Hybrid peace ownership in Afghanistan: international perspectives of who owns what and when.

Jarstad, Anna K. ; Olsson, Louise

What does local ownership actually entail in the context of an international peace operation supporting sustainable development and stability? Who should own what? Moreover, when should local ownership be introduced? Using the case of Afghanistan as a fruitful example, this article suggests that ownership is key for understanding the interactions between international and local actors as it highlights the asymmetry of this power relation. In all three types of roles that the international actors can perform -- intervenor, mentor, or facilitator -- such an asymmetric power relation exists. For Afghanistan, the result of the different approaches to local ownership has been a complex form of hybrid peace ownership where the international actors have become intertwined in almost all aspects of Afghan life. As the international actors are decreasing their involvement by moving from the role of intervenor to the role of mentor, the sustainability of development and stability in Afghanistan will undoubtedly be put to the test. KEYWORDS: hybridity, governance, ownership, Afghanistan.

WHAT DOES LOCAL OWNERSHIP ACTUALLY ENTAIL IN THE CONTEXT OF AN international peace operation established to support sustainable development and stability? Who should own what? Moreover, when should local ownership be introduced? Should local ownership be the end result or does it need to be introduced from the beginning? The answers to these questions tend to differ greatly between international actors depending on their different perspectives on local ownership. In countries such as Afghanistan, the importance of these differences is brought to the fore as they are translated into concrete approaches. In fact, in this article, we argue that international actors' perspectives on local ownership are central for understanding hybrid peace. The reason is that ownership is key in the interactions between international and local actors, resulting in complex forms of hybrid peace ownership. In such situations, liberal and illiberal actors and values coexist uneasily and neither the international nor the local actors have full ownership; they are caught in a partly symbiotic and partly destructive relationship. A further complication in understanding international perspectives on local ownership is that the international actors can take on many different types of roles -- as intervenor, as mentor, or as facilitator -- during an operation. For example, the role of a mentor or a facilitator often rests on the perspective that the local owner should be the nation-state. Thus, the approach of a national ownership is often used, although it requires that a strong nation-state exists that can act as an owner. In practice, warring states are often weak or failing. (1)

While we do not dispute that progress in both development and stability might have to be based on local power structures and embraced by the population in order to become sustainable, contemporary peace operations take place in situations where local owners have failed to establish such progress on their own. In fact, some local actors have a vested interest in a continued conflict to eventually obtain their objectives. In addition, even when there exist robust power structures owned by local actors, these actors do not always enjoy broad popular legitimacy. While in a best-case scenario local ownership would correspond to a democratic ownership controlled by a parliament (i.e., representatives of the population), this is seldom the case in countries where peace operations take place. To promote broader representation, international actors support the local actors that they perceive could be legitimate owners of a new political order and that might seek to transform the values, norms, and behavior of those actors that are seen as illiberal. This approach often further reinforces the existing asymmetrical power distribution in hybrid peace ownership. That is, the international actors have the upper hand in determining who controls the resources and the agenda. As Astri Suhrke points out: "[Local ownership] in itself accentuates the external origin of the programmes; local ownership clearly means 'their' ownership of 'our' ideas." (2)

Nowhere is the problcmatique of different international roles and perspectives on local ownership as apparent as in Afghanistan. Therefore, in this article, we utilize examples from the highest political levels in Afghanistan down to concrete observations of international work in the northern areas of Afghanistan to develop our argument. These examples clearly display the complexity of hybrid peace ownership. We begin by clarifying the different types of roles that international actors can play during an operation and what these entail for hybrid peace ownership. We then conduct a more thorough analysis of the international perspectives on local ownership encapsulated in hybrid peace ownership by problematizing ownership along the dimensions of who owns what and when.

