No description available.

The thesis is dedicated to the ISAF's Provincial Reconstruction Teams in Afghanistan. The research focus of this study is the analysis of specific geographic factors related to location of selected reconstruction teams in Afghan provinces. Geographic factors affecting security consist of armed groups, warlords, ethno-cultural structure of population and terrain type of the areas examined. Structure, investments, prevailing priorities and effect of local area characteristics are analysed in connection with selected provincial reconstruction teams. The study aims to determine whether teams managed to stabilize the situation in their provinces and which geographic factors affected the safety of their activities.

The master thesis examines the involvement of the United States of America, Germany and the Czech Republic in post-conflict reconstruction and state building in Afghanistan through their Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRT). The aim of the thesis is to find out to what extent the Provincial Reconstruction Teams represent their founder countries' effort of state building in Afghanistan, and to deduce the differences among their attitudes to state building in Afghanistan by comparing their PRTs' activities. Countries directly found their PRTs and therefore their attitude to state building in Afghanistan should be reflected in the activities of their PRTs. The PRTs should reflect the priorities of their founder countries in reconstruction of Afghanistan. This thesis begins with outlining the links among the PRTs, state building and NATO's comprehensive approach and counterinsurgency strategy which pays attention to the civilian aspects of fighting wars. The U.S., German and Czech preferences regarding the state building are examined through their foreign policy documents. Activities of the U.S., German and Czech PRTs are analysed to verify, whether they correspond to their countries' proclaimed aims in the field of state building in Afghanistan.

Most studies on Provincial Reconstruction Teams in Afghanistan have focused on foreign perspectives thus giving little attention to the perspective of local Afghans to understand its aftermath and consequences. Based on empirical work and information drawn from semi-structured interviews with experts who have worked with military and civilian development agencies as well as government liaison officers, this study explores the intended and unintended outcomes of PRTs across the country. The findings were interpreted with the help of a theoretical framework based on PRT objectives such as security implementation, reconstruction, and development as well as extending the authority of central government and building local institutions. The findings show that there were various factors ignored which impacted the success of the Afghan state-building operation. The lack of local knowledge regarding political, cultural, and religious aspects, relying on warlords, putting the local institutions in wrong hands, lack of local consent, inadequate and unprofessional disbursement of development aid, putting the military in charge of everything, undermining the human development aspects as well as the long-term presence of foreign militaries in the country were some of the major factors which lead the PRTs to have unsuccessful and counterproductive outcomes. In addition, the aid disbursed by the military has not only diverted the military from its main task but also led to a high level of corruption, high expenditure, lowest possible quality, risking the safety of civilians, NGOs as well as development in the country. Furthermore, the discussion and analysis of the findings show that the use of the military might have played a much greater role in the failure of the overall state-building campaign as the role of diplomatic and development agencies was undermined.