Jelena Bjelica - THE FATE OF VILLAGE COUNCILS: - The Emirate’s effort to

11 The Fate of Village Councils established in the 1990s, according to Jennifer Brick Murtazashvili in her seminal work, ‘Informal Order and the State in Afghanistan’:11 With the demise of the communist regime in 1992 and the rise of the mujahidin and Taliban, the institution of the shura was elevated to the state level.… The term shura again assumed centrality but was more strongly tinged with th. [...] An interviewee from Kunduz, who was the head of the village council, told us that the shura in his village was still elected in the same manner as during the previous government, except now there were no longer any female council members: It’s the same shura as during the Republic and the members are still elected by the people. [...] However, in other places, as a retired police officer from Baghlan said, the same elected shura was still in place but was now completely ignored by the IEA: The same shura existed during the Republic and the head of the shura’s also the same. [...] This [mosque] council’s in touch with the village council and they share the problems of the mosque and the village with the village councils. [...] Instead, the IEA has appointed representatives to act as a link between the government and villages, as a journalist in the province explained: After the Taleban came to power, the village councils in Kunar province were suspended and there’s no longer an entity working under the name of ‘shura’ or ‘association’ in the province.