ABSTRACT
Chapter 1 explores the various ways in which Afghanistan has been used as a testing ground for international experiments on how to manage conflict, underdevelopment, and supposedly ‘unruly’ populations. Drawing upon key policy documents, official statements, organisational mandates, interviews, speeches, national government policy, and international reports it examines the imaginaries of the Afghan state, the Afghan population, and foreign intervention that underlie international policy, and the subsequent frameworks and structures established to support these depictions. The analysis in this chapter highlights the continuity between pre- and post-9/11 international policy discourse on Afghanistan, and sketches the shifting international narratives that characterised the international intervention between 2002 and 2012 as the international security transition and aid transformation agendas were set in place.
