The analysis is based on limited desk research of relevant literature concerning Afghanistan’s political settlement and on 21 extended interviews with representatives of donors, Afghan government officials and civil society representatives. Their perspectives on the two questions of how donors seek to understand Afghan domestic politics and how they attempt to use such knowledge in their longer-term programming have been triangulated with each other and existing literature. Eleven of the interviews were carried out in Kabul, ten by phone or over Skype. They each lasted about an hour on average.

A few limitations of the case study should also be noted. First, as time for desk research was limited, the study offers only a rudimentary analysis of Afghanistan’s ‘political settlement’ at the national level. This obviously does not do justice to the complexity and multi-layered nature of governance in Afghanistan. It is hoped, however, that it does offer a rough interpretative frame against which donor efforts can be gauged. Second, only a few interviews took place with Afghan government representatives and none with Afghan power brokers outside of government. This is due to restrictions of movement (Kabul only), having only five days available for field work and because the research focus was on factors internal to donors. Third, interview(ee)s have not been cited throughout the text as they were conducted on the basis of non-attribution, which reduces the study’s replicability. Section 3 leans most heavily on interview findings. Fourth, the appreciable variation in the size and nature of donors whose representatives were interviewed makes generalization difficult. It is therefore unavoidable that some statements fit certain donors better than others. The table below provides a short characterization of the interviews: