Policing Afghanistan: (Columbia/Hurst)

Adding rich facets to the technical focus of most policing literature, this volume illuminates the history, nature, and function of Western European and North American police organizations via a rare, in-depth case study of post-2001 Afghanistan. Following the evolution of Afghanistan's police forces over the past decade, while taking stock of the country's bitter internal conflicts, Antonio Giustozzi and Mohammed Isaqzadeh reveal the distinct politics of policing within this developing nation and the role of external actors in shaping its political economy. Giustozzi and Isaqzadeh engage with ongoing debates over the future of the Afghan police force and the strengths and weaknesses of existing social, political, and international factors. They have watched the Afghan police force develop from a rudimentary, militia-based operation into a more sophisticated, technically-adept network. Their observations therefore shed vital light on the strategies international forces should pursue in such a difficult environment to achieve institutional and organizational success.

About the Author :
Antonio Giustozzi is a research fellow at IDEAS, London School of Economics, and the author of Koran, Kalashnikov, and Laptop: The Neo-Taliban Insurgency in Afghanistan, 2002--2007; Decoding the New Taliban: Insights from the Afghan Field; Empires of Mud: Wars and Warlords in Afghanistan; and The Art of Coercion: The Primitive Accumulation and Management of Coercive Power. Mohammed Isaqzadeh holds an M.Phil. from Oxford University and teaches at the American University in Kabul. He has authored a paper on Afghanistan's paramilitary policing.

Review :
This is the first serious, comprehensive, and convincing account of how policing in Afghanistan really works. Antonio Giustozzi and Mohammed Isaqzadeh's impressive study of the political dynamics of Afghan policing extends the police-studies agenda and is essential reading for anyone interested in the political economy -- or the reform -- of policing. -- Alice Hills, University of Leeds, author of Policing Post-Conflict Cities Policing Afghanistan is the most comprehensive account to date of the history of policing in Afghanistan, especially of the critically important yet highly problematic post-2001 efforts to rebuild an effective police force in Afghanistan. The book contains a wealth of details about the structure and organization of police, recruitment, and retention issues, as well as the various reform efforts of the past decade. The most useful contribution is that the book looks at policing not simply from a technocratic perspective, which other studies of police reform efforts in Afghanistan tend to do, but as an inherently political task. By placing police reform efforts in their political context, and examining the political economy of policing, this study provides a much clearer and compelling explanation for the successes and many more failures of internationally-driven police reform efforts in Afghanistan. -- Andrew Wilder, director of Afghanistan and Pakistan Programs, United States Institute of Peace, and author of Cops or Robbers? The Struggle to Reform the Afghan National Police