Democratizing a dependent state: The case of Afghanistan

Democratization

Volumn 15, Issue 3, 2008, Pages 630-648

  Suhrke, Astri ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

Afghanistan; Democratization; Legislature; Peace building

Indexed keywords

EID: 46249130802     PISSN: 13510347     EISSN: 1743890X     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/13510340801972387     Document Type: Article

References (58)

1. Shahrbanou Tadjbakhsh and Michael Schoiswohl, '"Installing" Democracy in Afghanistan', Seminar 576. Experiments with Democracy. A Symposium on the Asian Experience with Democracy (August 2007), pp. 70-6, available at http://www.india-seminar.com/2007/576/ 576_tadjbakhsh,%20schoiswohl.htm.
2. Richard S. Newell, The Politics of Afghanistan (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1972), p. 98.
3. Cited in Amin Saikal, Modern Afghanistan (London: I. B. Tauris, 2005), p. 116.
4. Thomas Ruttig, Islamists, Leftists - and a Void in the Center. Afghanistan's Political Parties and Where They Came From (1902-2006) (Kabul: Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, 2006).
5. Amin Saikal (note 3), pp. 140-6.
6. Marvin Weinbaum, 'The Legislator as Intermediary: Integration of the Centre and Periphery in Afghanistan', in Albert. F. Eldridge (ed.), Legislatures in Plural Societies: The Search for Cohesion in National Development (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1977).
7. Human Security and Livelihoods of Rural Afghanistan, 2002-03 (Boston, MA: Feinstein International Famine Center, 2004), available at http://fic.tufts.edu/downloads/human_security_and_livelihoods_ of_rural_afghans.pdf (accessed 19 Nov. 2007).
8. Chris Johnson and Jolyon Leslie, Afghanistan: The Mirage of Peace (London: Zed, 2004), pp. 106-8.
9. National Democratic Institute (NDI), Afghanistan. A Society in Transition, NDI Focus Group Report, December 2003, available at http://www.ndi.org/worldwide/asia/afghanistan/afghanistan.asp (accessed 19 Nov. 2007).
10. The United States accentuated its initial presence with frequent and visible overflights of B-52s. The demonstration of power so impressed the Afghans that they took to calling the planes 'the new Vice and Virtue', named after the special police for public order that achieved much notoriety under the Taliban.
11. Interviews, Kabul, October 2002. The salary differential was enormous. By 2007 international consultants could fetch US$25,000 a month and national consultants on 'international' salaries could earn US$5,000-7,000. Regular civil service salaries were in the equivalent of hundreds, not thousands, of dollars per month. Interviews with Afghan government officials and international consultants, Kabul, Oct. 2007.
12. Estimate based on the following sources: World Bank, Afghanistan. Managing Public Finance for Development, December 2005, p. 94, available at http://siteresources.worldbank.org/AFGHANISTANEXTN/ Resources/305984-1137783774207/afghanistan_pfm.pdf and USAID Budget, available at http://www.usaid.gov/policy/budget/cbj2005/ane/af.html, last accessed 19 Nov. 2007.
13. Astri Suhrke, When More is Less: Aiding Statebuilding in Afghanistan Fride Working Paper 26, Madrid, 2006, p. 13, available at www.fride.org.
14. As late as 2005, Afghanistan would not 'make it as a sovereign, independent nation able to stand on its own feet', if foreign forces left, Karzai said on Voice of America (VOA) (in Pashto), 15 May 2005, cited on http://www.globalsecurity.org (accessed 19 Nov. 2007).
15. The United States, Russia, and Afghanistan's neighbours.
16. William Maley, Rescuing Afghanistan (London: C. Hurst & Co., 2006), pp. 33-5.
17. S. Frederick Starr and Marin J. Strmecki, 'Afghan Democracy and Its First Missteps', New York Times, 14 June 2002, available at http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F06E1DF123CF937A 25755C0A9649C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=1 (accessed 19 Nov. 2007).
18. Chris Johnson, William Maley, Alexander Their, and Ali Wardak, Afghanistan's Political and Constitutional Development (London: Overseas Development Institute, January 2003), p. 12.
19. Astri Suhrke, Arne Strand, and Kristian Berg Harpviken, Conflictual Peacebuilding: Afghanistan Two Years After Bonn (Bergen: Chr. Michelsen Institute, 2004), p. 29, available at http://www.cmi.no/ publications/publication/?1763=conflictual-peacebuilding (accessed 19 Nov. 2007).
20. Interviews with Afghan human rights activists, September 2002.
21. International Crisis Group, The Afghan Transitional Administration. Prospects and Perils, Kabul and Brussels, 30 July 2002, p. 6, available at http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=1820&l=1 (accessed 19 Nov. 2007).
