What is driving recent statebuilding developments in Afghanistan? What kind of state is the international community aiming for? Can we identify areas where security and development are mutually constitutive? What role is played by the external financing of statebuilding campaigns? How can the international community influence the political outcome in Central Asia? Or do local dynamics subvert external policies in a way that renders statebuilding illusionary? 
 
Florian P. Kühn is Senior Researcher and Lecturer at Helmut Schmidt University: The  University of the German Federal Armed Forces Hamburg, and currently a Visiting Fellow at Queen's Centre for International Relations, Queen's University, Kingston.