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Afghanistan

Key findings from PeaceRep research in Afghanistan (2021 – 2026)

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PeaceRep’s Afghanistan work was led by Conciliation Resources and LSE Conflict and Civicness Research Group (CCRG), including the Afghanistan Research Network (ARN).

PeaceRep’s research on Afghanistan has explored how dialogue and international policymaking can contribute strategically to stability and promoting plural and peaceful political transition in Afghanistan in the short- and long-term. Central to this approach was bringing together diverse Afghan perspectives and actors engaged on Afghanistan to develop a shared understanding of the challenges and opportunities ahead.

PeaceRep’s research has spanned two practice-oriented projects on Afghanistan:

  • Peace matrix: design and support of the next Afghan peace process. Conciliation Resources worked with international and Afghan researchers to generate insights relevant to the design and the support of the next phase of an Afghan peace process: investigating the dynamics of the ongoing conflict; documenting new Afghan thinking on strategies for advancing sustainable peace; and mapping political actors and constituencies capable of contributing to a post-Taliban inclusive peace settlement.
  • Afghanistan Research Network. The LSE CCRG, in collaboration with the Civic Engagement Project (CEP), established the Afghanistan Research Network (ARN) with a group of more than 20 Afghan experts and activists from diverse backgrounds across seven countries. The ARN’s goal was to support, preserve and amplify Afghan expertise and knowledge, providing analysis that can inform creative actions in the short-term while helping shape future prospects for a more stable and pluralistic Afghanistan in the long-term. 

Browse key findings in the tabs below.

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Afghanistan Since 2021

Afghanistan needs a peace process. Re-escalation of armed conflict is widely opposed or feared by Afghans. However, many express multiple grievances against the Taliban. Taliban alienation of the population risks triggering violent mobilisation. Aggrieved Afghans complain at the treatment of women, the Taliban monopoly of state employment, the suppression of opportunities for youth, onerous taxation, the mishandling of the economy, arbitrary rule, sexual violence, ethnic prejudice, and the concentration of power in an unaccountable Amir (Saleem and Semple 2024).

The need for a peace process becomes apparent considering the key political developments after the Taliban takeover in 2021 that our research has examined. In sum, the Islamic Emirate has become the predominant source and manifestation of violence in Afghanistan:

  1. The Taliban govern with all the hallmarks of authoritarianism. Their strategic vision is to consolidate their Islamic Emirate for permanent rule of Afghanistan, staffed exclusively by Taliban, and imposing the doctrines of the Hanafi sect as the sole source of Islam and discriminating against all other Muslim sects. Tribal and ethnic discrimination are rife. But the extreme concentration of power in the hands of the Amir means that no ethnic group is fully included in the system. Calls for a broad-based government are rejected (Saleem and Semple 2024).
  2. Taliban supporters have been accommodated and Republic-era civil servants displaced within national and sub-national administrative structures through manipulation of the tashkeel (staffing plan). In civil service recruitment, those with Taliban links and religious education are favoured over candidates with a modern education (Saleem and Semple 2024).
  3. Education policy has been used to exclude women and transform society, including increased recruitment of students to madrassahs, appointing Taliban to headmaster positions, censoring modern subjects, propagating Taliban ideology and preparing a new generation of militant extremists (Saleem and Semple 2024).
  4. Motasibeen (enforcers) in the Ministry for Propagation of Virtue and Suppression of Vice impose the moral code, including restrictions on women’s dress and mobility and men’s beards, hairstyles and dress (Saleem and Semple 2024).
  5. Under the pretext of counter-terrorism Taliban routinely detain, torture and summarily execute critics and Afghans from areas with a history of resistance (Saleem and Semple 2024).
  6. Taliban have increased existing taxes, imposed new taxes and often claimed ‘back taxes’ from the Republican era. State expenditure is opaque, with reports of both petty and large-scale corruption. They have shifted resources from public service provision to maintenance of the Taliban’ own ranks. Mining contracts have been awarded to Taliban and other contractors have been forced to partner with Taliban (Saleem and Semple 2024).
  7. Claims by the Islamic Emirate to be honouring commitments to quell foreign militant groups are contradicted by reports that Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan are operating from bases in Afghanistan, and Afghan Taliban have been involved in operations in Pakistan. This policy of harbouring militants threatens Afghanistan’s relationship with its neighbours (Saleem and Semple 2024).
  8. The Islamic Emirate has seemed to pivot away from pursuing broader international recognition and double down on defiance of international norms. But countries in the region have been increasingly open to pragmatic engagement with the Taliban, notably an exchange of ambassadors with China (Saleem and Semple 2024).
  9. Deepening internal contradictions within the Taliban’s system, mounting popular grievances, and the break-down in the Taliban’s relations with Pakistan have led many Afghans to conclude that the Islamic Emirate may not survive long (Saleem and Semple 2024).
  10. Outreach by parts of the Taliban movement to the opposition has signalled that they sense the need for change. However, the Taliban leadership remains adamantly opposed to any meaningful or transformational political process (Semple 2023).

