Anthony Hyman Memorial Lecture 2024 - The Taliban back in power: Taking stock of the second Islamic Emirate
Key information
- Date
- Time
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6:15 pm to 8:00 pm
- Venue
- Russell Square: College Buildings
- Room
- Khalili Lecture Theatre (KLT)
- Event type
- Lecture & Event highlights
About this event
As Afghanistan approaches the third anniversary of the Taliban’s capture of power, Kate Clark assesses the group’s record in government.
Drawing on her experience not only as a reporter during the first Islamic Emirate but also the two-decades of the Islamic Republic and the Western intervention that sustained it, she looks at how the Taliban have consolidated power, established their rule over the Afghan people, especially women and girls, used the state institutions they inherited from the Republic and enjoyed the ‘peace dividend’.
She focusses on the Taliban’s handling of the post-August 2021 economy, aid industry and public finances – their much touted ‘less corrupt’ approach to revenue collection, alongside various information black holes when it comes to spending and contracting. Finally, she circles back to the Taliban’s 2001 ousting and asks whether the nature of victory – or defeat – can carry the seeds of a new power cycle.
About the speaker
Kate Clark has worked as a Senior Analyst for the Afghanistan Analysts Network (AAN), an independent non-profit policy research organisation, since 2010, with stints as Country Director and (currently) Co-Director. Her research and publications have focussed on the conflict, including looking at militia formation, investigations into alleged war crimes, arbitrary detention and the use of torture. She has also written extensively on Afghanistan’s political economy and the country’s natural history.
Kate’s background in Afghanistan goes back to the late 1990s, when, as the BBC correspondent, she was the only Western journalist based in the country. In 2002, Kate returned to London, but continued to make reporting trips to Afghanistan, including making radio and television documentaries about the roots of the insurgency, weapons smuggling, the opium economy and historic and present-day war crimes.
Kate has an MA in Middle Eastern Politics from Exeter University in Britain and previously worked in the BBC Arabic Service, World Service and Radio 4. She has also lived, studied and worked in the Middle East.
Watch the lecture
- Organiser: SOAS Centre of Contemporary Central Asia and the Caucasus
- Email: centres@soas.ac.uk
Header image: Mohammad Husaini via Unsplash.
