Local Governance in Afghanistan: A View from the Ground

Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit
2011
Box 1: The Blind Ones and the Matter of the Elephant
Beyond Ghor there was a city. All its inhabitants were blind. A king with his army arrived and
camped nearby. He had a mighty elephant, which he used in attack and to increase people’s awe.
The people of the city were curious since they knew nothing about elephants. Some went to find
the elephant. When they did, they groped sightlessly, gathering information by touching it. Each
thought that he knew something, because he could feel a part. When they returned, their fellowcitizens
gathered around them, each anxious to learn the truth about elephants. They asked
what it was like. The man whose hand had reached an ear said: “It is a large, rough thing, wide
and broad, like a rug.” The one who had felt the trunk said: “I have the real facts about it. It is
like a straight and hollow pipe, awful and destructive.” The one who had felt its feet and legs
said: “It is mighty and firm, like a pillar.” Each had felt one part out of many. Each had perceived
it wrongly. All imagined something incorrect. Because of their blindness, they were astray.
Drawn from Idries Shah’s “Tales of the Dervishes” (New York: Dutton, 1969), 25.
Setting aside the mystical dimensions of this story, at a more prosaic level it illustrates the challenges
surrounding perception and subjectivity. This is particularly relevant to the current situation in
Afghanistan where “blindness” comes in various forms. It has, for example, become increasingly
difficult, particularly for foreigners, to gain first-hand experience of what is taking place in locations
outside the big cities. Moreover, the important and sensitive issue of local governance is subject to
distinctive interpretations from three sides: the international community, the Afghan government
and the Taliban. Each has a view on the nature of what it would like the “elephant” to be. Each has a
particular agenda. Each is looking for answers tailored to their own perceptual framework, political
agenda and constituencies of support.
Researchers seek to be as unbiased as they can. They use methods and frameworks, which can be
derived from a variety of disciplinary approaches, that as far as possible enable them to transcend
their “blindness.” By applying a common research methodology across six contrasting provinces, this
research intends to offer a relatively impartial understanding of local governance as it was observed
during 2010.
The length of the project also presented its own challenge. Fieldwork for the research was spread over
a period of fourteen months from November 2009 to December 2010, a period that saw substantial
changes in the spheres of governance, security and development. Finally, of the 48 districts covered,
there were three districts—Qush Tepa and Darzab in Jawzjan and Gizab in Day Kundi—that could not
be visited due to high levels of insecurity. In the case of Jawzjan, it was possible to interview key
actors in Sheberghan, the provincial capital. No data was collected for Gizab, which was controlled
by the Taliban at the time of research and is now technically a part of Uruzgan.
2.2 Defining and locating the study
“Governance” is understood here to refer to the values, norms 14 and conventions that different
social, political and administrative groupings apply to meet their organisational goals, along with the
interaction between them. Governance takes place in the form of action or influence that maintains
or modifies these forms of behaviour and occurs at all levels of human organisation. It thus relates to
informal practices, religion, and the operation of civil society as well as formal government.
More concretely, the state is understood to be the provider of a wide range of public and semi-public
goods, including security, education, macro-economic management, justice and the framework for
citizenship. How the state operates does much to determine the nature of governance and the
balance between the formal and informal spheres. It is also influenced by the participation and
oversight of representative bodies as well as by the activities of a range of actors and institutions
14 Norms represent the specific manifestations of values and thus bring about conformity in group behaviour and ethical
judgments that form the basis for forms of (social) regulation. They may be either formal or informal in nature.
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