Investigating the causes and contexts of the Taliban's return to power in Afghanistan  (2015-2021), a three-level analysis

Moghadass, Azam

doi:10.22070/iws.2021.15045.2118

Investigating the causes and contexts of the Taliban's return to power in Afghanistan (2015-2021), a three-level analysis

Document Type : Research Paper

Author

Azam Moghadass

. Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, Payame Noor University of Tehran

10.22070/iws.2021.15045.2118

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to study the contexts and reasons for the return of the Taliban to political power in Afghanistan and, subsequently, to change the fragile and fragmented political order that prevailed in Afghanistan after 2001. Although military coups, violent riots, foreign intervention, and civil war have been a recurring experience in the country since the 1970s; But the Taliban's significant advance and widespread occupation of cities, commercial ports and important areas of Afghanistan, the fall of governorates and the escalation of the war to the cities and finally the fall of Kabul to them, has created a new era of political and security instability and a wave of concern for the domestic and foreign actors of Afghanistan's political future. Research findings indicate inefficiency, the crisis of legitimacy and fragility of the government on the one hand and the internal capabilities of the Taliban on the other hand at the national level, changing the strategy and performance of neighbors such as Pakistan, India and Iran at the regional level and the US and NATO, Russia and China internationally. They have played a key role in re-establishing the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Keywords

Afghanistan

Taliban

Fragile Government

Regional Actors

United States

20.1001.1.22520732.1400.9.19.3.1

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