Myth No. 2: It is a weak state that is the problem. A central tenet in the current debate is that centralism is good and fragmentation is bad. The entire focus has been on presidential politics and on how to create a strong central state.

Our study shows, however, that in Afghanistan, with its rugged terrain, strong tribal affinities and extreme poverty, it is localism that will defeat poverty and corruption and knit a nation together.

More than 19 million people have participated in a community planning and budgeting process to decide how to best use government grants of around $30,000 per village. In a community in Kabul Province that was layered with 12,000 land mines, without a single standing building in 2002, the men decided to invest funds in reviving irrigation canals, and the women in electricity generators. Men in the village told us that animosities between the Tajiks and the Pashtuns had eroded as a result of the collective budgeting negotiations.

No central agency in Kabul can ever know the priority needs of people in every Afghan village. Unity cannot be delivered from the top. But when local leaders, engaged in the nitty-gritty of local policymaking, practice fairness and inclusion, the people follow. A weak state cannot be made strong overnight. But it can set up the systems that catalyze strong local communities.

Myth No. 3: The Taliban is thriving because of its religious appeal. How can the West and President Hamid Karzai compete with God?

The reality is that most Afghans have the same concerns as people everywhere: They just want to get on with their lives.

The appeal of the Taliban is less other-worldly and more propelled by practical motivations. When our research teams visited poppy-growing communities near Jalalabad, nobody expressed love for the Taliban and no one mentioned God. Rather, local farmers, their lands devastated and their options few, developed a silent partnership with the Taliban to grow poppy. The Taliban provided protection and the connection to the drug dealers who came to the farmers, paid cash and provided credit — that silver bullet of life in the developing world. The only other job that paid as much was joining the Taliban. The Taliban succeed by offering what the state should provide, but doesn’t.

There is hope in Afghanistan. The strength of a weak state lies in its communities. This strength needs to be the cornerstone of a strategy for peace — helping Afghanis take the lead in building accountability and legitimacy from the bottom up, even as corruption and chaos prevail at the top, for a while.