From scholars to militants: university leadership and the demographics of senior administrators in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan
研究了塔利班政权如何系统性地用意识形态忠诚、多为巴基斯坦宗教学校毕业的普什图男性替换掉有经验、多元且学术合格的高校管理者，使大学从学术机构变为意识形态工具。
This article examines how the Taliban regime has reshaped universities’ administration in Afghanistan. Using a mixed-methods approach, the study analyzed data from 160 administrators across 40 universities and conducted thematic analysis of 30 biographies to explore their professional and ideological profiles. Findings reveal a systematic replacement of experienced, diverse, and academically qualified administrators with ideologically loyal and predominantly Pashtun men primarily educated in Pakistani madrasas, many of them involved in the Taliban insurgency. This is a clear shift away from merit-based academic administration and toward appointments based on madrasa education, ethnic ties, and ideological allegiance, and raises questions about the nature of universities and the conditions under which they cease to function as institutions of higher education in authoritarian and extremist contexts. The article argues that, under Taliban rule, universities have been transformed, from spaces of critical inquiry, into instruments of ideological reproduction.