All efforts to persuade the Taliban leadership to moderate its stance have failed. PeaceRep research suggests the Taliban leadership will continue to reject meaningful intra-Afghan political dialogue or any compromise on women’s rights (Semple 2024).

A ‘matrix’ approach to peace offers a viable alternative to a conventional peace process. A conventional process that tries to negotiate a political settlement between Taliban and non-Taliban Afghans is impracticable, either to overcome Taliban intransigence, or to tackle the complexity of current challenges (Saleem and Semple 2024).

A peace matrix allows different Afghan individuals and groups to lead a range of different peace actions in order to create conditions for sustainable peace. Peace matrix actions can progress at different speeds without the need for a structured process of formal peace talks. Progress towards peace ultimately involves transformation of the Taliban regime into a pluralist political system in which all Afghans see themselves represented (Saleem and Semple 2024).

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Peace Matrix Approach

Peace matrix approach in practice. PeaceRep research identified actions that can be pursued by Afghans to enable and effect progress towards sustainable peace (Saleem and Semple 2024):

Dialogue and mediation

  1. Intra-Afghan mediation – Afghan democratic groups and forces are fragmented. There are Afghans with relevant experience of peacemaking who can usefully mediate between different elements of the opposition to the Taliban. This underlying peacemaking resource can be supported and engaged, to help build a more consolidated democratic coalition (Saleem and Semple 2024).
  2. National dialogue could usefully help to address the current representative deficit among Afghans. Prevailing authoritarianism means a national dialogue would have to be convened outside Afghanistan. Initial steps of a national dialogue process could include using communications technology and ‘digital dialogue’ as a way to engage people from all provinces of Afghanistan and the diversity of Afghan society (Saleem and Semple 2024).
  3. Communication with amenable parts of the Taliban leadership should be kept open, in order to facilitate short-term prospects of limited cooperation, identify potential areas of future agreement, and signal that reconciliation with the Taliban will be possible alongside regime transformation (Saleem and Semple 2024).

Mobilisation

  1. Afghan national democratic struggle –Afghan opposition political groups have been reticent in developing a programme of action to achieve their objectives. Progress towards peaceful democratic pluralism is more likely to emerge through struggle against, rather than negotiations with the Taliban leadership. Restoring a sense of Afghan agency and the belief that Afghans, rather than remote external powers, can shape their future, is key. Furthermore, there are many experiences among Afghans of civic actions and non-violent protest, which teach that struggle against the Islamic Emirate does not exclusively manifest as armed resistance (Saleem and Semple 2024).
  2. Mobilising Afghans living under authoritarianism – mass mobilisation may be the fastest pathway to exerting leverage over the Islamic Emirate, raising the possibility that the Taliban cannot indefinitely rule by force and boosting the legitimacy of the national democratic coalition. There are examples of effective mobilisation to draw on from previous phases of Afghan resistance to authoritarian regimes (Saleem and Semple 2024).
  3. Civil resistance – civil resistance in Afghanistan has been widespread and diverse, without any national movement and minimal coordination. PeaceRep research has identified that resistance to the Taliban’s Islamic Emirate is predominantly liminal, in the sense that resisters assume that their current brave but calibrated actions will be followed by another phase of intensified and broader resistance. Our research has documented at least 13 forms of liminal civil resistance, including demonstrations, independent community action, documentation of Taliban abuses, and clerics speaking out in public. These calculated risks express a confidence in the country’s future. Afghans attempting to intensify resistance to pose a credible threat to Taliban rule, under any of these scenarios, would of course face multiple challenges rooted in the structural realities of Taliban rule, the fragmented nature of Afghan society and the problematic political legacy of the Afghan Republic and its antecedents (Semple 2026).
  4. Culture of peace – Afghan Islamic scholars can espouse teaching on moderation, the Islamic case for democratic pluralism, and critiquing the Islamic Emirate’s departure from the reasonable Muslim consensus (Saleem and Semple 2024).

Alternative political system

  1. Widespread support exists for a new political system among non-Taliban Afghans, according to PeaceRep and Conciliation Resources research. Researchers have contributed to ‘guiding principles’ for democracy and peace through discussions among different Afghan constituencies. A consensus has been taking shape among divergent groups on the parameter for a reinvigorated democratic pluralism as a credible alternative to the Islamic Emirate (Saleem and Semple 2024).
  2. Credible transitional leadership is important to present a vision for an alternative political system and eventually head up transition to democratic pluralism. It could comprise competent, principled and representative Afghans, who would renounce claims to post-transition public office in order to avoid risks of the political process returning corrupt people to power (Saleem and Semple 2024). PeaceRep research has examined corruption in Afghanistan in its banking (Theros 2024) and humanitarian aid sectors (Jackson and Majid 2024), in particular.
  3. Incubating the future political system – Afghans need to prepare an inclusive, accountable and effective post-Emirate government and political system, including designing institutions, norms and codes which enshrine democratic pluralism, and building agreement on them (Saleem and Semple 2024).

International partnership

  1. International partners can incentivise and facilitate Afghans to work for peace and democratic pluralism and avoid rewarding the Taliban for obstructing this (Semple and Saleem 2026).
  2. Progress towards a pluralistic alternative would be greatly accelerated if international partners could enable Afghanistan’s democratic opposition to access a safe place to convene and organise (Saleem and Semple 2024).
  3. The UN sanctions regime is imperfect. But it can potentially offer important leverage to encourage the Taliban to cooperate with peace efforts and could be more actively used to signal that relations have not been and will not be normalised until the Taliban pivot to cooperating with an inclusive political transition (Saleem and Semple 2024).
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Afghanistan Research Network

Established following the collapse of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, the Afghanistan Research Network (ARN) brought together Afghan researchers across Afghanistan and the diaspora to produce independent, policy-relevant research during a period of profound political and institutional change.   

The collapse of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan in August 2021 transformed Afghanistan’s political, economic and social landscape. The return of the Taliban was accompanied by economic crisis, shrinking civic space, institutional fragmentation and the displacement of thousands of researchers, academics, civil servants and civil society leaders. As opportunities for independent research narrowed, Afghanistan risked losing not only institutions but also the knowledge needed to understand and respond to the country’s transformation.

Through Afghan-led research spanning governance, political economy, humanitarian action, peacebuilding, dialogue, gender, climate change and civic life, the Afghanistan Research Network developed a body of work that advances six central insights. Afghanistan’s crises are systemic and interdependent; the collapse of the Republic requires rethinking international peacebuilding; gender apartheid provides a framework for understanding systems of governance and social control; dialogue is fundamental to sustainable peace; recovery depends on rebuilding civic, social and knowledge ecosystems; and Afghanistan’s future depends on sustaining Afghan expertise.

  1. Afghanistan’s crises are systemic and interdependent

A central finding is that Afghanistan’s challenges cannot be understood—or addressed—in isolation. Political instability, economic collapse, humanitarian need, climate vulnerability, governance failures and social exclusion are mutually reinforcing, requiring integrated rather than sectoral responses.

ARN publications demonstrate these interconnections across multiple sectors. Joya (2023), Alokozai and Payenda (2023), and Faeeq (2023) show how economic collapse, fiscal constraints and financial instability have undermined governance and recovery. Malyar (2023), Alam (2023), Habibyar and Noorani (2023), and Sarabi (2023) further demonstrate how climate change, humanitarian action, natural resource governance and aid coordination are shaped by the same underlying institutional and political dynamics. Collectively, these publications argue that sustainable recovery depends on recognising the interdependence of Afghanistan’s political, economic, institutional and social systems.

  1. The collapse of the Republic requires rethinking international peacebuilding

The collapse of the Afghan Republic exposed important limitations in prevailing approaches to peacebuilding, statebuilding and international engagement.

Afghanistan challenges assumptions that peace can be built through linear models of statebuilding, externally driven institutional reform or negotiated political settlements alone. Instead, peacebuilding is better understood as an adaptive process that depends on resilient civic institutions, local agency and the capacity to respond to changing political realities (Sayad & Rangelov 2023; Ibrahimi & Vincent 2023).

The Network’s research also highlights the limits of treating humanitarian assistance, governance and peacebuilding as separate domains. In protracted crises, these are mutually reinforcing and must be approached together (Sarabi 2023; Alam 2023; Jalil 2023).

