Building Legitimacy and State Capacity in Protracted Fragility : The Case of Afghanistan

The immediate tasks in 2002 in Afghanistan were to stabilise the country and build a legitimate and functioning state, and a viable economy. Despite some significant progress in building state institutions and infrastructure as well as expanding public services, Afghanistan remains fragile and highly susceptible to shocks. In essence, it exhibits some of the characteristics of state fragility: The Afghan government suffers from a deficit of legitimacy; the state has weak fiscal and legal capacities; private investment and economic growth, especially since 2014, has fallen dramatically; insecurity has reinforced both the state's weakness and deficit of legitimacy; and the state exhibits low resilience to political, security and economic shocks. This paper examine in detail the five key dimensions of state fragility including policy responses and outcomes post-2001 Afghanistan