This paper asks how state-led population displacement shapes long-run political identities, using the historical relocation of Pashtun communities under Emir Abd al‑Rahman in Afghanistan as a case study. The authors reconstruct where tribes were moved and connect those historical settlements to contemporary locations, then analyze novel microlevel survey data to compare political attitudes and identity among coethnic Pashtun communities separated by the resettlement. Their central contribution is evidence on whether and how a state-building resettlement campaign produced durable, regionally rooted political attachments.
Reconstructed historical settlement map Novel microlevel survey (≈80,000 respondents) Regional vs. national identity comparisons
Data and methods
The study uses historical records to map the relocation of Pashtun tribes during Emir Abd al‑Rahman’s rule and links those records to present-day settlements. It then analyzes a newly assembled microlevel survey dataset covering more than 80,000 subjects to measure contemporary attitudes toward the central government, the Taliban, and identity salience across Pashtun communities in the north versus the south and east.
Main findings
Using comparisons across coethnic communities that share Pashtun identity but differ in whether they descend from relocated settlers, the authors report that long-term consequences of the resettlement include stronger attachments to regional government and local institutions and greater hostility to the central government and the Taliban, relative to Pashtuns in the south and east. They argue these settlers’ political identities are regionally focused and neither plainly ethnocentric, pro‑central‑state, nor centered on national identity.
- Relocated Pashtun communities show stronger local/regional institutional attachment.
- These communities report greater hostility toward the central government and the Taliban compared to non‑resettled Pashtuns.
