The Ideological Prison: Taliban Governance, Human Rights, and the Stalled Political Process in Afghanistan

Abstract

This paper analyses the impacts of the Taliban’s dogmatic framing on Afghanistan’s governance and human rights context since their return to power in August 2021. It argues that Taliban insistence on traditionalist Deobandi-Islamism authorised by an intolerant leadership is the main obstacle to a functioning, representative government and meaningful reconstruction. The focus is three-fold: the creation of an exclusive ethnic-biased political order, the calculated violation of human rights, including women’s right to education and work; and an international stalemate characterized by non-recognition and punitive steps. Through a doctrinal genealogy of these strategies, this analysis finds that the Taliban’s doctrine-led inflexibility has crafted a self-defeating governance paradigm which perpetuates a crisis in human protection and blocks trajectories toward sustainable stability (Ashraf, 2023).