Vanda Felbab-Brown
Biographic Data
| ID | 3684252 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Vanda Felbab-Brown |
| GIVEN NAMES | Vanda |
| FAMILY NAME | Felbab-Brown |
| SIGNATURE | FELBAB-BROWN V |
| AFFILIATIONS | Vanda Felbab-Brown is Senior Fellow in Foreign Policy at the Brookings Institution and author of Aspiration and Ambivalence: Strategies and Realities of Counterinsurgency and State-building in Afghanistan (Washington, D.C.: Brookings, 2013). |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 12 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 30 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 12 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2006 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2017 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Militants, Criminals, and Warlords: The Challenge of Local Governance in an Age of Disorder
Conventional political theory holds that the sovereign state is the legitimate source of order and provider of public services in any society, whether democratic or not. But Hezbollah and ISIS in the Middle East, pirate clans in Africa, criminal gangs in South America, and militias in Southeast Asia are examples of nonstate actors that control local territory and render public services that the nation-state cannot or will not provide. This fascin…
Militants, Criminals, and Warlords: The Challenge of Local Governance in an Age of Disorder
Organized Crime, Illicit Economies, Civil Violence & International Order: More Complex Than You Think
This essay analyzes the multiple threats that organized crime and illicit economies pose to states and the international order, with a particular focus on the security dimensions of the crime-conflict nexus. In analyzing the range of responses by states and the international community to the nexus of criminal economies and civil wars, insurgencies, and terrorism, this essay also highlights how premature and ill-conceived government efforts to com…
Hurray for militias? Not so fast: Lessons from the Afghan Local Police experience
Drawing on my fieldwork on militias in Afghanistan over the past decade, this article explores their security and political effects, with special focus on the Afghan Local Police. It analyzes changes in local security environments, effects on the Taliban insurgency and support for government, and the sustainability of and control over the militias. Key lessons include: Militias have a strong tendency to engage in abusive behavior – itself a new d…
Afghanistan in 2013
Uncertainties about the 2014 security, political, and economic transitions pervaded Afghanistan in 2013. The failure in 2013 to sign a U.S.-Afghan security agreement permitting the presence of U.S. troops after 2014 deepens those anxieties. As ISAF forces continued to withdraw from Afghanistan, Afghan security forces now have primary responsibility for Afghanistan’s security but still face critical challenges and an undefeated Taliban. Peace nego…
Crime–War Battlefields
Afghanistan in 2012
As the 2014 transition of the U.S. out of Afghanistan approaches, progress has been made in weakening the Taliban insurgency and strengthening Afghan forces’ capacity. But the Taliban still remains entrenched, negotiations have not taken off, the Afghan government suffers from a profound legitimacy crisis, and Afghanistan’s economic future seems fraught with instability
The policymaker's Hippocratic oath
Political Violence and the Illicit Economies of West Africa
This comparative analysis draws on field research in several West African countries to illustrate the dynamic relationships between political violence and organized crime in this sub-region. These relationships are often transactional, and almost always on a temporary basis. While some alliances of convenience may be forged, in other cases an adversarial relationship exists between organized crime and terrorist networks. In some cases, key actors…
Peacekeepers Among Poppies: Afghanistan, Illicit Economies and Intervention
This article analyses the role that the illicit narcotics economy has played in violent conflict in Afghanistan since the 1990s and the relationship between counter-narcotics and counter-insurgency policy in the country today. It details the evolution of the peacekeeping mission vis-à-vis the narcotics economy, and the effects to date of the counter-narcotics policies that have been adopted since 2001. It argues that aggressive opium poppy eradic…
Trouble Ahead: The Cocaleros of Peru
Ironically, civil society, which the United States has been exporting as a means of democratization around the world, is precisely what is complicating its counternarcotics policies in the Andes
Kicking the opium habit?: Afghanistan's drug economy and politics since the 1980s
Four misconceptions plague the efforts of the Afghan government and the international community to succeeding in weaning Afghanistan off its narcotics economy. The first myth is that the explosion of opium poppy cultivation in Afghanistan is a new phenomenon emerging from the fall of the Taliban. The second misconception is that if the Taliban regime had remained in power, given its religious fervour, it would have extirpated the illicit economy.…
Organized Crime, Illicit Economies, Civil Violence & International Order: More Complex Than You Think
This essay analyzes the multiple threats that organized crime and illicit economies pose to states and the international order, with a particular focus on the security dimensions of the crime-conflict nexus. In analyzing the range of responses by states and the international community to the nexus of criminal economies and civil wars, insurgencies, and terrorism, this essay also highlights how premature and ill-conceived government efforts to com…
Kicking the opium habit?: Afghanistan's drug economy and politics since the 1980s
Four misconceptions plague the efforts of the Afghan government and the international community to succeeding in weaning Afghanistan off its narcotics economy. The first myth is that the explosion of opium poppy cultivation in Afghanistan is a new phenomenon emerging from the fall of the Taliban. The second misconception is that if the Taliban regime had remained in power, given its religious fervour, it would have extirpated the illicit economy.…
Crime–War Battlefields
Hurray for militias? Not so fast: Lessons from the Afghan Local Police experience
