The curious case of Afghanistan

Journal of Democracy

Volumn 17, Issue 2, 2006, Pages 104-117

  Reynolds, Andrew ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 33646739331     PISSN: 10455736     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1353/jod.2006.0036     Document Type: Review

References (18)

1. Preamble to the Bonn Agreement, officially called the Agreement on Provisional Arrangements in Afghanistan Pending the Re-establishment of Permanent Government Institutions, signed 5 December 2001. Available at www.un.org/news/dh/latest/afghan/afghan-agree.htm.
2. Chris Johnson, William Maley, Alexander Thier, and Ali Wardak, "Afghanistan's Political and Constitutional Development," report by the Overseas Development Institute and the UK Department for International Development, London, January 2003. Available at www.odi.org.uk/hpg/papers/ evaluations/afghandfid.pdf. In the interests of full disclosure, I was a consultant to this study.
3. Chris Johnson, et al., "Afghanistan's Political and Constitutional Development," 7.
4. See Barnett Rubin, "Crafting the Afghan Constitution," Journal of Democracy 15 (July 2004): 5-19.
5. See Larry Goodson, "Afghanistan's Long Road to Reconstruction," Journal of Democracy 14 (January 2003): 82-99.
6. Author's private conversations with international members of the JEMB, an Afghan cabinet minister, and others close to the process.
7. King Hussein believed that limiting a voter to a single vote in a multimember constituency would reduce the capacity of the Muslim Brotherhood to win seats. Subsequent elections gave some credence to this notion. See Andrew Reynolds and Jørgen Elklit, "Jordan: Electoral System Design in the Arab World," in Andrew Reynolds and Ben Reilly, eds., International IDEA Handbook of Electoral System Design (Stockholm: International IDEA, 1997), 53-54.
8. Andrew Reynolds and Andrew Wilder, Free, Fair or Flawed: Challenges for Legitimate Elections in Afghanistan (Kabul: Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit, 2004).
9. The memo was solicited by Karzai's National Security Advisor, Zalmay Rassoul, and was discussed with Minister of Reconstruction Amin Farhang and Finance Minister Ashraf Ghani before reaching President Karzai.
10. See Andrew Reynolds, Lucy Jones, and Andrew Wilder, "A Guide to Parliamentary Elections in Afghanistan," Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit, August 2005, available at www.areu.org.af;
11. and International Crisis Group, "Af-ghanistan: From Presidential to Parliamentary Elections," Asia Report 88, 23 November 2004.
12. Author's private conversations with international members of the JEMB, January 2005.
13. Andrew Wilder, "A House Divided? Analysing the 2005 Afghan Elections" Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit, December 2005, 8. Available at www.areu.org.af.
14. See "Let's Make A Deal: A Democracy Arrives, Afghan Style," New York Times, 4 December 2005, 14.
15. Candidates were given a choice of three symbols drawn at random. These included representations of animals, forms of transport, cell phones, oil rigs, and weather patterns. Thirty-five MPs were elected with animal symbols (with birds leading the way with 16); 32 won with planes, trains, or automobiles (plus four boats in this land-locked nation); and there were 14 fruit-and-vegetable MPs.
16. ABC News poll, "Despite Deep Challenges in Daily Life, Afghans Express a Positive Outlook," 7 December 2005. Available at http://abcnews.go.com/images/Politics/998a1Afghanistan.pdf.
17. Comment by Craig Charney at "Afghanistan at a Crossroads," a roundtable discussion hosted by the Century Foundation, 7 December 2005.
18. See Andrew Wilder, "A House Divided?"