My current Research Agenda comprises two core studies: First, I am working towards publishing my book, titled The Legitimacy Puzzle: Statebuilding in Contemporary Afghanistan. The book explores the sources of state legitimacy and impact of legitimation strategies on statebuilding in Afghanistan, and represents a comprehensive and original attempt to place Afghanistan’s post-2001 statebuilding project within an easily accessible political-sociology framework. It also explores the extent to which the internationally-assisted statebuilding project was misconceived, overlooking the critical importance of connecting international and local legitimacy principles through the newly designed institutions and structures in which the authority of state was vested. Concurrently, I have developed a follow-on study - titled, Democracy Promotion and State-Formation in Limited Access Orders: a Political Economy Study of Elections in Afghanistan - that adds to critiques of the rise of democracy promotion, and employs political economy analyses to understand the more focused research on the perverse effects of elections in Afghanistan. This study de-constructs and denaturalises the idea of the Weberian state, blurring the binary distinctions between state and non-state, legitimate and illegitimate and highlight the networks, coalitions, and material foundations that underpin or undermine the state. The thinking is, if political transitions are primarily about the restoration (or creation) of legitimate political authority, this suggests a need to focus attention on the ‘vernacular’ of local politics.

In addition to the above, I am working on several secondary projects. Below is a list of working and completed projects:

Working/Ongoing Projects:

• 'Sustainable Peace and Peaceful Sustainability in Conflict-Affected Societies: Nepal and Afghanistan'. By investigating the variables linking positive peace and environmental sustainability (and establish their relationship), this project examines local manifestations of the positive peace-environmental sustainability nexus. In so doing, the project aims to integrate positive peace indicators and environmental sustainability indicators into an online and publicly accessible database, and influence research, policies, and initiatives on positive peace and environmental sustainability. Collaborative project. Co-Investigator and Afghanistan case-study Theme Leader (Chief Investigator Dr Dahlia Simangan, Hiroshima University).
• ‘Democracy Promotion and State-Formation in Limited Access Orders: a Political Economy Study of Elections in Afghanistan’. Examining how illiberal institutions may contribute to state-formation in post-conflict societies. The study employs a political economy framework of analysis to interrogate democracy promotion and election practices in Afghanistan. Individual project. Chief Investigator.
• ‘Misinformation in Diverse Societies, Political Behaviour and Good Governance’. Utilizing a field experiment with WhatsApp and multi-wave survey experiments on the ground in India and Afghanistan, this study aims to establish causal relationship between misinformation spread through social networks and ethnic violence, public opinion on ethnic relations, and public policy choices. Collaborative project. Chief Investigator.
• ‘Legitimacy in Afghanistan: Keeping the State at Bay’. Examining tensions in statebuilding between local and international interests and practices. The study demonstrates that Afghanistan’s social order curbed and blunted the ambitions of political power, and made it extraordinarily resistant to political moulding. Individual project. Chief Investigator. Manuscript to be submitted with Journal of Peace Research [Impact Factor: 3.164; H-Index: 76].
• ‘Dispersion of Coercive Power in Afghanistan: Structural Legitimacy and State Legitimation’. Examining how cooperation between international, state, and non-state actors to provide security have resulted in the embedding of violent or illegitimate institutions and forms of order in the machinery of the (Afghan) state. Individual project. Chief Investigator. Manuscript to be submitted with International Peacekeeping [Impact Factor: 1.063; H-Index: 15].
• ‘Elite Redux: Elite Settlements and the Perpetuation of Power’. Examining the international practice of basing conflict resolution efforts in fragile societies on the concept of ‘political settlements’. The study problematizes political settlements in the context of the statebuilding paradigm as the prevailing exit pathway from fragility, and finds that often the procedural focus on elections as pathway out of conflict tends to legitimize the status quo, and in the process perpetuating the dominance of powerful elites that were often at the root of the conflict. Collaborative project. Co-Investigator with Prof. Sukanya Podder (King’s College London, UK) and Erwin Van Veen (Clingendael Institute, Netherlands). Manuscript to be submitted with International Affairs [Impact Factor: 1.478; H-Index: 58].
• ‘The Economic Origins of Warlord Support for Peace: a Comparative Study of Mexcio and Afghanistan’. Articulating a political-economic theory to explain the conditions and processes by which warlords prefer to make peace. The theory is evaluated by a very different comparative research design using studies of post-revolutionary Mexico (1910-1929) and contemporary Afghanistan (2001-2018). The findings, based on archival and secondary evidence from the US, Mexico, and Afghanistan, support the intuitive theory that warlords prefer peace agreements when the costs of retaining power become unacceptable and their financial backers provide incentives. Collaborative project; Co-Investigator with Dr Vasabjit Banerjee (Mississippi State University). Manuscript to be submitted with Journal of Peace Research (H-Index: 81; Impact Factor: 3.888).

Completed Projects:

• Drones and Global Order —Implications of Remote Warfare for International Society. Examined the implications of remote warfare for the legitimacy of global order. This project contributes to a "fourth wave" of literature concerned with the trade-offs imposed by drone warfare for global order. It draws on the "English School" of International Relations Theory to argue that drone warfare imposes contradictions on the structural and normative pillars of global order. These consist of the structure of international society and diffusion of military capabilities, as well as the sovereign equality of states and laws of armed conflict. The project presents a typology of contradictions imposed by drone warfare within and across these axes that threaten the legitimacy of global order. This framework also suggests a confounding consequence of drone warfare that scholars have not hitherto explored rigorously: drone warfare can sometimes strengthen global order. Collaborative project. Co-Investigator with Paul Lushenko and William Maley. Co-Editor, edited volume. London: Routledge, 2021.
• ‘Structures of Opportunity and Patterns of Youth Activism in Afghanistan’. Special Report for USIP. Examined emerging patterns of youth activism in Afghanistan and its implications for the future. For several decades scholars of social movements have been studying the relationship between political context, socio-economic conditions, and rise and evolution of social and political movements. In this study we designed and articulated a structures of opportunity framework to investigate how Afghanistan’s youth interpret, perceive, and respond to the opportunities made available to them by the country’s formal and informal political structures. Collaborative project. Chief Investigator. Manuscript published as United States Institute of Peace (USIP) Special Report. 2019.
• ‘Critical Hybridity: History, Power, and Scale’. Examined how the concept of ‘hybridity’ changes as it travels between disciplines and contexts. Collaborative project. Co-Investigator with Joanne Wallis (ANU), Lia Kent (ANU), Miranda Forsyth (ANU), and Sinclair Dinnen (ANU). Guest Editor, journal special issue. Third World Thematics: a TWQ Journal 2(5), 2017. [Impact Factor: 1.156; H-Index: 61] Also published as Lia Kent, Miranda Forsyth, Joanne Wallis, Sinclair Dinnen, and Srinjoy Bose, Hybridity in Peacebuilding and Development: a Critical and Reflexive Approach. London: Routledge, 2018.
• Hybridity on the Ground in Peacebuilding and Development: Critical Conversations. Examined the potential contribution of the concept of ‘hybridity’ to improving understanding of pluralism and change in socially complex societies. Collaborative project. Co-Investigator with Joanne Wallis (ANU), Lia Kent (ANU), Miranda Forsyth (ANU), and Sinclair Dinnen (ANU). Co-Editor, edited volume. Canberra: ANU Press, 2018.
• ‘Elections and the State: Critical Perspectives on Democracy Promotion in Afghanistan’. Political economy analysis of democracy promotion and elections in disrupted and transitioning states. Collaborative project. Principal investigators Professor Jonathan Goodhand (School of Oriental and African Studies) and Dr Astri Suhrke (Chr. Michelson Institute). Guest Editor, journal special issue. Conflict, Security and Development 16(6), 2016. [Impact Factor: 0.806; H-Index: 12]
• Afghanistan—Challenges and Prospects. Examined the ongoing political and military transitions in Afghanistan. Collaborative project. Chief investigator. Co-Editor, edited volume. London: Routledge, 2017.
• ‘Death by a Thousand Cuts or Dance of the Seven Veils? Legitimacy and Generation of Authority in Afghanistan’s Statebuilding Enterprise, 2001—2014’. Examined the role of Legitimacy in promoting the internationalised statebuilding project in Afghanistan. Individual project (PhD). PhD was nominated for the 2017 ANU J.G. Crawford Prize for outstanding contribution to scholarship.