- London, United Kingdom
timor sharan
University of Exeter, Politics and International Studies, Department Member
- Dr Timor Sharan is an Honourary Fellow at the University of Exeter. He was the former Visiting Fellow at the Global S... moreDr Timor Sharan is an Honourary Fellow at the University of Exeter. He was the former Visiting Fellow at the Global Security Programme, University of Oxford. He is also associated with the Overseas Development Institute, the London School of Economics-IDEAS think tank, and the Centre on Armed Groups as a Senior Research Fellow.
His research focuses on the relationship among international military intervention, transnational financial flows, violence, and the political economy of international statebuilding.
He was formerly the International Crisis Group’s Senior Analyst for Afghanistan and an Adjunct Professor at the American University of Afghanistan. Before this, he was the Deputy Minister for Policy and Programme for the Independent Directorate of Local Governance for the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. Since leaving the public sector, he has advised governments and international organisations, including USAID, GIZ, and the Open Society Foundations. In 2020, he founded and managed the Afghanistan Policy Lab, the first policy hub to conduct experimental research, policy modelling and behavioural insights in the country.
As a leading policy voice in Afghanistan, he has written policy articles for Foreign Policy, Politico and others. He has appeared in renowned media outlets and has published in peer-reviewed journals, including the Central Asia Survey and Conflict Security and Development.
Dr Sharan is an expert member of Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung’s Asia Strategic Foresight Group which aims to navigate the new geopolitics of Asia and the global order of tomorrow. He has also been an alumnus of the Australian Government Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade’s prestigious Special Visits Programme and the US Government’s International Visitor Leadership Programme.
He holds a PhD from the University of Exeter and an MPhil from the University of Cambridge. He is a good cook and loves carpet weaving.edit
In 2014, while the international military could support and justify their exit strategy by citing a fragile peace at the national level, at the local level competition over resources led to increasing violence and instability. Nowhere is... more
In 2014, while the international military could support and justify their exit strategy by citing a fragile peace at the national level, at the local level competition over resources led to increasing violence and instability. Nowhere is this more visible than Afghanistan's extractive industry where powerful individuals and networks vie for access and control of valuable resources. Donors such as the US military have attempted to partner with these sub-national actors in a bid to manage conflict and ensure state stability/order (or more accurately, the facade of stability). The international assistance financially empowered key regional commanders; this enabled the latter to consolidate power within the state at sub-national level. Inadvertently, this approach reinforced the Taliban's own strategy of generating local revenue from the drug/extractive economies. linking the different levels of economic and violent interaction (local, sub-national, national, and international), detailed analysis of key resources can help identify shifts in power relationships within and between networks. Identifying who controls commodities and exchange, as well as the means of violence that determine the distribution of profits, can shed light on trends in the relationship between war economies, conflict onset and persistence, and even state (in)stability.
Research Interests: Peace and Conflict Studies, Post-conflict Reconstruction and Development, State Formation, Afghanistan, Armed Conflict, and 31 moreConflict Management, Taliban, Liberal Peacebuilding, Conflict, Violence and Peacebuilding, Sustainable Peacebuilding, Afghanistan Society and Politics, Peacebuilding, Statebuilding, Conflcit transformation and Peacebuilding, International Conflict Management, Liberal Peacebuilding, Hybrid Peace, Hybrid Political Orders, Lapis lazuli, Nationbuilding and Statebuilding, Extractive industries, Statebuilding, Peacebuilding, Peace Formation, International Statebuilding, Conflict and Conflict Management, Statebuilding, Post-Conflict, International Security, Statebuilding and Peacebuilding, Nationbuilding and Conflict Resolution, International Security, Statebuilding and Conflict Resolution, Political Economy of Statebuilding, Chromite, US Interventionism, Post liberal Peace, Peacebuilding and Development, Statebuilding Practice, Post-Liberal Peacebuilding, Intervention and Statebuilding Missions, Afghan Taliban, and illiberal peace
This article focuses on the 2010–2011 Special Election Court crisis, which serves as a microcosm of the broader post-2001 political network dynamics in which opportunistic practices of bargaining and the instrumentalization of identities... more
This article focuses on the 2010–2011 Special Election Court crisis, which serves as a microcosm of the broader post-2001 political network dynamics in which opportunistic practices of bargaining and the instrumentalization of identities have emerged as key features of Afghan politics. Post-2001 international state-building has produced a ‘network state’ where the state and political networks have become co-constitutive in state-building. This has produced the democratic façade of a state, underpinned by informal power structures and networks. In light of this analysis, a successful international exit from Afghanistan and post-2014 state survival may depend as much on the political stability of the empowered networks as on the strength of the Afghan National Security Forces and the outcome of the ongoing reconciliation and negotiation with the Taliban.
