Sarah Chayes offers an incisive, on-the-ground look at the reality of the conflict in Afghanistan. She informs her observations with historical research, ongoing contact with many significant political players in the country and the experience of living in the country for many years, and comes up...
In patronage systems, as in healthy modern governments (p. 212), resources are drawn from the population to the center, but then are largely distributed back downward within the system, in the form of patronage, or else infrastructure, public services, decent salaries for public officials, and so...
Rushing now to get home to Quetta, my big driver tried to skip the stop I insisted on in the Chaman bazaar to drink one last round of tea with my Achekzais. It was a delicious moment, suspended in time, infused with a loving kind of fellowship.And then I couldn’t delay it any longer. We climbed b...