Beyond power sharing institutional options for an afghan peace process

The report analyzes the challenges of the Afghan conflict, emphasizing the need for a proactive, inclusive peace process. It suggests that successful negotiations require third-party facilitation, a structured negotiating framework, and transitional arrangements to manage security and governance. The authors argue against narrow power-sharing between elites, proposing instead a multidimensional approach involving power-sharing, power-dividing, power-creating, and power-diffusing mechanisms across political, military, territorial, and economic dimensions to ensure long-term stability and legitimacy.

• The Afghan conflict is characterized by overlapping structures, including a counterinsurgency layer over a deeper struggle among political-military factions shaped by ethnic, tribal, regional, and economic factors, alongside a broad-based legitimacy crisis.
• Core conflict actors, including the Taliban, the Afghan government, and the international coalition, are complex and incoherent, which makes them unreliable counterparties in negotiations and increases the risk of spoilers.
• Initiating a viable peace process requires proactive third-party engagement to build confidence and a structured 'road map' that includes both procedural agreements and a statement of fundamental principles.
• To ensure durability and legitimacy, the peace process must broaden inclusion beyond combatant elites to encompass civil society, women, and vulnerable groups, avoiding the mistakes of the 2001 Bonn Process.
• Transitional arrangements are essential to manage the period between a cease-fire and permanent institutions, specifically to address security dilemmas through mechanisms like cantonment, joint monitoring, and demobilization.
• The report proposes a 'hybrid' interim political order for Afghanistan that balances continuity of the current regime with necessary reforms and power-sharing to constrain the government and include new actors.
• Long-term stability requires moving beyond narrow executive power-sharing to a multidimensional distribution of decision-making rights across political, military, territorial, and economic dimensions.
• Specific institutional options to distribute power include proportional representation (power-sharing), horizontal checks and balances between government branches (power-dividing), the creation of autonomous agencies (power-creating), and the diffusion of appointment powers (power-diffusing).

APA

Nixon, H., & Hartzell, C. (2011). Beyond power sharing institutional options for an afghan peace process. Peace Research Institute Oslo. https://cdn.cloud.prio.org/files/ab03d280-1df5-429a-af2c-034b2dff0dc1/Beyond Power-sharing Institutional Options for an Afghan Peace Process.pdf?inline=true

Chicago

Nixon, Hamish, and Caroline Hartzell. Beyond power sharing institutional options for an afghan peace process. Peace Research Institute Oslo, 2011. https://cdn.cloud.prio.org/files/ab03d280-1df5-429a-af2c-034b2dff0dc1/Beyond Power-sharing Institutional Options for an Afghan Peace Process.pdf?inline=true.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Nixon |first1=Hamish |last2=Hartzell |first2=Caroline |title=Beyond power sharing institutional options for an afghan peace process |publisher=Peace Research Institute Oslo |date=December 2011 |url=https://cdn.cloud.prio.org/files/ab03d280-1df5-429a-af2c-034b2dff0dc1/Beyond Power-sharing Institutional Options for an Afghan Peace Process.pdf?inline=true |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{nixon2011beyond, author = {Nixon, Hamish and Hartzell, Caroline}, title = {{Beyond power sharing institutional options for an afghan peace process}}, institution = {Peace Research Institute Oslo}, year = {2011}, month = dec, url = {https://cdn.cloud.prio.org/files/ab03d280-1df5-429a-af2c-034b2dff0dc1/Beyond Power-sharing Institutional Options for an Afghan Peace Process.pdf?inline=true}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }