The U.S. campaign in Afghanistan has been based, in part, on a pair of contradictory notions: First, that the Taliban are a supra-ethnic, transnational group severed from the social and cultural heritage of Afghanistan; and second, that the Taliban represent a form of Pashtun nationalism. This article uses archival data and field research to show that both views are incorrect. The Taliban are historically rooted in Pashtun communities and yet are not a force of Pashtun nationalism. Rather, they comprise a network of exclusion, bound together in rhetoric by a particular conception of political Islam and Afghan sovereignty. This is an ‘Islamist nationalism’ in word, but crucially, not in deed: While the Taliban aspire to act as a nationalist force representing all Afghans, under conditions of institutional poverty and the lack of modernization, the Taliban are bound in practice by networks of trust and personal contact. This is an example of the ‘combined and uneven development’ of Afghan nationalism.

中文翻译：

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阿富汗民族主义的联合和不平衡发展

美国在阿富汗的行动部分基于两个相互矛盾的观念：第一，塔利班是一个与阿富汗社会和文化遗产分离的超种族、跨国集团；其次，塔利班代表了普什图民族主义的一种形式。本文使用档案数据和实地研究表明两种观点都是不正确的。塔利班历史上扎根于普什图社区，但并不是普什图民族主义的力量。相反，它们构成了一个排斥网络，通过政治伊斯兰和阿富汗主权的特定概念在修辞上联系在一起。这是一种口头上的“伊斯兰民族主义”，但至关重要的是，实际上并非如此：虽然塔利班渴望成为代表所有阿富汗人的民族主义力量，但在体制贫困和缺乏现代化的条件下，塔利班在实践中受到信任和个人联系网络的约束。这是阿富汗民族主义“联合和不平衡发展”的一个例子。