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This policy brief explores European engagement with Afghanistan in 2021 and beyond. It discusses how the scheduled 2021 U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan may impact European interests-and how it will limit future European policy... more
This policy brief explores European engagement with Afghanistan in 2021 and beyond. It discusses how the scheduled 2021 U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan may impact European interests-and how it will limit future European policy options. It explores the potential drawbacks of the European Union's current stance on Afghan peace talks, as well as difficulties of planning while European capitals seek greater clarity on an increasingly unilateral U.S. policy. A stable Afghanistan is vital to Europe's long-term security concerns, and recommendations offer a way forward.
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Research Interests: Development Studies, Democratization, Governance, Afghanistan, Conflict Resolution, and 15 moreConflict Management, Conflict Transformation, Elections, Democratisation, Democracy Promotion, Electoral Studies, Bargaining, Afghanistan Society and Politics, Good Governance, Democracy and Good Governance, Fragile States, Elites, Critical Development Studies, Developmental Studies, and Afghan
Regional and Key Partner Engagement with Afghanistan After 2021
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... factional elites: Mohaqeq and Khalili for Hazara vote, Dostum and Sayyed Nurullah for Uzbek vote, Fahim and Ismail Khan for Tajik vote and Akhundzada and Gul Aga Shirzai for Pashtun vote in the South. Individuals such as Rasul Sayyaf,... more
... factional elites: Mohaqeq and Khalili for Hazara vote, Dostum and Sayyed Nurullah for Uzbek vote, Fahim and Ismail Khan for Tajik vote and Akhundzada and Gul Aga Shirzai for Pashtun vote in the South. Individuals such as Rasul Sayyaf, one of the most important Jihadi ...
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This paper examines the power dynamics and outcomes of the 2014 Afghanistan presidential elections through a focus on political networks. It foregrounds the power dynamics and practices of political-economic and identity networks that has... more
This paper examines the power dynamics and outcomes of the 2014 Afghanistan presidential elections through a focus on political networks. It foregrounds the power dynamics and practices of political-economic and identity networks that has come to underpin and constitute the state in post-2001 international statebuilding. First it seeks to understand how complex interdependent relations between the two leading presidential candidates, Ashraf Ghani and Abdullah Abdullah, and local powerbrokers were negotiated and arranged and subsequently influenced electoral outcomes. Second, focusing on negotiations over the appointment of the Cabinet ministers, advisers and staff, and governors, the study provides an analysis of the restructuring of political networks within the state, illuminating the impact of elections on the distribution of power and political order and state stability in post-election period. The study is based on in-depth primary research in Afghanistan during and after elect...
Research Interests: Development Studies, Democratization, Afghanistan, Conflict Resolution, Conflict Management, and 15 moreConflict Transformation, Elections, Democratisation, Democracy Promotion, Electoral Studies, Bargaining, Afghanistan Society and Politics, Democracy and Good Governance, Fragile States, Elites, Critical Development Studies, Developmental Studies, Ethnicity and Developmnet, Critical Studies of Peacebuilding, and Critical Peace Studies
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International statebuilding in Afghanistan must be considered in terms of identity politics as they have emerged since the Bonn Agreement of 2001. In light of this, Afghanistan's 2009 presidential election serves as a window on the... more
International statebuilding in Afghanistan must be considered in terms of identity politics as they have emerged since the Bonn Agreement of 2001. In light of this, Afghanistan's 2009 presidential election serves as a window on the broader post-Bonn statebuilding process in which factionalized elite networks have constituted an internationally supported regime that masquerades as a state. Comparing political cultural and political economic explanations for the factionalism that was widespread during the elections, the paper demonstrates that the ...