Join the MESF for the first seminar presentation for 2020! On Feb. 3 we invite you to attend two presentations examining the dynamic political landscape of Afghanistan.
‘Prospects of a Peace Process in Afghanistan’
Prof. William Maley (ANU), Dr. Timor Sharan (ANU) & Dr. Niamatullah Ibrahimi (Deakin University) in conversation with Prof. Shahram Akbarzadeh (Deakin University)
Several rounds of negotiations between the U.S. and the Taliban have created the hope of a peace process that can end the conflict in Afghanistan. While some pin their hopes on a ‘peace process’ to solve these problems, there are good reasons to be sceptical about what the current endeavours of the US Administration might deliver. Complex, deep-rooted problems are not amenable to ‘rabbit out of a hat’ solutions. A durable peace process with the Taliban raises many challenges, including the re-integration of Taliban leaders and combatants in the state and society. This seminar discusses these challenges and opportunities and provides Afghan perspectives on the process.
Book launch: Afghanistan: Politics and Economics in a Globalising State
Join authors Dr. Niamatullah Ibrahimi & Prof. William Maley in launching their book which identifies some of the key features that make Afghanistan unique and the authors will discuss how the Afghan state acquired a distinctive character as a rentier state. In addition, the authors outline a complex range of domestic and external factors that led to the breakdown of the state, and how that breakdown gave rise to a set of challenges with which Afghan political and social actors have been struggling to deal since the 2001 international intervention that overthrew the antimodernist Taliban regime. The authors detail how Afghanistan’s geopolitical location and international relations more broadly have complicated the task of promoting stability in the post-2001 period.
Download the event flyer here.
Details:
12.00 pm – 1.30 pm 3 February 2020
Building BC, Deakin University Burwood
Please RSVP to mesf@deakin.edu.au by 27 January for catering purposes.
Speaker bio
Professor William Maley
Dr William Maley is Professor of Diplomacy at the Asia-Pacific College of Diplomacy at The Australian National University. He is a Member of the Order of Australia (AM), and a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia (FASSA). Professor Maley is the author and editor of several books on Afghanistan, including Rescuing Afghanistan (2006), The Afghanistan Wars (2009), and Transition in Afghanistan: Hope, Despair and the Limits of Statebuilding (2018), and Afghanistan – Challenges and Opportunities (2018). Most recently he and Dr Niamatullah Ibrahimi co-authored Afghanistan: Politics and Economics in a Globalising State (2020).
Dr. Timor Sharan
Dr. Timor Sharan is currently a Visiting Fellow at Australian National University, working on a book, titled, “International Intervention and State Building in Post-2001 Afghanistan: Lessons Learned.” He was the Deputy Minister for Policy and Programs at the Directorate of Local Governance in the Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. Prior to joining the government, he was the Senior Policy Analyst for Afghanistan at the International Crisis Group in Kabul. Dr. Sharan holds a PhD in political economy of international statebuilding from the University of Exeter, UK. He has published in peer-reviewed journals including the Central Asia Survey and Conflict, Security and Development and has written policy articles for Foreign Policy, Politico and others.
Dr. Niamatullah Ibrahimi
Dr. Ibrahimi is an Associate Research Fellow at the Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation of the Deakin University. He has recently completed his PhD at the Australian National University and is the author of The Hazaras and the Afghan State: Rebellion, Exclusion and Struggle for Recognition (London: Hurst & Co. 2017), and a number of other articles, research papers and book chapters.