Joshua Partlow

March 4, 2013 – June 28, 2013

Professional Affiliation

former Kabul bureau chief, Washington Post; former public policy scholar, Wilson Center

Expert Bio

Joshua Partlow is a foreign correspondent for The Washington Post. Between 2009 and 2012, he was the paper’s Kabul bureau chief. Before going to Afghanistan, he worked as the Post’s correspondent in South America, based in Rio de Janeiro, and as a correspondent in Iraq. Partlow joined The Washington Post in 2003. He was on the financial desk and later worked for the metro section covering the Maryland suburbs as a general assignment and police reporter. In 2010, Partlow and his Post colleague Rajiv Chandrasekaran won an Overseas Press Club award for the best newspaper or news service reporting from abroad for their series on the war in Afghanistan. He has masters degrees in international affairs and in journalism from Columbia University, and earned his undergraduate degree in environmental sciences and policy from Duke University. He has served as a fellow at the Joan Shorenstein Center at Harvard University.

Wilson Center Project

"The Karzai Family and the War in Afghanistan"

Project Summary

This project is a study of the political and personal history of President Hamid Karzai and his family, with a focus on the recent years of the war in Afghanistan. The research looks at the personalities and the power dynamics within President Karzai’s palace and family and how their relations with U.S. soldiers and diplomats have evolved over the course of the war. The project will describe the changing perceptions of Karzai’s performance as president during the war and the different foreign policy approaches of the Bush and Obama administrations towards the Afghan leader.