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This case study explores the role of the Afghan authorities between 2001 and 2006 - the Interim Administration, the Transitional Islamic State of Afghanistan and the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan - in shaping the "aid relationship" between those authorities, and various components of the international community. It describes the strategies, frameworks, policies and systems that the Afghan authorities and the donors adapted or invented to manage aid. The case study analyzes the impact of those initiatives on the effectiveness of domestic and donor policy, and the drivers and constraints on the effectiveness of domestic policy. Given how recently the events described unfolded it is no surprise that there are as yet, at least to the author's knowledge, no accounts that convey the decision-making processes accurately. The account presented here is written from the perspective of a participant in many of the events in question who attended th e core meetings and policy discussions of the period in the UN, the Government of Afghanistan, and most recently in NATO/ISAF. Recognising that the author is therefore a participant as well as analyst, the case study nonetheless attempts to provide a factual description of the process, together with an objective analysis of the advantages and disadvantages of approaches taken against the goals they were intended to serve.

Ashraf Ghani and Clare Lockhart have taken an active part in the effort to save failed states for many years, serving as World Bank officials, as advisers to the UN, and as high-level participants in Afghanistan. In Fixing Failed States, they described the issue--vividly and convincingly--offering an on-the-ground picture of why past efforts have not worked and advancing a groundbreaking new solution to this most pressing of global crises. For the paperback edition, a new preface addresses continuing governance problems in weak states like Afghanistan and the global financial recession.

Der zentrale Weg zu langfristigem Erfolg in Afghanistan ist wirtschaftliche und soziale Entwicklung. Er wurde in den ersten Jahren nach 2001 erfolgreich beschritten, dann aber wieder verlassen. Trotz der Kosten muss er jetzt wieder begangen werden. (SWP-Whr)

The European Union (EU) is one of the most successful examples in recent times of the peaceful regional expansion of prosperity and stability through institutional structures and shared resources. The EU has supported a process of governance and economic development across the European continent which now encompasses 27 member countries and over 500 million people. EU accession is a process of alignment through which acceptance of the acquis communautaire (the body of EU law) in aspiring states leads to the reorganization of an entire corpus of political, social, economic and cultural relationships, with the Commission and the Council explicitly negotiating, agreeing upon, refereeing and monitoring these linkages. These technical and political changes- largely generated through accession conditionality are accompanied by a process of 'Europeanization' by which all EU countries come to adopt European norms and values, transferred through many different routes including declaratory policies and documents, small-scale projects, and socialization between governments. In combination, the transformation that the concept and process of Europe has brought about is extraordinary- indeed in many ways it can be argued that the EU accession process has overcome the aid complex and its inefficient parallel systems and short-term projectized approaches which can often prevent exactly these successful outcomes in developing countries today. That is not to suggest, however, that the project of European enlargement is a single monolith, or has been equally successful in all EU accession countries. In certain contexts it has generated real and important reforms, while in others, positive institutional change has been far less clear. Moreover, problems with the process remain, and moving forward the EU will itself need to adapt to new realities and changing dynamics in order to ensure that future enlargement is as successful as past accession.

A framework for nation-building that recognizes the reality of persistent conflict in transitional nations is presented. The predominant characteristics of persistent conflict are identified including the militarization of young male populations, the continued flow of arms & other military provisions into local settings, & the formation of inadequate infrastructures in adjacent countries that must deal with humanitarian crises caused by large refugee populations. Several processes required to produce a peaceful transition from conflict to stability are then highlighted, eg, replacing economic & political secrecy with transparency & allowing market economies to flourish while martial economies subside. Ten essential functions to be performed by all modern states are subsequently illuminated including establishing monopolistic control over the means of violence, using domestic organizations to manage public finance, formulating citizenship obligations & rights that for all groups, granting the state authority over international relations, & implementing the rule of law. The international community is strongly encouraged to facilitate state-building in regions afflicted by persistent conflict; the ramifications of this proposition for the international community are consequently pondered, eg, demonstrating a willingness to provide substantial resources early in the state-building process to facilitate the transition to stability. J. W. Parker