Moving Beyond the Absence of War: Discussing the Prospect for Positive Peace in Taliban-Administered Afghanistan

Guided by Johan Galtung's positive peace theory, this paper critically examines Afghanistan's prospects for achieving positive peace through political decentralization of power. It analyzes past internal and external peacebuilding initiatives, identifies factors that have contributed to the failures of these attempts, and derives lessons for future peacebuilding strategies. This study investigates five significant peacebuilding efforts over the past five decades using qualitative content analysis of primary and secondary sources. The major external attempts examined include the Geneva Accord 1988, the 2001 Bonn Agreement, and the 2020 Doha Agreement between the US and the Taliban. Internal efforts analyzed are President Najibullah's National Reconciliation Policy (NRP) in the mid-1980s and the Mujahidin's rule under Burhanuddin Rabbani between 1992 and 1996. The analysis elucidates the historical involvement of regional and global stakeholders in these processes and identifies the underlying causes that hindered the achievement of durable peace in Afghanistan. This study highlights sustained international support and robust indigenous mechanisms as crucial determinants for transitioning Afghanistan from negative peace (absence of direct violence) to positive peace (absence of structural and cultural violence). The central hypothesis posits that addressing the root causes of conflict through decentralized, inclusive structures that respect Afghanistan's heterogeneous nature is vital to breaking the cycle of violence and achieving positive peace.