  1. Gender apartheid is a distinct system of governance and social control

Gender apartheid provides a framework for understanding systems of governance in which the regulation of women becomes a mechanism for governing society as a whole. The Taliban’s restrictions on women and girls are best understood not as individual policies, but as an integrated system that restructures institutions, regulates public life and defines citizenship through gender. The regulation of women is not a consequence of the political order; it is one of its organising principles (Mehran 2023).

This system extends beyond women. The control of women also governs men through systems of guardianship, surveillance, responsibility and enforcement that shape family life, social relations and public behaviour. Gender becomes a mechanism through which political authority is exercised across society, providing a broader framework for understanding governance, power and accountability.

  1. Dialogue beyond the Taliban is fundamental to sustainable peace

Dialogue is not a political event but a continuous process of building trust, relationships and the capacity to manage conflict peacefully. Sustainable peace depends on dialogue that extends beyond elite negotiations to include communities, civil society and those most affected by conflict (Jalil 2023; Ibrahimi & Vincent 2023). International engagement must also move beyond an exclusive focus on the Taliban by engaging wider Afghan society and developing creative institutional approaches that preserve Afghan representation and participation in international processes, even where conventional diplomatic pathways are constrained (Dostyar & Farahi 2023; Dostyar 2025).

Dialogue is not simply a means of reaching political agreement, but an ongoing civic and political practice that broadens participation and sustains the relationships on which long-term peace depends.

  1. Recovery depends on rebuilding civic, social and knowledge ecosystems

Recovery requires more than economic stabilisation or institutional reform. It depends on rebuilding the civic, social and knowledge ecosystems that enable societies to adapt, solve problems and sustain collective action. Civic space, community organisations, independent research and institutional memory are therefore essential foundations of long-term resilience (Dostyar & Farahi 2023; Jalil 2023; Mehran 2023).

  1. Afghanistan’s future depends on sustaining Afghan expertise

Afghan expertise is one of the country’s most enduring assets for future recovery. The collapse of the Republic fragmented Afghanistan’s research ecosystem, disrupting universities, think tanks, civil society organisations and professional networks while displacing many of the country’s researchers and practitioners. Yet the knowledge, experience and institutional memory they hold remain indispensable to understanding Afghanistan’s evolving challenges.

Future engagement with Afghanistan must invest not only in political dialogue and assistance, but also in the Afghan expertise needed to shape, inform and sustain them. Preserving and investing in Afghan expertise is not simply an academic priority; it is fundamental to effective policy, accountable governance and the country’s long-term recovery.

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References

PeaceRep’s key findings series presents a top-line overview of findings from the breadth and depth of the consortium’s data-driven and in-country research between 2021 – 2027. The findings presented here represent our main contributions to the field, but are not necessarily exhaustive of all PeaceRep work on each thematic and geographic area. To view all PeaceRep publications, visit the publications database.

Citation

Ramsbotham, A. & Theros, M. (2026). PeaceRep Key Findings: Afghanistan. PeaceRep: The Peace and Conflict Resolution Evidence Platform, University of Edinburgh.

Researchers involved

Sahar Halaimzai, Nisar Majid, Hila-Nawa Alam, Salma Alokozai, Aref Dostyar, Zmarai Farahi, Matiullah Fareeq, Valentina Finckenstein, Ghazaal Habibyar, Salem Ibrahimi, Ashley Jackson, Hosna Jalil, Omar Joya, Idrees Malyar, Metra Mehran, Javed Noorani, Khalid Payenda, Alexander Ramsbotham, Iavor Rangelov, Atta Ur Rahman Saleem, Naheed Sarabi, Razia Sayad, Michael Semple, Marika Theros, Sam Vincent

References

Jackson, A. and Majid, N. (2024). Time for Change: The Normalization of Corruption and Diversion in the Humanitarian Sector (PeaceRep Report). PeaceRep: The Peace and Conflict Resolution Evidence Platform, University of Edinburgh

Saleem, M. A. & Semple, M. (2024). Peace Matrix for Afghanistan: Strengthening Afghans’ pursuit of democracy, freedom and economic recovery (PeaceRep Report). PeaceRep: The Peace and Conflict Resolution Evidence Platform, University of Edinburgh.

Saleem, M. A. & Semple, M. (2026). Revised Role for the UN in Afghanistan: Pragmatic Presence Today; Preparing for Opportunities Tomorrow (PeaceRep blog). 23 Jan 2026.