22. Interview with Brahimi, October 2002. Brahimi was said to be influenced by the electoral victory of the Islamic Salvation Front in his native Algeria in 1991.
23. The consultation process was in part pro forma. It lasted only two months, and there was no published draft to serve as a basis for discussion. The UN mission that led the process worked under a tight deadline laid down in Bonn. There was also some concern in UNAMA that the consultations could be hijacked by undemocratic forces such as local strongmen and Islamists.
24. Foreign experts were divided. Barnett Rubin, who was involved in the process and an occasional advisor to Karzai, leaned towards presidentialism, citing the need for unifying leadership to build a central state. Barnett R. Rubin, 'Crafting a Constitution for Afghanistan', Journal of Democracy, Vol. 13, No. 3 (July 2004), pp. 5-19.
25. Others stressed the importance of power-sharing formulas to foster unity in a plural society. Johnson et al. (note 16), pp. 19-24.
26. This conformed to established practice during the constitutional monarchy when the King always appointed his prime ministers.
27. International Crisis Group 'Afghanistan's Flawed Constitutional Process (Brussels and Kabul, June 2003), p. 3, available at http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=1639&l=1 (accessed 19 Nov. 2007).
28. Interviews with Afghan NGO activists and international NGO observers, July and August 2007.
29. Rubin (note 22), p. 12.
30. Amin Tarzi, Afghanistan: What Unites the 'United Front'?, available at http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/news/2007/ 05/mil-070510-rferl01.htm (accessed 19 Nov. 2007).
31. Richard Soudriette and Andrew Ellis, 'Electoral Systems Today. A Global Snapshot', Journal of Democracy, Vol. 17, No. 2 (2006), pp. 78-88.
32. Andrew Reynolds, 'The Curious Case of Afghanistan', Journal of Democracy, Vol. 17, No. 2 (April 2006), pp. 104-17.
33. Ibid., p. 107. In this version, an episode involving a bungled presentation of the rival proportional representation system is given much weight.
34. Ibid., p. 107.
35. Maley (note 14), pp. 48-9.
36. International Crisis Group, Political Parties in Afghanistan (Brussels and Kabul, June 2005), available at http://www.crisisgroup.org/ home/index.cfm?id=3493 (accessed 19 Nov. 2007).
37. Ruttig (note 4), p. 42.
38. Reynolds (note 29), p. 110.
39. Arthur Kent, 'Cashing in on Karzai & Co.', Policy Options (November 2007), p. 11.
40. Interview with former USAID official in Kabul, July 2007. A study commissioned by USAID and the US government supported Asia Foundation documented 'overwhelmingly negative' reactions among ordinary Afghans against political parties; The Asia Foundation, Formative Research for Civic Education Programs on Elections: Focus Group Discussions in the North, West, Southeast and South of Afghanistan (Kabul: The Asia Foundation, 2005).
41. Andrew Wilder, A House Divided? Analysing the 2005 Afghan Elections (Kabul: The Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit (AREU), 2005), p. 1.
42. Reynolds (note 29), p. 116.
43. Ruttig (note 4),pp. 42-6.
44. The Ittihad of Abdul Sayyaf (under a new name: Dawat).
45. Jamiat led by Burhanuddin Rabbani, Wahdat led by Mohammad Mohaqqeq, Junbish of Abdul Rashid Dostum, and Hezb-e Islami (led by supposed defectors from the old party of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar).
46. Wilder (note 37), pp. 20-5.
47. Cited in Wilder (note 37), p. 14.
48. Hafizullah Gardesh, 'Afghan Government Turns In on Itself', Institute of War and Peace Reporting, 26 June 2007, available at http://iwpr.net/ ?p=arr&s=f&o=336625&apca_scte=heniarr200706 (accessed 19 Nov. 2007).
49. Amin Tarzi, 'Afghanistan: Amnesty Bill Places Karzai in a Dilemma', available at http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2007/02/ 85e5a401-6ce9-4424-bbdc-01a084f6c60b.html (accessed 19 Nov. 2007).
50. World Bank (note 10), pp. 7-8.
51. Suhrke (note 11), p. 5.
52. The two ministers were then Finance Minister, Ashraf Ghani, and then Minister of Rural Rehabilitation and Development, Haneef Atmar.
53. http://oneteam.centcom.mil/default.aspx (login required).
54. JCMB Task Force on Afghan National Police Target Strength (March 2007), available at http://www.ands.gov.af/ands/jcmb/src/jcmb5/ 5B.%20Task%20Force%20on%20Police%20Ceilings.pdf (accessed 11 Nov. 2007).
55. Tom Carothers and Marina S. Ottaway (eds), Unchartered Journey: Promoting Democracy in the Middle East (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2005).
56. William Maley, comment to author, 13 October 2007.
57. Stephen Krasner, 'Building Democracy After Conflict. The Case for Shared Sovereignty', Journal of Democracy, Vol. 16, No. 1 (2005), pp. 69-83.
58. Barnett R. Rubin, 'Constructing Sovereignty for Security', Survival Vol. 47, No. 4 (2005), p. 101.