Hybrid Peace Ownership in Afghanistan

Afghanistan is a particularly interesting case as the roles of international actors and, as a consequence, their perspectives on local ownership have varied greatly during the past ten years. The result has been varying forms of hybrid peace ownership. As mentioned above, three types of international roles can be identified -- the intervenor, the mentor, and the facilitator -- bringing with them a whole span of different connotations of local ownership. Most prominently, the roles affect how international actors perceive who should be the local owner, what should be owned, and when it should be owned. In Afghanistan, this became apparent as the US-led Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) was launched in October 2001 as a response to the al-Qaeda attacks on New York City and Washington, DC, on September 11. Local Afghan actors where turned into allies in this war on tenor. The United Islamic Front for the Salvation of Afghanistan (UIFSA), primarily known as the Northern Alliance, had the common objective with OEF of ousting the Taliban regime, and it successfully managed to do this in November 2001. As part of an exit strategy, the international actors then tried to find a way of returning power to the local actors they considered to be the rightful owners in Afghanistan. To this end, in December 2001, a conference was held in Bonn with the purpose of uniting the different factions of the UIFSA and drawing up guidelines for post-Taliban governance. Hamid Karzai was appointed to lead a twenty-nine-member committee including Pasthuns, Tadzjiks. Hazars. and Uzbeks. In addition, the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) were formed with the purpose of assisting the new Afghan government. The leading idea was the "light footprint approach'" entailing strong local ownership. (3) Yet international actors soon began to ponder whether or not the elected president, Karzai, was too weak to maintain control, a concern that grew as the Taliban movement gained in strength. The international actors consequently adopted the role of an intervenor.

The intervenor approach rests on the understanding that, because local actors have not themselves been able to create development and stability, local ownership is weak or lacking. International actors seize ownership and provide direct assistance in areas they consider pivotal and control the use of their own resources such as personnel, equipment, and funds. The whole process -- from the initiative to the decision to hand over to local actors -- is controlled by the international actors. The intervenor role became dominant in Afghanistan after 2005. By then, the international actors had begun to fear that the achieved progress could be lost. Thus, international military contributions increased. In early 2006 there were 30.000 foreign troops in Afghanistan, and by 2011 this had increased to over 130,000. The Afghan National Army (ANA) was almost entirely trained and financed by the United States through a budget beyond Kabul's control. In the face of the deteriorating security situation, coupled with accusations of massive corruption, the international development actors gradually adopted a more politically intrusive role. (4) Thus, the development actors also came to take on the role as intervenor.

The interventionist approach resulted in an Afghan state completely dependent on international support for development and stability. Therefore, as part of the current exit strategy, ISAF has gradually reformulated its role in Afghanistan to that of mentor. A mentor provides training and material support depending on what is perceived to be local needs. In addition, the mentor often tries to influence local actors through the transmission of their own norms. Since the NATO meeting in Bucharest in 2008, the responsibility for stability and reconstruction has been gradually transferred to Afghan actors:

 Recognizing that the responsibility for providing security and law
 and order throughout the country resides with the Afghan
 Authorities, stressing the role of the International Security
 Assistance Force (ISAF) in assisting the Afghan Government to
 improve the security situation and welcoming the cooperation of
 the Afghan Government with ISAF,... Recalling the leading role
 that the Afghan Authorities will play for the organization of the
 next presidential elections, with the assistance of the
 United Nations. (5)

This quotation clearly identifies that Afghan ownership is central for achieving stability in Afghanistan. A precondition for this ownership is said to be a political system and administration capable to take over the responsibility both at the central level and around the country. For this reason, more focus has been placed on the civilian part of the operation.

As the international military presence draws toward a close in 2014. several international actors are also beginning to take on the role of facilitator to enable a complete transition of ownership. A facilitator functions as a link between different local actors. Such international actors seek to build local ownership by connecting local actors. An important part of such capacity building is to explain the ways of influence, to achieve a division of responsibilities among local actors, and to promote methods to gain local accountability. For example, both international military and development actors provide advice on division of labor between the newly established branches of the state. While the military forces try to promote collaboration between ANA and the Afghan police, development agencies encourage the government to take control of development and connect different levels of governance (central, regional, and local) as well as the political and administrative branches.

Although international support to Afghanistan has been massive, it has not been uniform in its character among actors or over time. Even small states, such as Sweden, have held a combination of varying roles. For example, the Swedish Armed Forces has followed the top-down state-centered intervenor approach of the ISAF, while the Swedish Committee for Afghanistan (SCA), partly funded by the Swedish International Development Agency, has supported a bottom-up approach of popular ownership of development in accordance with the Afghanistan National Development Strategy (ANDS). In order to do so, SCA has performed both the role of mentor and of intervenor by taking on the tasks of a state agency in charge of education and health in some provinces. Which local actor is perceived to own what and when has. hence, varied between international actors and over time.