Semple, M. (2026). Afghans’ Liminal Civil Resistance to Taliban Rule. PeaceRep Report. PeaceRep: The Peace and Conflict Resolution Evidence Platform, University of Edinburgh

Semple, M. (2023). Talking with the Taliban can wait (PeaceRep blog). PeaceRep: The Peace and Conflict Resolution Evidence Programme, University of Edinburgh. 8 June 2023

Semple, M. (2024). How Do You Structure a Peace Process Under Conditions of Authoritarianism? Reflections on Afghanistan (PeaceRep blog). PeaceRep: The Peace and Conflict Resolution Evidence Programme, University of Edinburgh. 16 Feb 2024

Semple, M. & Saleem, M. A (2026). Revised Role for the UN in Afghanistan: Pragmatic Presence Today; Preparing for Opportunities Tomorrow (PeaceRep Policy Brief). PeaceRep: The Peace and Conflict Resolution Evidence Platform, University of Edinburgh

Theros, M. (2024). Natural bedfellows: corruption, criminality and the failure of international reconstruction. A case study of the Kabul Bank. Conflict, Security & Development, 1–27

Theros, M. (2023). Knowledge, power and the failure of US peacemaking in Afghanistan 2018–21, International Affairs, Volume 99, Issue 3, pp. 1231–1252.

Afghanistan Research Network

Alam, H.-N. (2023). Humanitarian Aid Delivery in Contemporary Afghanistan. Afghanistan Research Network Reflection. PeaceRep: The Peace and Conflict Resolution Evidence Platform, University of Edinburgh.

Alokozai, S., & Payenda, K. (2023). Analysing Taliban’s Budget Expenditures and Revenues: Understanding the Regime’s Policies and Priorities. Afghanistan Research Network Reflection. PeaceRep: The Peace and Conflict Resolution Evidence Platform, University of Edinburgh.

Dostyar, A. (2025). How the United Nations Can Turn Afghanistan’s Seat Into a Path Forward. Afghanistan Research Network Reflection. PeaceRep: The Peace and Conflict Resolution Evidence Platform, University of Edinburgh.

Dostyar, A., & Farahi, Z. (2023). What Could Shape the Conditions for Dialogue in Afghanistan? Afghanistan Research Network Reflection. PeaceRep: The Peace and Conflict Resolution Evidence Platform, University of Edinburgh.

Faeeq, M. (2023). The Future of the Banking Industry in Afghanistan. Afghanistan Research Network Reflection. PeaceRep: The Peace and Conflict Resolution Evidence Platform, University of Edinburgh.

Finckenstein, V. (2023). A Glass Half Empty? An Afghan Economy Without Women. Afghanistan Research Network Reflection. PeaceRep: The Peace and Conflict Resolution Evidence Platform, University of Edinburgh.

Habibyar, G., & Noorani, J. (2023). Afghanistan’s Minerals: Past and Present. Afghanistan Research Network Reflection. PeaceRep: The Peace and Conflict Resolution Evidence Platform, University of Edinburgh.

Ibrahimi, S., & Vincent, S. (2023). The Evolving Information Environment in Afghanistan. Afghanistan Research Network Reflection. PeaceRep: The Peace and Conflict Resolution Evidence Platform, University of Edinburgh.

Jalil, H. (2023). The Taliban and the Rural-Urban Divide. Afghanistan Research Network Reflection. PeaceRep: The Peace and Conflict Resolution Evidence Platform, University of Edinburgh.

Joya, O. (2023). Afghanistan Post-2021: The New Political Economy of Growth. Afghanistan Research Network Reflection. PeaceRep: The Peace and Conflict Resolution Evidence Platform, University of Edinburgh.

Malyar, I. (2023). Managing Climate Change under the De Facto Authorities. Afghanistan Research Network Reflection. PeaceRep: The Peace and Conflict Resolution Evidence Platform, University of Edinburgh.

Mehran, M. (2023). Recognition of Gender Apartheid in Afghanistan Justified. Afghanistan Research Network Reflection. PeaceRep: The Peace and Conflict Resolution Evidence Platform, University of Edinburgh.

Sarabi, N. (2023). Aid Coordination and Delivery in Afghanistan: Assessing Past and Current Architecture. Afghanistan Research Network Reflection. PeaceRep: The Peace and Conflict Resolution Evidence Platform, University of Edinburgh.

Sayad, R., & Rangelov, I. (2023). Afghanistan’s Human Rights Ecosystem after the Taliban Takeover. Afghanistan Research Network Reflection. PeaceRep: The Peace and Conflict Resolution Evidence Platform, University of Edinburgh.