Goodson, Larry P.

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GOODSON, Larry P.

PERSONAL: Born in Mount Olive, NC; married Tomasa Rodriguez; children: Alexandra, Jonathan. Education: University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, B.A. (political science, economics), 1980, M.A. (political science), 1984, Ph.D. (political science), 1990.

ADDRESSES: Home—West Newton, MA. Office—Bentley College, 175 Forest St., Waltham, MA 02452-4705.

CAREER: Bentley College, Waltham, MA, associate professor of international studies, 2001—. Previously taught at University of the South, American University (Cairo, Egypt), Campbell University, University of North Carolina, Greensboro, and University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

MEMBER: American Political Science Association, International Studies Association, Middle East Studies Association.

WRITINGS:

Afghanistan's Endless War: State Failure, Regional Politics, and the Rise of the Taliban, University of Washington Press (Seattle, WA), 2001.

Contributor of articles and reviews to periodicals, including New York Times, Jane's Sentinel, Arab Studies Quarterly, Middle East Affairs Journal, Middle East Journal, Middle East Studies Association Bulletin, and Political Science and Politics.

WORK IN PROGRESS: The Talibanization of Pakistan: Transformation of a Society, St. Martin's Press/Palgrave (New York, NY), forthcoming, and Politics in the Middle East, Sage Publications (Thousand Oaks, CA), forthcoming.

SIDELIGHTS: Larry P. Goodson's teaching interests focus on comparative politics, particularly in the Middle East, Central Asia, and South Asia, and international relations, especially on security studies, foreign policy analysis, and international political economy. His research has encompassed the future of the state, democratization and political change, ethnic/religious movements, political violence and war, gender and human rights, electoral systems, refugees, and publishing in political science. Goodson has lived and traveled in Pakistan and Afghanistan, most recently in 1997.

Goodson's Afghanistan's Endless War: State Failure, Regional Politics, and the Rise of the Taliban was written before the September 11, 2001, terrorist attack on America and the subsequent U.S. air strikes on the Taliban. Released soon after, Goodson's volume, and others that offer some understanding of the history behind these events, experienced increased popularity. Wall Street Journal's Nancy deWolf Smith noted that Goodson's book, "unlike some of the other books on sale, is not a retread from Cold War days or a collection of journalistic impressions."

The book examines the years since the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 and the reasons why Afghanistan has been unable to build a strong state, some of which are its many differences along religious, social, and ethnic lines. As John Sifton pointed out in a New York Times Book Review article, Afghanistan has existed as a "constitutional monarchy, democratic experiment, quasi-fascist autocracy, military occupation, anarchy, and finally radical religious theocracy." Goodson follows the destruction of the country and notes the deaths of the more than two million Afghans (fifteen percent of the population), the six million who became refugees, the collapse of the traditional economy, and the blossoming production of opium poppies and heroin. Goodson emphasizes Pakistan's role in the rise of the Taliban and ethnic conflicts that have been intensified by the interventions of Pakistan, the United States, and the USSR.

Smith wrote that "many of … us have ignorantly embraced a picture of Afghanistan as nothing but (in Mr. Goodson's words) 'drug traffickers, terrorists and bizarre religious fundamentalists.' Read this book and you'll come to realize that the Saudi Osama bin Laden and other terrorists were foisted on an unwilling population from the outside. Political Islam and the fundamentalist theocracy that now governs the country were also an alien and unwelcome imposition on a people happily accustomed to keeping their mullahs confined to mosques."

Goodson proposes a power-sharing, multiethnic government, but he is not optimistic about the future. A Publishers Weekly contributor wrote, "And ominously, Goodson believes the collapse of state power in Afghanistan could occur elsewhere in Asia, Africa, and Eastern Europe," and said Afghanistan's Endless War "provides a helpful background to Afghanistan's current morass."

On November 19, 2001, Goodson delivered an address titled "Post-Taliban Afghanistan: Reconstructing a Failed State" at a Hoover Institution seminar. Hoover News online reported on the event, during which Goodson said, "Fueled by dreams of trade wealth and Islamic zeal, neighboring states have meddled in Afghanistan's affairs to their own ends and will continue to do so. … Oneofthe significant challenges in rebuilding Afghanistan is controlling the malignant regional influences into—and out of—Afghanistan." He emphasized that only the United States had the ability to stabilize Afghanistan and see the country through reconstruction.