Problematizing Local Ownership in Hybrid Peace

As noted in the discussion on the different roles of international actors, there is a need for a more thorough analysis of the international perspectives on local ownership encapsulated in hybrid peace ownership. In this section, therefore, we ask who should own what and when?

Who Should Be the Local Owner?

The number of potential local owners with whom international actors can cooperate is substantial. Competition between many of them is fierce. International support can further increase tension and risk to strengthen actors whose power mainly relies on illiberal norms and behavior. It can also strengthen existing liberal actors and empower actors that have previously not had an impact on development and security. However, such changes in the local power balance can also give rise to additional conflict. When both liberal and illiberal actors are supported -- along with those actors that portray a mix of liberal and illiberal values -- it consolidates an unstable form of hybrid peace ownership. Thus, from the perspective of the international actor, a key consideration when addressing local ownership is the question. Who should be the local owner?

Previous research recognizes several potential ownership categories: regime ownership (political), state ownership (political and administrative), ownership by traditional or religious institutions, civil society ownership (organized citizens), communitarian ownership (broad networks of cooperation among the population), or citizen ownership by the population (ownership vested in the individuals). The local ownership could thus span from the president or a member of parliament to the individual citizen. (6) Apart from the public sector, aid has increasingly also been used for catalyzing local markets and production. Small-scale businesses therefore receive an increasing amount of aid identifying yet another group of potential local owners.

The inclusive idea of a national ownership combines many of these forms of ownership where all parts should contribute to a strong nation-state. However, in weak states where such ownership does not exist, local elites may compete for political power by making use of patrimonial networks to ensure loyalty and gain control. In such contexts, international support can spur corruption and communal strife. A further complication is that a weak state rarely controls all of its territory. This underlines the need to consider the role of the government in the capital in relation to local actors in charge of the more autonomous regional or provincial government structures. (7) Such regional or provincial government actors might not have an interest in increasing the power of the central state at the expense of decreasing their own power base. These dynamics have been apparent in Afghanistan, where the local state structures, often run by former warlords, are not always aligned with the central state and instead forward their own interests. The competition between the northern warlord-turned-governor of Masar-e Sharif, Atta Mohammed Noor, and President Karzai is a case in point. The same can he true for traditional or religious actors that operate beyond the realm of the state. Support of such actors can thereby potentially weaken a staiebuilding process that is focusing on the central state. In addition, there are illegal local actors, such as organized crime, that more or less openly challenge the central government. However, these actors might hold the factual power over parts of the territory or over local government processes, which makes them hard to surpass for international actors.

From the international perspective, support to local ownership thus involves a process of selection. (8) In the approaches used, it is possible to distinguish between three main types of selection criteria: power, legitimacy, or norms and culture. The allure of building the selection of the local owner on existing power structures is that it promises to ensure the capacity to implement. At other times, the power of local actors makes them seem impossible to ignore for international actors. One could say that these local actors already are owners because, in the areas they control, they can limit or facilitate the work of international actors. However, using power as selection criteria also has inherent problems. For example, while the power of warlords could have been a reason for involving them in the fight against the Taliban, the interests of warlords often run counter to human rights standards or the international norms on human security. For example. General Abdul Rashid Dostum, the former warlord from northern Afghanistan, is suspected of systematic human rights abuse but has still been a recipient of international support. (9)

Besides power, research indicates that another selection criteria used by international actors is the perceived legitimacy of local actors. Two indicators utilized by international actors to determine legitimacy appear to be: (1) formal recognition, that is, if the local actor has been a signatory to a peace agreement; or (2) popular support, that is, if the actor has gained a substantial number of votes in a recent election. In Afghanistan, the initial local owners of the post-Taliban peace process were established in the Bonn Agreement and consisted mainly of representatives of UIFSA. As perceived by the international actors, the legitimate future local owners would in a next step be established in open and fair elections. The conduct and outcome of the elections held in Afghanistan, however, have been much disputed. For example, Afghan members of parliament have sought support from the UN to handle what they perceive to be President Karzai's abuse of power following the contested elections of 2010. (10) Thus, as with power, the selection processes resting on agreements or elections can be flawed.

