Research project: Economic-State Crime and Transformative Justice in Afghanistan: An Analysis at the Intersection of Transitional Justice and Criminology

Project information
  • Period:
  • September 2012 - October 2017
  • Funding:
  • Jack Kent Cooke Foundation (Outside funding from the USA)
Description research project

In cases of protracted internal strife and armed conflict, when during several decades, political transitions and regime changes follow one another; standard approaches to transitional justice are bound to fail, theoretically and practically.  Things may get even more intractable if the elite presiding over the new regime, installed and maintained into power by the might and resources of the ``international community,'' is among the worst perpetrators of abuses and continues to rule as kleptocrats. Afghanistan is one of these historical situations. In order to start answering the main theoretical and empirical questions about such intellectually demanding cases, this dissertation marshals and combines two fields: an alternative discourse on transitional justice and critical criminology. 

Looking through the prism of crime and justice, this doctoral dissertation offers an analysis of socio-economic harm during periods of violent conflict and transition combining empirical research and an interdisciplinary framework. The thesis discusses socio-economic harm as a form of state crime and economic crime from a critical criminological perspective. The dynamic questions arising from the political and institutional changes in periods of violent conflict, in particular in relation to war victims, are addressed adopting the concept of transformative justice, an emerging and alternative perspective in the field of transitional justice. 

Empirically grounded in fieldwork conducted in Kabul, Afghanistan, in 2013 and 2014, the research presents perceptions of victims and local experts as regards to the harm borne by victims in relation to the loss of land and property during four decades of violent conflict in Afghanistan.  Using a Case Study method, 56 semi-structured interviews were conducted with 102 participants, most of them displaced by war, returnees and victims of land grabs.  Experts' views, such as those in civil society and public officials, served as an important conduit through which information could be confirmed or explanation could be sought, in particular in relation to land grab, which has become a defining feature of post-Taliban Afghanistan.  

Based on a thorough analysis of the theoretical and empirical components, the thesis offers and supports two main arguments.  First, certain types of socio-economic harm, such as those borne by victims whose perceptions are reflected in this thesis, can amount to economic-state crime, a framework which this thesis has developed based on existing criminological typologies, to demonstrate the symbiotic relationship between economic crime and state crime in contexts of weak, failed and corrupt institutions where the ruling elite is a part and parcel in committing such crimes. This argument has particularly been demonstrated in relation to land grabbing.  Second, in transitional contexts where, on the one hand, national and international political will does not allow the implementation of transitional justice, and on the other, a majority of victim population do not believe they can exercise their agency due to their nescience and dire socio-economic conditions, transformative justice can serve as a pre-condition for the implementation of transitional justice. 

The thesis concludes that transitional justice and critical criminology, contrary to their apparent disconnect, can mutually inform and reinforce each other.  This, nevertheless, requires transitional justice scholars to look deeper into the criminological literature and expertise such as its methodologies, theories and concepts in relation to state crime and economic crime in particular.  Likewise, critical criminologists need to come out of their ``comfort zone'' and use their critical lens in situations of violent conflict and post-conflict, beyond the established liberal democracies, to be able to engage more with the field of transitional justice..