The security conceptualization by NATO, Canada, and Afghanistan's Local Perceptions. Comparative study in a context of multiple stakeholders

Abstract: Canada took part in NATO's mission to restructure Afghanistan. The coalition removed the Taliban Government and made-way for a new Afghan Authority. Canada and its NATO allies identified the predominant issues it considered in the planning and implementation of its intervention. This thesis analyzes these assumptions and the influence they had on the construction of the intervention. It problematizes the concept of security, and builds a matrix of security concerns based on the social structures that compose the local and international actors in Afghanistan: namely NATO, Canada, and local Afghan perspectives. It seeks to outline the shared understanding and expectations of the Alliance, the resources which it has allocated, and the practices that have resulted from the intervention to this day. The analysis aims to identify which sectors are primarily made referents of security policies in the context of Canada's renewed role in international relations and the duality of humanitarian development and military intervention. The study will take into consideration the experience and interests of the observed actors and ask whether the reference of an international actor to the security concerns of a domestic actor is adequate. This research seeks to showcase the utility of the constructivist framework in understanding the plurality of identities. It identifies the fault lines between outsiders and insiders within the context, and the ways by which the construction of security changes from one social-structure to another. It considers the interaction issues related to the agent-structure question, by identifying issues of dominance by specific actors, the militarization of the context, and the ordering of security-values by different actors.