In addition to selecting on power and legitimacy at the state level, traditional leaders (e.g., elders) or civil society organizations (such as women's organizations) can at times be perceived as more suitable owners by the international actors. The process of selection on the basis of power or legitimacy is therefore often complemented by how the international actors read the contexts outside of the realm of the state. These actors are often labeled in terms of being cultural or normative. For example, in Afghanistan, the US military forces have made use of human terrain teams to collect information through more anthropological methods. These teams have also been utilized to distribute information about ISAF to the population. However, research has been critical to the international actors' ability to read the local context. For example, international actors often believe that cultural actors have different understandings of human rights than local nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), which is not always the case. Others romanticize local cultural actors without making a deeper analysis of which part of the local population they represent or whose interests they serve. (11)

What Is to Be Locally Owned?

With the expanding mandates of peace operations, the number of potential international-local interactions has steadily increased since the end of the Cold War. (12) What, then, is to be locally owned? Even if limited to development and stability, there are numerous tasks that could potentially be locally owned. In addition, implementation involves the highest policymaking level as well as the direct impact on the ground. Thus, the question of what is to be owned can be addressed by analyzing several levels of implementation.

The complex mandates of international actors in Afghanistan demonstrate the local ownership problematique of what should be owned. In accordance with the Paris Declaration and the Accra Accords, international development actors have focused on ANDS in cooperation with the Afghan government:

 Demonstrating a renewed commitment to the People of Afghanistan
 within the framework of the Afghanistan National Development
 Strategy, the new generation of National Priority Programs presented
 at the Kabul International Conference on Afghanistan aim to empower
 all Afghan citizens and government and non-governmental institutions
 to contribute to improved service delivery, job creation, equitable
 economic growth, the protection of all Afghan citizens' rights, and
 a durable and inclusive peace. (13)

In line with ANDS, development actors focus on statebuilding by raising the state's capacity to provide basic services. For example, SCA is one of the largest providers of primary education in rural Afghanistan. In the mid-2000s, SCA handed over some 400 schools to the Ministry of Education as capacity of the ministry had been raised. The focus now lies on community-based schools reaching students in distant locations where there are no government schools. This is done in accordance with a memorandum of understanding with the Ministry of Education. SCA is also currently in charge of the basic health service in four provinces: Wardak, Laghman, Sar-e-Pul, and Samangan. (14)

While organizations such as SCA relate their work directly to ANDS, signed by the Afghan state, there are other forms of aid that can bypass the central Afghan government completely. This aid is instead implemented directly in the provinces, for example, by ISAF's Provincial Reconstruction Teams. From the perspective of local ownership, what is most relevant here is that military engagement in development has increased. This is due to the recognition that the completion of one task can be dependent on progress in other task areas. Thereby, decisions concerning local ownership by one international actor can affect the work of other international actors. To complicate matters, development actors and military actors have tended to engage with different types of local actors although implementing the same task. Primarily, however, ISAF has focused on stability. In ISAF's own words:

 In accordance with all the relevant Security Council Resolutions,
 the main role of ISAF is to assist the Afghan government in the
 establishment of a secure and stable environment. To this end,
 ISAF forces conduct security and stability operations throughout
 the country together with the Afghan National Security Forces and
 are directly involved in the development of the Afghan National
 Security Forces through mentoring, training and equipping. (15)

Thus, establishing "a secure and stable environment" has involved ISAF in direct military operations in combination with improving the capacity of the Afghanistan National Security Forces (ANSF). When basic levels of capacity were deemed by the international actors to have been achieved, ISAF's work progressed to cooperating with, and mentoring, ANSF. What is interesting to note here, in terms of what is to be owned, is the initial contradictory role of ISAF. As the above quotation indicates, ISAF has a shared responsibility with ANSF for stability while simultaneously having the responsibility for developing (including training and equipping) the same forces. Here Surkhe's observation about "their ownership of our ideas" is central to consider. (16) The ISAF quotation seems to presuppose that there is a security force with whom it could cooperate. The actual situation is that the international actors are in the process of creating such a force. A local owner is "incubated" through international assistance. (17)