Drawing on my fieldwork on militias in Afghanistan over the past decade, this article explores their security and political effects, with special focus on the Afghan Local Police. It analyzes changes in local security environments, effects on the Taliban insurgency and support for government, and the sustainability of and control over the militias. Key lessons include: Militias have a strong tendency to engage in abusive behavior – itself a new d…
Political Violence and the Illicit Economies of West Africa
This comparative analysis draws on field research in several West African countries to illustrate the dynamic relationships between political violence and organized crime in this sub-region. These relationships are often transactional, and almost always on a temporary basis. While some alliances of convenience may be forged, in other cases an adversarial relationship exists between organized crime and terrorist networks. In some cases, key actors…
Peacekeepers Among Poppies: Afghanistan, Illicit Economies and Intervention
This article analyses the role that the illicit narcotics economy has played in violent conflict in Afghanistan since the 1990s and the relationship between counter-narcotics and counter-insurgency policy in the country today. It details the evolution of the peacekeeping mission vis-à-vis the narcotics economy, and the effects to date of the counter-narcotics policies that have been adopted since 2001. It argues that aggressive opium poppy eradic…
Afghanistan in 2012
As the 2014 transition of the U.S. out of Afghanistan approaches, progress has been made in weakening the Taliban insurgency and strengthening Afghan forces’ capacity. But the Taliban still remains entrenched, negotiations have not taken off, the Afghan government suffers from a profound legitimacy crisis, and Afghanistan’s economic future seems fraught with instability
Trouble Ahead: The Cocaleros of Peru
Ironically, civil society, which the United States has been exporting as a means of democratization around the world, is precisely what is complicating its counternarcotics policies in the Andes
Kicking the opium habit?: Afghanistan's drug economy and politics since the 1980s
Four misconceptions plague the efforts of the Afghan government and the international community to succeeding in weaning Afghanistan off its narcotics economy. The first myth is that the explosion of opium poppy cultivation in Afghanistan is a new phenomenon emerging from the fall of the Taliban. The second misconception is that if the Taliban regime had remained in power, given its religious fervour, it would have extirpated the illicit economy.…
Peacekeepers Among Poppies: Afghanistan, Illicit Economies and Intervention
This article analyses the role that the illicit narcotics economy has played in violent conflict in Afghanistan since the 1990s and the relationship between counter-narcotics and counter-insurgency policy in the country today. It details the evolution of the peacekeeping mission vis-à-vis the narcotics economy, and the effects to date of the counter-narcotics policies that have been adopted since 2001. It argues that aggressive opium poppy eradic…
The policymaker's Hippocratic oath
Political Violence and the Illicit Economies of West Africa
This comparative analysis draws on field research in several West African countries to illustrate the dynamic relationships between political violence and organized crime in this sub-region. These relationships are often transactional, and almost always on a temporary basis. While some alliances of convenience may be forged, in other cases an adversarial relationship exists between organized crime and terrorist networks. In some cases, key actors…
Crime–War Battlefields
Afghanistan in 2012
As the 2014 transition of the U.S. out of Afghanistan approaches, progress has been made in weakening the Taliban insurgency and strengthening Afghan forces’ capacity. But the Taliban still remains entrenched, negotiations have not taken off, the Afghan government suffers from a profound legitimacy crisis, and Afghanistan’s economic future seems fraught with instability
Afghanistan in 2013
Uncertainties about the 2014 security, political, and economic transitions pervaded Afghanistan in 2013. The failure in 2013 to sign a U.S.-Afghan security agreement permitting the presence of U.S. troops after 2014 deepens those anxieties. As ISAF forces continued to withdraw from Afghanistan, Afghan security forces now have primary responsibility for Afghanistan’s security but still face critical challenges and an undefeated Taliban. Peace nego…
Hurray for militias? Not so fast: Lessons from the Afghan Local Police experience
Drawing on my fieldwork on militias in Afghanistan over the past decade, this article explores their security and political effects, with special focus on the Afghan Local Police. It analyzes changes in local security environments, effects on the Taliban insurgency and support for government, and the sustainability of and control over the militias. Key lessons include: Militias have a strong tendency to engage in abusive behavior – itself a new d…
Militants, Criminals, and Warlords: The Challenge of Local Governance in an Age of Disorder
Conventional political theory holds that the sovereign state is the legitimate source of order and provider of public services in any society, whether democratic or not. But Hezbollah and ISIS in the Middle East, pirate clans in Africa, criminal gangs in South America, and militias in Southeast Asia are examples of nonstate actors that control local territory and render public services that the nation-state cannot or will not provide. This fascin…
Militants, Criminals, and Warlords: The Challenge of Local Governance in an Age of Disorder
Organized Crime, Illicit Economies, Civil Violence & International Order: More Complex Than You Think
This essay analyzes the multiple threats that organized crime and illicit economies pose to states and the international order, with a particular focus on the security dimensions of the crime-conflict nexus. In analyzing the range of responses by states and the international community to the nexus of criminal economies and civil wars, insurgencies, and terrorism, this essay also highlights how premature and ill-conceived government efforts to com…
Political science (11 works) · Politics (10 works) · Law (9 works) · Economics (8 works) · Political economy (8 works) · Crime, Illicit Activities, and Governance (7 works) · Development economics (6 works) · Criminology (5 works) · Politics and Conflicts in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Middle East (5 works) · Afghan (4 works)