Tinder, Spark, Oxygen, and Fuel: The Mysterious Rise of the Taliban
| Published date | 01 January 2007 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0022343307071659 |
| Date | 01 January 2007 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
93
Introduction
The Taliban is perhaps the best-known
radical religious group in the world today. Its
continued challenge to peace efforts in
Afghanistan and its prior role in aiding and
sheltering Al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden
are well known. Its origins, however, and the
rapidity with which the Taliban rose to
power remain obscure. The literature on the
rise of the Taliban is riddled with phrases
describing the Taliban as arising ‘from thin
air’, ‘emerging from nowhere’, ‘dramatic and
sudden’, ‘shrouded in mystery’, and
‘shrouded in myth’.1Many studies have been
done on the exact ethnic, religious, and
demographic backgrounds of the Taliban,
helping to give a clearer picture, but the
greater question remains, how was a group
able to mobilize such rapid and widespread
support across a nation torn apart by a blind-
ing array of cross-cutting ethnic, religious,
linguistic, and tribal rivalries and tensions.2
© 2007 Journal of Peace Research,
vol. 44, no. 1, 2007, pp. 93–108
Sage Publications (London, Thousand Oaks, CA
and New Delhi) http://jpr.sagepub.com
DOI 10.1177/0022343307071659
Tinder, Spark, Oxygen, and Fuel: The Mysterious
Rise of the Taliban*
DANIEL P. SULLIVAN
Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS),
Johns Hopkins University
Though the Taliban has become one of the best-known fundamentalist groups in the world, its origins
remain a mystery. This article argues an explanatory narrative for the rise of the Taliban comprised of
three steps in a causal sequence. The first stage consists of causal factors identified in the literature on
the rise of the Taliban, including state failure, ethnicity, prevailing poor socio-economic conditions, gen-
erational memory of young disaffected males, the fundamentalist teachings of a system of madrasas, and
the disappointment of rising expectations (J-curve). These factors are explored individually and then
categorized in more detail. J-curve disappointment is found to be a spark that set off a second stage in
the causal sequence through the violent mobilization of the Taliban ideology. In this stage, the unique
religious ideology acted as the effective oxygen feeding the fire of the Taliban rise. A third stage, in which
external support fueled the spread of the Taliban, explains how it was able to spread to over 90% of
Afghanistan. The details of this explanatory narrative are brought out by looking at the rise of the Taliban
through the lenses of ideology and external support, those factors argued to be of greatest explanatory
importance. This analysis identifies the dangers of the large cadres of disaffected young males through-
out the Muslim world and the need to provide not only improved socio-economic opportunities but
also educational and community-network alternatives to the madrasas used so effectively by the Taliban.
*Most work on this article was completed while the author
was enrolled as an MA student at the Johns Hopkins
University School of Advanced International Studies. The
author would like to thank Dennis and Eleonore Sullivan
and two anonymous reviewers for their helpful suggestions
in revising the paper. E-mail: dsullivan@fulbrightweb.org.
1See Rubin (2002); Maass (1999); Rashid (2001);
Matinuddin (1999).
2Rashid provides perhaps the most enlightening study in his
direct interviews with the founders of the Taliban move-
ment. See Rashid (2001). Works by Dorronsoro, Roy, and
Rubin also provide in-depth analyses of the characteristics
and make-up of the Taliban and Afghan society in general.
See Dorronsoro (2005); Roy (1986, 1994, 1995, 1998), and
Roy & Zahab (2004); Rubin (1994, 1995a,b, 1997, 1999).
journal of PEACE RESEARCH 44(1) volume 44 / number 1 / january 2007
94
Answering this question is made particularly
difficult by the wide range of possible explana-
tory factors present in the conditions in
Afghanistan in the early 1990s. Indeed, the case
of the rise of the Taliban is a virtual treasure
chest for theorists studying the rise of revolt.
Theories range from the centrality of a unique
neo-fundamentalist ideology to materialist
greed-based theories highlighting the role
of external actors interested in building oil
pipelines in Afghanistan. Some theories suggest
that the failure of the state left the door open,
while others point to the key role of Pakistan in
sponsoring the Taliban.
This study seeks to make sense of this mul-
ticausal enigma by looking at the most com-
monly cited factors behind the rise of the
Taliban and putting forth a causal explanation
based on the primary importance of two
factors in particular: mobilization of a unique
ideology and external support (see Figure 1).
It is argued that disappointment stemming
from unfulfilled rising expectations (the J-
curve) acted as a spark that, when added to
the pre-existing mix of factors (including state
failure, poor socio-economic conditions,
ethnic divisions, a large cadre of disaffected
young males, and the fundamentalist teach-
ings of a system of religious schools known as
madrasas), set off the violent mobilization of a
unique fundamentalist ideology within the
system of madrasas. This mobilization led to
the initial rise of the Taliban. In a final phase,
the added fuel of external support allowed the
Taliban to go as far as it did in controlling
more than 90% of Afghanistan.
Methodology
The argumentation is based on the metho-
dological approach of genetic explanation
(Hempel, 1965: 447, 449), which takes a
phenomenon (in this case the rise of the
Taliban) and seeks to account for it by describ-
ing the causal links between a sequence of suc-
cessive stages leading up to the phenomenon.
Ohlsson (1999: 78) summarizes this approach
in terms of explaining violent conflict in three
parts: (i) an explanatory narrative that con-
tains implicit causal factors and links; (ii) a
description of the causal mechanisms whereby
these factors and links are made explicit; and
(iii) a discussion of the relative importance of
the causal factors.
The first of these elements, the explanatory
narrative, was laid out in the introduction
(Figure 1). The second element is explored in
the last two sections of the article, which
describe the causal mechanisms explicitly by
looking at the rise of the Taliban through the
lenses of ideology and external support. But,
first, Ohlsson’s third summarized element of
the genetic approach is looked at by assessing
various causal factors identified in a review of
the literature on the rise of the Taliban.
The analysis of the study is based on a
review of the existing literature on the rise of
the Taliban using material identified in an
extensive search of academic search engines
and cross-referencing of bibliographies. The
arguments and observations were tested
against each other to ensure the greatest pos-
sible accuracy.
Setting the Stage: The Tinder and
the Spark
The Afghan story is one of a complex web of
ethnic, linguistic, religious, and tribal cleav-
ages, united loosely at the national level and
much more closely at the local level. It is a
story of a land caught in the middle of
empires, along important trade routes, and
greatly influenced by the interactions of those
empires. The latest phase of that influence
was the proxy war between the Cold War
powers that brought billions of dollars and a
great quantity of destructive weapons to
fighting factions that have torn Afghanistan
for much of the last 25 years.
Afghanistan is made up of a host of iden-
tity groups including a rough ethnic make-up
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