A final point about what could be locally owned relates to the means to achieve the goals of security and development. The type of resource with which the international actors contribute, such as personnel, funds, or equipment, could affect the transfer to local ownership in different ways. Most notably, international forces do not release total control over their own troops and place them under local ownership. Thus, in cases where stability requires the use of international military personnel, complete local ownership by transferring authority of international troops to local actors would not be achieved. For example, when President Karzai announced that the Afghan state was to take control over security in northern Afghanistan beginning in the summer of 2011, the Swedish Armed Forces quickly declared that it would not place its forces under the command of ANSF but would continue to support them through ISAF. (18) By comparison, resources such as funds or equipment are less sensitive than personnel to a complete transfer to local owners.

In conclusion, when answering the question of what should be locally-owned, two points are central. First, there is an underlying power imbalance in the international-local interaction that affects what is to be locally owned. This means that, in addition to the relinquishment of control by international actors in terms of technical and practical issues, international support also includes norm transmission. Hence, international actors seek to influence not only what the local actors do but also what they think is important to do. Second, the effects of the selection of what should be owned by whom underlines the impact of international decisions on local power relationships. Aid can be used to empower not only the state but also its citizens.

When Should Local Ownership Be Introduced?

In addition to who and what, an important question is, When should local ownership be introduced? We suggest that local ownership can be seen as: (1) a starting point; (2) a process allowing for a transfer of ownership; or (3) as an end state. As can be observed, the international perspectives of when local actors should be brought in -- as representatives, participants, or decisionmakers -- depend to a large extent on if the international actor has a short-term or long-term commitment. This, in turn, is a reflection of different conceptions by the international actors of how sustainability can be achieved.

From an international development actor's perspective, local ownership has in later years been deemed necessary from the outset. This provides the receiving countries with control over aid and enables local actors to take responsibility. SCA is an actor that has always employed Afghan staff and grounded its work in local acceptance. Today, 99 percent of the employees are Afghan. (19) In addition, SCA will not initiate a project unless the Afghan community has demonstrated their commitment by ensuring the security of the project staff and by contributing through their own manual labor or funding. This means that the initiative, the agenda setting, the formulation of objectives, the plan for implementation, the development of methods, the implementation itself, and the evaluation of projects are largely owned by Afghans. In this organization, the roles of Afghans cover both participation and decisionmaking because both the recipients of aid and the employees are Afghans. External support from SCA's headquarters in Stockholm to the internal work in Afghanistan is focused on providing both funding and a few international experts. Hence, SCA understands local ownership as a starting point and acknowledges that dialogue and adjustments to local priorities take time. In its view, it is necessary to establish local ownership ahead of the initiation of a project. If a project is rushed, there is a risk that it will not be sustainable. (20)

For other international actors, initial local ownership has not been an option. This is particularly true in situations where ownership itself is the object of violent conflict. When the aim of the international actors is to halt violence between local actors fighting over the control of the state, an international actor can seize ownership of security. Structures for local ownership of security forces are thereafter created to provide for sustainable security and stability. (21) This approach has meant that local ownership has been viewed as an end result. The transfer of ownership from the international actors to the local actors was considered crucial for success. However, to simply hand over total ownership at one specific point in time is uncommon. In general, such a handover lakes place as a continuous transfer, thus turning the issue of establishing local ownership into a process. In theory, the process of supporting local ownership can enable local actors to be gradually included, first as representatives, then as participants of the implementation of a task, until full decisionmaking power is finally handed over to the local actor. The transfer can also lake the form of a distribution of ownership between the international actors and the local actors where the latter takes over an increasing share of ownership over time. In practice, the decision lo hand over complete local ownership is often postponed due to perceived lack of capacity, corruption, or insecurity. This puts a strain on the international-domestic relationship. As expressed by President Karzai: 'The Afghans want to have a government of their own. The Afghans don't want a government from abroad. ... The transition means giving the whole thing to Afghan ownership and leadership." (22)

