Atlas / Organisations / Taliban
Taliban
Islamic Emirate · 1994– · Afghanistan · Islamist · Held state power · coding confidence medium
Each axis runs from −10 to +10, with zero a genuine mixed or balanced position rather than an absence of opinion. A score describes a stated position and a governing record; it is not a judgement of merit. What each score means →
Core principles
Rule by a supreme religious leader applying a particular reading of Islamic law with no elected component at all.
Economic model
Bazaar economy, customs revenue, agriculture, aid dependence, no formal economic doctrine.
Organisation of powers
No constitution, no elections, no parties; women excluded from secondary education and most employment.
Reading note
Scores at the ceiling on authority and near it on culture and exclusion, with a near-centre economic coordinate — a distribution that a left–right label cannot carry.
Check a claim about Taliban. The interactive atlas measures the distance between any two organisations across all six axes and shows which ones carry the disagreement.
Open in the atlasThe evidence for every score
All six cells are sourced. A rationale explains what the score is measuring and each artefact is something a third party can check without taking anyone's word for it.
EC · Economic organisation · scored +03
Coded +3: no economic doctrine, a bazaar economy, and revenue from customs and taxation.
- Documented act or statuteCustoms collection and taxation of trade are the principal state revenue; the opium ban since 2022 removed a major rural income.
CU · Social and cultural order · scored +10
At the ceiling: the most restrictive gender policy of any government in the dataset.
- Documented act or statuteGirls barred from education beyond grade six since 2022 and from universities since December 2022.
- Documented act or statuteWomen barred from most employment, from parks and gyms, and required a male escort for long-distance travel.
AU · Organisation of power · scored +10
At the ceiling. No constitution, no elections, no parties, and rule by decree of a single religious authority.
- Documented act or statuteThe 2004 constitution was voided and no replacement has been promulgated.
- Documented act or statuteDecrees since 2021 have barred women from secondary and university education and most employment.
SC · Scale of decision · scored +06
Coded +6: provincial governors appointed by the leadership in Kandahar.
- Documented act or statuteDecisions are issued by the supreme leader from Kandahar rather than by the Kabul administration.
ID · Rule of membership · scored +09
Coded +9 on confessional and ethnic grounds.
- Documented act or statuteHazara Shia communities have faced displacement and attacks; no non-Sunni holds senior office.
CH · Method and tempo · scored +06
Coded +6: took power by armed conquest after a twenty-year insurgency.
- Documented act or statuteKabul was taken by force in August 2021 following the withdrawal of foreign forces.
Where it came from, and what came after
- takes its doctrine fromJamaat-e-Islami
The Deobandi seminary network in Pakistan trained much of the movement's leadership.
Nearest organisations by measured distance
Straight-line separation across all six axes, out of a maximum of 49.0. Proximity means similarity of stated position, not endorsement and not resemblance in outcome.
- Integral Nationalism3.5
- Syrian Transitional Authority3.7
- Imperial Japanese Statism3.9
- Sudanese Armed Factions4.5
- National Socialism4.6
- Italian Fascism4.8
Countries
Cite this page
Scores are revised on evidence, so a citation should carry the version it refers to. Version 4.3.1 is current; the revision log records every change.
Free to quote and reproduce with attribution. This is a synthesis rather than a peer-reviewed dataset — where an authoritative figure is needed, cite the Chapel Hill Expert Survey, the Manifesto Project or V-Dem.