Abstract
This chapter examines the linkage between cultural factors and the (in)efficiency of nation-building operations in Afghanistan. The chapter surveys academic approaches to culture and identifies shortcomings in the theoretical propositions thus far advanced in this regard by anthropology, systems analysis and other behavioral sciences as background information in the preparation for nation-building operations in non-Western failed states. Notably, all such approaches failed to fully grasp how and why people come to think and feel the way that they do about situations. Such information cannot be gleaned by ethnographical surveys and opinion polls. Moreover expected cultural transformation can hardly be expected to occur through reliance on mechanistic and systemic models of change.
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Lawless, G.J., Constantineau, P., Dizboni, A. (2017). The Issue of Culture. In: A Hermeneutic Analysis of Military Operations in Afghanistan. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-60012-7_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-60012-7_3
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