In this research project, we will investigate the impact of development aid and the deployment of military forces on local security, on attitudes toward foreign actors, and on state legitimacy and capacity in Northeast-Afghanistan. We focus on these issues because increased security, state legitimacy, and positive attitudes towards international engagement are signs of a turn-around in fragile states. It is precisely what the international intervention in Afghanistan set out to achieve. The stated objectives of the intervention rely on an assumed set of causal relationships between externally induced security and development, ehich can be empirically tested.

Using our data, we will be able to test whether the intervention meets its objectives. Drawing on additional data will allow us to move beyond establishing or denying causality, and to explore the causal mechanisms in greater depth, i.e. to understand the contexts in which the co-variation occurs, and the likely consequences that it has.