The question of timing appears to be related to the perceived length of the international commitment and their conceptions of the possibility to create sustainability. While the mandates of international actors focusing on development compared to those working on stability are different, in Afghanistan both military and development actors can be engaged in similar forms of work. This presents interesting dynamics. For example, ISAF considers stability, development, and government as three mutually dependent opcralional lines. This means a high degree of international ownership under a time-limited mandate. Thus, while ISAF is not a donor agency it can. for instrumental reasons, address local development needs such as building roads and bridges. However, such peace gains are intended to have a direct military purpose such as preventing recruitment to the Taliban movement by building loyalty to an international ownership. As a contrast to ISAF. international development actors expect to have a long-term commitment in promoting sustainable development through local ownership. That is. local ownership is often the starting point. Because of the different perspectives, the international actors" approaches can clash. For instance, if a military actor finds that a strategic village lacks drinking water and approaches a development actor to ask for assistance to dig wells, the response can be that the villagers themselves have to contact Afghan authorities and put forward their demand. If the Afghan authorities find this a legitimate request in accordance with ANDS, they can approach donors to fund such a project. The application then has to be formally accepted by the donor country before Afghan contractors are invited to submit their bids. ISAF, however, perceives this as hampering its efforts to provide quick rewards to the population. For some international development actors, ISAF's direct engagement in development is seen as circumventing the Afghan state, thereby undermining the state's ownership of development even further.

Thus, while international actors involved in development have increased their emphasis on involving local actors from the start, the military actors' approach can be to first remove power from the warring parties before local ownership is established. Here, local ownership can take two forms: it can be the end result of international involvement (i.e., ownership is transferred when the international actors exit) or it can be a gradual process entailing a transfer of ownership. Which approach is selected appears to be related to the international actors' long-term versus short-term commitments and how they perceive sustainability. Not understanding each other's different underlying logics risks creating a situation where different efforts to do good undermine each other, thus reinforcing an even more complicated form of hybrid peace ownership.

Conclusion

In this article, we have asked what local ownership actually entails in the situation of an international peace operation intended to support sustainable development and stability. Who is it that should own what? Moreover, when should local ownership be introduced? And does it matter if the international actor is an intervenor, a mentor, or a facilitator? Using the case of Afghanistan as an example, we have argued that the different logics underpinning the work of international actors are central to understanding hybrid peace. In Afghanistan the varying roles that the international peace operation took on -- intervenor, mentor, and facilitator -- could be connected to different forms of ownership of hybrid peace. Most notably, when ownership is perceived to be lacking, international actors have historically tended to seize ownership and provide direct assistance in the form of military troops or distribution of humanitarian aid. Thereby, they take on the role of an intervenor. Internationally, however, and in accordance with the sovereignty principle, the state is still considered to be the true legitimate owner of its territory. Thus, when a government is established as a counterpart, the international actor is expected to take on the function of mentor to strengthen the capacity of the state. In the process to make international support redundant, the role of facilitator is adopted. The facilitator connects the local population with the newly established political and administrative institutions and assists cooperation among the various state agencies at different levels of the state.

However, we bring to fore that regardless of what type of role is adopted by the international actors, local ownership is paradoxically stressed only in relation to the Other. In reality, the international actors often set the agenda as well as control the funds and other resources. The results are varying complex forms of hybrid peace ownership.

In this article, we have problematized local ownership along the lines of the inherent tension encompassed in the varying perspectives on local ownership in the dimensions of who. what, and when. Table 1 summarizes the key alternative components of the three dimensions. It is important to note that different actors emphasize different components and they may not be aware of the fact that other international actors have different understandings of local ownership.

Table 1 Dimensions of Local Ownership

Who? What? When?

