Formal & Informal Governance
This article, recently threaded here, has a good comment on the dichotomy between formal and informal governance in Afghanistan:
http://smallwarsjournal.com/mag/docs...tt-agoglia.pdf(pp.4-5)
Key to understanding the operating environment is both understanding the specific causes of conflicts in your tactical area of operations and understanding exactly what “governance” means to local Afghans. Coalition forces have proven notoriously incapable of differentiating between conflicts involving insurgents, vice local conflicts over scarce resources vice intra- or inter-district struggles over the distribution of power. Related to this, there does not appear to be widespread understanding of the relationship between the informal and formal structures of political power.
In its most basic sense governance is the provision of essential services, such as human security, food, water and shelter, as well as an acceptable degree of conflict resolution and justice for wrongs committed. This basic type of governance has been prevalent in rural Afghan communities for centuries; however, it is under threat today not only by insurgents but also by attempts to overlay a more formal governance structure on top of the informal structures. There has been historically, and it remains today, tension between the informal structures of political power (the mullahs, the mahliks, the tribal shuras) and the imposed, formal structures of political power (District and Provincial Governors, the ANP) at the local level. All politics is local, especially in Afghanistan. Understanding this distribution of local power is vital if we are to promote “legitimacy” of the Government of the Republic of Afghanistan (GIRoA). Templating a Westernised formal government structure in place of the informal governance that occurs in rural Afghanistan is a recipe for disaster. A suitable political environment must be created to allow the formal and informal/traditional governing structures to coexist and complement each other. ISAF needs to understand this, and facilitate this outcome. And it should not be assumed that ANA or ANP, just because they are Afghans, inherently understand the tensions between the two structures of local governance or that they will be necessarily capable of maintaining a suitable environment of co-existence without substantial prompting, persuading and persistent encouragement.
Comprehensive understanding of the operating environment only comes through persistent and pervasive interaction with the people who determine the social dynamics of the environment. [italics in original] ...
The article does not outline a methodology for determining the precise metrics of support for one form of governance or the other. The concept of "pervasive interaction with the people" looks field anthropological.
The comment quoted does not as such distinguish between "Effective Governance" and "Good Governance"; but (see quote from p.3 below) they do speak in terms of "legitimacy and effectiveness."
Based on the following comments, "the imposed, formal structures of political power" is neither (the context is primarily the Pashtun areas):
The authors recognize primacy in their focus on the population, with secondary focus on the enemy's armed force:(from above)
Templating a Westernised formal government structure in place of the informal governance that occurs in rural Afghanistan is a recipe for disaster.
(p.3)
In many parts of the country, especially outside of major population centers, the legitimacy and effectiveness of GIRoA is under considerable threat not only from insurgents but also from widespread corruption and patronage, traditional tribal power structures, a xenophobic society in the south and east, and a lack of tangible, synchronized reconstruction and development.
A caution is probably due here - based on history.(p.6)
3. Protect the people. If SCHB is to work, it is vital coalition forces (and by default the ANA) achieve the right balance between “hunting insurgents” to disrupt, and protecting the population and contributing to building human capacity. The former - killing and capturing insurgents - does not always contribute positively to the need to protect the people and build capacity and in our attempts to kill or capture we often sacrifice longer term enduring positive effects for short term tactical effects. This distinction between being population centric in our operations, which should be the main effort, vice being enemy centric, which is a supporting effort and a means to the end, sets the tone for the way we conduct operations, the way we interact with the people, and the way we relate to ANA, ANP and other GIRoA agencies. We do not have the balance consistently right across Afghanistan.
From the fall of DBP in 1954 to approximately May 1959 (start of the Laos dustup and formation of Transportation Group 559), one can fairly argue that the Diem government should have employed a population-focused approach - it did to some extent. In later 1959 through 1964, the PAVN (NVA) unleashed its cadres into SVN (roughly 100K southern Viet Minh traveled north in 1954-1955 for training and incorporation into PAVN).
After those 1959 events, GSV faced (but did not really recognize) the advent of the Second Indochina War - an externally-supported threat. See, Pentagon Papers, vol. I (esp. last section before the documents annex); and Fall's, The Two Viet-Nams, for a more professional analysis. The point is that the balance in a "small war" can shift rather quickly.
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