How Peace Negotiations Fail: The Case of Afghanistan and the Taliban (2020–2021)

The Taliban capture of Kabul on August 15, 2021, was the final nail in the coffin of the failed peace process between the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan and the Taliban. Drawing on both rationalist and ideationalist approaches to peace processes in peace and conflict resolution literature, this article highlights seven causes of the failure of these peace negotiations. These include a flawed peace design, lack of mediator and guarantor, costly concessions, indivisibility, ideology and identity, and the absence of a mutual stalemate.