Regime (political) Mandate oriented; Transfer:
Slate (political and * Development * Stalling point
administrative) * Stability * Process
Traditional or Resource Oriented: * End product
religious institutions * Funds Tvpe of ownership:
Civil society * Personnel * Representation
Communitarian * Equipment * Participation
Population or citizens * Training * Decisionmaking
Illegal networks:
organized crime, warlords

Thus, a first consideration for the international actor is who the local owner should be. Intense power competition and varying local political views on state-building can be expected to exist in a weak state such as Afghanistan. Selecting among local owners thereby involves difficult trade-offs. Choosing partners on the criteria of power, legitimacy, or norms and culture can all appear to have their different advantages and problems. For example, a reason for selecting on power is that strong actors are believed to have the capacity both to secure stability and to implement development programs. A common problem, however, is that Joea) power structures do not always enjoy local legitimacy. In later years, culture and norms have also come to play a larger role in international considerations of which local actor with whom to engage. While selection of a local owner based on culture and norms often brings in additional actors, such as traditional leaders and civil society networks, international actors often lack sufficient knowledge of the local context to understand how support to such actors influences the local power dynamics. The paradox of bottom-up peace-building is that it often requires quite extensive external interventions lo restructure slate-society relationships.

A second consideration for international actors is to decide what is to be locally owned. This choice involves considering a great complexity of interrelated tasks on many levels of implementation. An analysis of what should be locally owned also highlights that certain international resources, such as large numbers of international military personnel, can never be placed under complete local ownership.

The third, and final, concern for international actors is when local ownership should be introduced. This brings to light the paradox that, while the very reason for international military involvement is the perceived lack of local ownership, it is believed that for international efforts to be sustainable local actors have to gain ownership. From the perspective of development actors, it is more common to perceive local actors as owners from the start while there is a growing recognition that such an approach has to acknowledge the behavior of existing warring parties. The interdependency between conflict and development is captured in the idea of the security-development nexus. In addition, some development actors have the ambition to provide the host state control over aid, whereas other donors are more focused on locally rooted development embraced by the ordinary citizen. The latter is important as a manner to ensure the population's control of the state structures in order to obtain a more democratic ownership. However, creating a dependency on aid also gives rise to a systemic dilemma. (23) The Afghan state is completely dependent on international support for development and security, but there are no mechanisms for the Afghan people to hold the international actors accountable. The international ideal of "the who" being a democratic local owner can thereby be even further undermined. In Afghanistan, it is interesting to note, however, that both military and development actors apply a process-oriented approach to local ownership. When the Afghan state has obtained sufficient capacity, full ownership is to be transferred during the final stages in the international exit strategy. In this phase, there is a risk that the international actors may get the sequencing of tasks wrong with unpredictable consequences for the new political order, thus reinforcing hybrid peace ownership.

For Afghanistan, international perspectives on local ownership of development and stability have been translated into varying approaches. The result has been a form of hybrid peace ownership where the international actors have become intertwined with almost all aspects of Afghan life. In a best-case scenario, this will strengthen the Afghan state both from the bottom up and from the top down. However, in this process, there is also a risk that additional issues and new motives for violence will emerge, adding yet another layer to the complex hybrid political order, thus even further undermining an already complex situation in terms of local ownership in Afghanistan. As the international actors are decreasing their involvement by moving from the role of intervenor to the role of mentor, and eventually to the role of facilitator, the sustainability of development and stability in Afghanistan will undoubtedly be put to the test.

Notes

Anna K. Jarstad is associate professor in the Department of Government, Uppsala University, Sweden. With Timothy D. Sisk, she coedited the volume From War to Democracy: Dilemmas of Peacebuilding. Her publications also address contemporary power-sharing pacts and management of political violence. Louise Olsson is researcher and project leader at Folke Bernadotte Academy and assistant professor in the Department of Peace and Conflict Research. Her publications include Gender Equality and UN Peace Operations in Timor-Leste. She has also edited special issues of Security Dialogue and International Peacekeeping, addressing a wide range of gender-specific dimensions of security policy and international peacekeeping.

The authors acknowledge generous financial support from Sida/SAREC, which has made the research possible. They are grateful for constructive comments made by discussants Roland Kostic and Dominik Zaum. The content of this article is the responsibility of the authors and does not represent the official views of the Folke Bernadotte Academy.

(1.) Abdul Hannan, "The Paris Declaration and National Ownership: From de Jure to de Facto;" Staff Opinion, UNDP, No. I, October 2007, http://204.200.211.80/joomla/attachments/003_stalf_opinion_undp__zambia_l.pdf.

(2.) Astri Surhke, "Democratizing a Dependent State: The Case of Afghanistan," Democratization 15, no. 3 (2007): 630-648.

