Ethnic Identity, Border Conflict, and Trade Disruption in Post-2021 Afghanistan: A Neoclassical Realist Perspective

Abstract

International trade underpins economic growth and regional stability, yet in South Asia’s most troubled bilateral relationships, it has become a casualty of unresolved historical grievances, competing ethnic loyalties, and institutional dysfunction. This paper examines the chronic disruption of Pakistan-Afghanistan trade through the theoretical framework of neoclassical realism, arguing that the rapid decline in the bilateral trade, which is more than two-fifths of the trade volume, is the most dramatic single-year decline since independence, and cannot be explained by structural factors alone. Drawing on Gideon Rose’s (1998) foundational articulation of neoclassical realism and subsequent systematisation by Lobell, Ripsman, and Taliaferro (2009), the paper demonstrates that the Durand Line’s unresolved status, shared Pashtun ethnic identity, elite threat perceptions around the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), and institutional weaknesses in regulating transit trade collectively function as intervening domestic-level variables that translate systemic pressures into suboptimal foreign policy outcomes for both states. The paper traces the causal chain from the colonial legacy of the Durand Line in 1893 through the post-2021 Taliban resurgence, the collapse of bilateral diplomacy, and border closure, to the present trade paralysis. It concludes that without meaningful elite reorientation and institutional reform on both sides, ethnic compulsion will continue to override economic rationality, perpetuating a cycle of mutual impoverishment.

Keyword: Neoclassical realism, Pakistan–Afghanistan Relations, Durand Line, Pashtun Identity, Bilateral Trade, Transit Trade, Ethnic Compulsion, Foreign Policy

https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21188703