 

October 4, 2011, www.aan-afghanistan.org/index.asp?id=2109.

120. Schirch, “Designing a Comprehensive Peace Process for Afghanistan,” 5; Tazreena Sajjad, “Peace at All 

Costs? Reintegration and Reconciliation in Afghanistan,” Issues Paper (Kabul: Afghanistan Research and 

Evaluation Unit, 2010), 3–5, 26–7.

121. Our thoughts on this issue and throughout the section benefitted from discussion with Scott Gates, personal 

communication, June 17, 2011.

122. The discussion of political power sharing draws on Hartzell and Hoddie, Crafting Peace.
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BEYOND POWER SHARING: INSTITUTIONAL OPTIONS FOR AN AFGHAN PEACE PROCESS

123. The development of the theory of consociational power sharing has been most associated with the work of 

Arend Lijphart. See Arend Lijphart, Democracy in Plural Societies: A Comparative Exploration (New Haven: 

Yale University Press, 1977); Arend Lijphart, Patterns of Democracy: Government Forms and Performance in 

36 Countries (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999).

124. Nicholas Haysom and Sean Kane, “Negotiating Natural Resources for Peace: Ownership, Control and 

Wealth-Sharing,” Briefing Paper, Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue, October 2009, 22, 30.

125. Alexander Mayer-Rieckh and Pablo de Greiff, ed., Justice as Prevention: Vetting Public Employees in 

Transitional Societies (New York: Social Science Research Council, 2007).

About the Institute

The United States Institute of Peace is an independent, nonpartisan 

institution established and funded by Congress. Its goals are to 

help prevent and resolve violent conflicts, promote postconflict 

peacebuilding, and increase conflict management tools, capacity, and 

intellectual capital worldwide. The Institute does this by empowering 

others with knowledge, skills, and resources, as well as by its direct 

involvement in conflict zones around the globe.

Board of Directors

J. Robinson West (Chair), Chairman, PFC Energy, Washington, DC • 

George E. Moose (Vice Chairman), Adjunct Professor of Practice, The 

George Washington University, Washington, DC • Judy Ansley, Former 

Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor under 

George W. Bush, Washington, DC • Eric Edelman, Hertog Distinguished 

Practicioner in Residence, Johns Hopkins Univeristy School of Advanced 

International Studies, Washington, DC • Kerry Kennedy, President, Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights, Washington, DC • 

Ikram U. Khan, President, Quality Care Consultants, LLC., Las Vegas, NV 

• Stephen D. Krasner, Graham H. Stuart Professor of International Relations at Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA • John A. Lancaster, Former 

Executive Director, International Council on Independent Living, Potsdam, 

NY • Jeremy A. Rabkin, Professor of Law, George Mason University, 

Fairfax, VA • Judy Van Rest, Executive Vice President, International 

Republican Institute, Washington, DC • Nancy Zirkin, Executive Vice 

President, Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, Washington, DC

Members Ex Officio

Michael H. Posner, Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, 

and Labor • James N. Miller, Principle Deputy Under Secretary of 

Defense for Policy • Ann E. Rondeau, Vice Admiral, U.S. Navy; President, 

National Defense University • Richard H. Solomon, President, 

United States Institute of Peace (nonvoting)
While the need for a peace process to end the conflict in Afghanistan becomes clearer with each passing month, there are deep 

doubts about the chances of achieving a political settlement. 

These doubts encompass uncertainty about insurgent intentions, 

the position of Pakistan, and fear about the consequences of 

sharing power at a central or even provincial level with the Taliban. 

While these issues are formidable, they are also potentially 

surmountable with the right kind of process and settlement. This 

report examines some specific challenges a peace process in 

Afghanistan will face and then presents theoretical observations 

and real world comparative examples that may be applicable to 

overcoming these challenges.

Peaceworks • December 2011 • no. 78

Related Links 

■ Reconciliation in Afghanistan by Michael Semple (USIP Press, 2009)

■ Designing a Comprehensive Peace Process for Afghanistan by Lisa Schirch 

(Peaceworks, September 2011)

■ Reconstruction Zones in Afghanistan and Haiti by Graciana del Castillo 

(Special Report, November 2011)

■ The Politics of Dispute Resolution and Continued Instability in Afghanistan by 

Noah Coburn (Special Report, August 2011)

■ Missed Opportunities by Caroline Hartzell (Special Report, April 2011)

■ Making Peace in Afghanistan by Minna Jarvenpaa (Special Report, February 

2011)

■ Constitutional Interpretation and the Continuing Crisis in Afghanistan by Scott 

Worden and Sylvana Q. Sinha (Peace Brief, November 2011)

■ Impact or Illusion? Reintegration under the Afghanistan Peace and Reintegration 

Program by Deedee Derksen (Peace Brief, September 2011) 

■ Afghan Perspectives on Achieving Durable Peace by Hamish Nixon (Peace 

Brief, June 2011)

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