(3.) See, for example, Lakhdar Brahimi, "State Building in Crisis and Post-conflict Countries," speech at the 7th Global Forum on Reinventing Government Building Trust in Government, 26-29 June 2007, Vienna, Austria.

(4.) Astri Surkhe, "The Dangers of a Tight Embrace: Eternally Assisted Statebuild-ing in Afghanistan," in Roland Paris and Timothy D. Sisk, eds., The Dilemmas of State-building: Confronting the Contradictions of Postwar Peace Operations (New York: Routlcdge, 2009), p. 241.

(5.) UN Security Council, Res. 1833 (22 September 2008).

(6.) Louise Olsson and Anna Jarstad, "Local Ownership of Peace: Hobbes, Rousseau and International Support to Statebuilding in Afghanistan," in Hanne Fjelde and Kristine Hoglund. eds.. Building Peace, Creating Conflict? Conflictual Dimen sions of Local and International Peacebuilding (Lund: Nordic Academic Press, 2011).

(7.) Suhrke, "Democratizing a Dependent State"; Barnett R. Rubin and Humayun Hamidzada, "From Bonn to London: Governance Challenges and the Future of State-building in Afghanistan," International Peacekeeping 14, no. 1 (2007): 8-25; Sarah Lister, "Changing the Rule? Statebuilding and Local Government in Afghanistan," Journal of Development Studies 45, no. 6 (2009): 990-1009; Richard Ponzio and Christopher Freeman, "Conclusion: Rethinking Statebuilding in Afghanistan/' International Peacekeeping 14, no. 1 (2007): 173-184.

(8.) See Louise Olsson, Gender Equality and United Nations Peace Operations in Timor Leste (Leiden: Brill. 2009), for a discussion on the selection and the resulting opening of the internal political space.

(9.) Suhrke, "Democratizing a Dependent State."

(10.) Alistar Scrutton, "Afghanistan Warns Against 'External Interference' over Poll," Reuters, 27 June 2011, http://uk.news.yahoo.com/afghanistan-warns-against-external-interference-over-polU112545746.html.

(11.) Oliver Richmond, A Post-liberal Peace: The Infrapoiitics of Peacebuilding (New York: Routlcdge, 2011).

(12.) See, for example, International Forum for the Challenges of Peace Operations, Considerations for Mission Leadership in United Nations Peacekeeping Operations (Stockholm: EcHta Vastra Aros AB, 2010).

(13.) Afghanistan National Development Strategy 201.0: Prioritization and Implementation Plan Mid-2010 to Mid-2013, Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, July 2010, p. 4.

(14.) Lecture by Johanna Fogelstrom, Swedish Committee for Afghanistan (SCA), Uppsala University, 27 April 2011. See also SCA, www.swedishcommittee.org.

(15.) "About ISAF," International Security Assistance Force, www.isaf.nato.int/mission.html.

(16.) Surhke, "Democratizing a Dependent State."

(17.) Jan Angstrom, "Inviting the Leviathan: External Forces, War, and Statebuilding in Afghanistan," Small Wars & Insurgencies 19, no. 3 (2008): 374-396.

(18.) "Afghaner tar over ledningen," Svenska Dagbladet, 22 March 2011, www.svd.se/nyheter/utrikes/afghaner-tar-over-ledningen_6031261.svd.

(19.) Lecture by Johanna Fogelstrom, Swedish Committee for Afghanistan (SCA), Uppsala University. 27 April 2011. See also SCA, www.swedishcommittee.org.

(20.) Ibid.

(21.) Annika S. Hansen, "Local Ownership in Peace Operations," in Timothy Don-ais, ed., Local Ownership and Security Sector Reform (Berlin: LIT, 2008), pp. 39-58.

(22.) President Hamid Karzai quoted in Adam Schreck, "Afghan Leader: NATO Reconstruction Bases Must Go," Associated Press, 8 February 2011.

(23.) Anna K. Jarstad, "Dilemmas of War-to-Democracy Transitions: Theories and Concepts," in Anna K. Jarstad and Timothy D. Sisk, eds., From War to Democracy: Dilemmas of Peacebuiiding (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008).