ABSTRACT
This chapter attempts to examine how international statebuilding efforts in Afghanistan have affected power structures at the national and sub-national level, and specifically why the massive international effort has failed to strengthen the structures of the Afghan state. To that end, the chapter focuses on the patron–client relationship that developed between external intervenors, especially the US, and their local partners. It focuses on two aspects in particular: how external intervention has affected both the selection of the elites inside Afghanistan and the struggles for power among them; and how the statebuilding process has itself been shaped by the interaction of the external intervention with the adaptive behaviour of local elites, constantly developing a variety of strategies and techniques to maximize their own returns and minimize the concessions to the intervening powers. The reason for this choice is that these factors determined, to a large extent, the political course of Afghanistan in subsequent years, relegating other factors to a relatively marginal role.
