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Informed by the author's extensive fieldwork in Afghanistan, this socio-legal study examines how the Taliban used law and courts to substantiate their claim to embody the state, disseminate their vision of society, and establish local legitimacy.
List of contents
- Introduction: A sociological approach to law in civil wars
- Part I: Legal Uncertainty
- 1: A revolution in the juridical field
- 2: The social upheavals of a war-torn society
- 3: Regime justice: Rubberstamping the balance of power
- 4: The US Army: Reinventing the tribe, circumventing the courts
- Part II: The Taliban Courts
- 5: A bureaucratic system
- 6: The dual membership of judges
- 7: The trials
- Part III: Producing a Social Order Through the Law
- 8: Judges as an instrument of centralization
- 9: Legitimation through law
- 10: The society project
- Conclusion: The internationalization of law in civil war
About the author
Adam Baczko is CNRS Research Associate Professor at the Centre for International Studies of Sciences Po. He holds a PhD from the EHESS and conducts field-based research on the formation of legal institutions by armed movements and international actors in contexts of armed conflict, with a particular focus on Afghanistan, Syria and Mali. With Gilles Dorronsoro and Arthur Quesnay, he is the co-author of Civil War in Syria: Mobilisation and Competing Social Orders (Cambridge University Press, 2018).
Summary
Informed by the author's extensive fieldwork in Afghanistan, this socio-legal study examines how the Taliban used law and courts to substantiate their claim to embody the state, disseminate their vision of society, and establish local legitimacy.
Additional text
It is a well-argued case and fascinating book on an interesting and not well-known country, but the reader may not agree with all the conclusions and arguments made.
