Abstract
This chapter challenges the way in which political fragility is defined by international actors in reference to Afghanistan. One of the world’s 15 ‘extremely fragile’ states, according to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the country is considered vulnerable ‘to risks inherent in political processes, events or decisions’ (OECD, States of Fragility, 2016, 23). An exploration of one such political process—elections—in Afghanistan demonstrates how narrow definitions of fragility and a lack of legitimacy, measured according to international liberal criteria, serve to dismiss local adaptations of elections as undemocratic. Yet these adaptations are the very means through which elections are cemented in to the broader political landscape, and in the longer term, may counter fragility. The chapter considers two trends in Afghan elections since 2004: first, the increased usage at the local level of preexisting political practices influencing electoral processes, such as collective decision-making and consensus, but the decreased efficacy of the same. At the same time, a second trend has seen each electoral cycle provide the stage for more sophisticated and impactful forms of fraud as the perceived perks of a seat in parliament or on a provincial council have increased exponentially. Elections that were intended to reverse political fragility and bad governance have done the opposite. The chapter argues that it is not the ‘Afghanisation’ of elections that renders them increasingly undemocratic or fraudulent but instead broader contextual factors including a vast flow of unchecked international resources, elite competition to control the process, a lack of rule of law, and persistent international intervention in electoral outcomes related to simultaneous military stabilisation. A different approach to elections—one that prioritises familiarity with candidates and resilience against outside interference, above liberal principles—could enhance political legitimacy at the local level. Efforts to counter political fragility can only begin when legitimacy is defined locally.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
- 1.
The term ‘international actors’ is used throughout the chapter to denote a wide range of governmental and non-governmental organisations working in the field of state-building in Afghanistan since the US invasion in 2001. These include bilateral aid agencies such as the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the UK government’s Department for International Development (DFID), the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), among many others; multilateral aid agencies including the United Nations Development Program (UNDP); democracy-promoting organisations such as the National Democratic Institute (NDI), International Republican Institute (IRI), and the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES); and private contractors such as Checchi and Development Alternatives, Inc (DAI).
- 2.
Legitimacy, here, is used to mean publicly accepted political authority.
- 3.
In this case, the British invaded Afghanistan in 1839, as a means to protect their interests in India, and considered the Amir, Dost Mohammed, an unwilling and unreliable puppet. Unseating the Amir and replacing him with his predecessor Shah Shuja was a bid to gain control over Afghan affairs. The British assumed that Shuja’s stronger connections to the established Saddozai dynasty would secure the legitimacy of his rule, but neglected to understand that Shuja had previously been able to pay his supporters considerably for their loyalty. No longer able to do this, under watchful British eyes, he lost public support quickly. In the space of six years, Dost Mohammed had returned to the throne. See Barfield 2010, 111–127.
- 4.
- 5.
Although Fukuyama would later concede that liberal democracy cannot be transplanted in any country irrespective of culture and tradition.
- 6.
See, for example, the US President’s radio address, given by First Lady Laura Bush, Saturday 17 November 2001 (Bush 2001).
- 7.
For more on the problems of using SNTV, see Reynolds and Wilder 2004.
- 8.
One exception was in the 2010 parliamentary election for Nimroz province, in the remote southwest corner of Afghanistan. Only two parliamentary seats are allocated to this province given its small population, and one of these is reserved for women. Both seats were won by women candidates in 2010.
- 9.
- 10.
Interview, Member of Parliament for Farah province, 2007 (Cited in Wordsworth 2007, 25).
- 11.
Interview, university student, Ghazni province, 2017.
- 12.
For a more detailed account of these events, see Suhrke 2011, 178–181.
- 13.
In 2014, a recording of a senior election official in Kabul inciting others to commit fraud was made public, causing outcry.
- 14.
Suhrke labels this the ‘aid-and-war economy’ and states that in the 2007–2009 period alone, the US Department of Defense gave the go-ahead to work contracts in Afghanistan amounting to US$ 11.5 billion (2011, 133).
References
Barakat, Sultan, and Anna Larson. 2013. Fragile States: A Donor-Serving Concept? Issues with Interpretations of Fragile Statehood in Afghanistan. Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding 8 (1): 21–41.
Barfield, Thomas. 2010. Afghanistan: A Cultural and Political History. Princeton, NJ and Oxford: Princeton University Press.
Bastian, Sunil, and Robin Luckham. 2003. Can Democracy Be Designed? In Can Democracy Be Designed? The Politics of Institutional Choice in Conflict-torn Societies, ed. Sunil Bastian and Robin Luckham. London and New York: Zed Books.
Bush, Laura. 2001. Text: Laura Bush on Taliban Oppression of Women. Washington Post, Saturday, November 17. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/nation/specials/attacked/transcripts/laurabushtext_111701.html. Accessed 14 August 2017.
Coburn, Noah. 2009. Losing Legitimacy? Some Afghan Views on the Government, the International Community, and the 2009 Elections. Kabul: Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit.
———. 2011. Bazaar Politics: Power and Pottery in an Afghan Market Town. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Coburn, Noah, and John Dempsey. 2010. Informal Dispute Resolution in Afghanistan. Washington, DC: United States Institute for Peace.
Coburn, Noah, and Anna Larson. 2009. Voting Together: Why Afghanistan’s 2009 Elections Were (and Were Not) a Disaster. Kabul: Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit.
———. 2014. Derailing Democracy in Afghanistan: Elections in an Unstable Political Landscape. New York: Columbia University Press.
Dupree, Louis. 1963. Afghanistan’s Slow March to Democracy: Reflections on Kabul’s Municipal Balloting. American Universities Field Staff Reports 7.1, South Asia Series.
Dupree, Louis. 1980. Afghanistan. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Fukuyama, Francis. 1989. The End of History? The National Interest 16: 3–18.
International Crisis Group. 2004. From Presidential to Parliamentary Elections. Brussels: International Crisis Group. http://www.operationspaix.net/DATA/DOCUMENT/5764~v~Afghanistan__From_Presidential_to_Parliamentary_Elections.pdf. Accessed 20 August 2017.
International Dialogue of Peacebuilding and Statebuilding. 2011. A New Deal for Engagement in Fragile States. https://www.pbsbdialogue.org/media/filer_public/07/69/07692de0-3557-494e-918e-18df00e9ef73/the_new_deal.pdf. Accessed 20 August 2017.
———. 2016. Stockholm Declaration. Fifth Global Meeting, April 5, Stockholm. https://www.pbsbdialogue.org/media/filer_public/1e/23/1e237c73-5518-4a03-9a87-b1aa6d914d20/stockholm_declaration.pdf. Accessed 24 August 2017.
Johnson, Chris, and Jolyon Leslie. 2004. Afghanistan: The Mirage of Peace. London: Zed Books.
Kaplan, Seth. 2008. Fixing Fragile States: A New Paradigm for Development. Westport, CT: Praeger Security International.
Lake, Anthony. 1994. The Reach of Democracy: Tying Power to Diplomacy. New York Times, September 23. http://www.nytimes.com/1994/09/23/opinion/dialogue-the-reach-of-democracy-tying-power-to-diplomacy.html. Accessed 30 August 2017.
Larson, Anna. 2016. House of the People? Afghanistan’s Parliament in 2015. Journal of Conflict, Security and Development 16 (6): 595–612.
Larson, Anna, and Noah Coburn. 2014. Youth Mobilisation in Afghanistan: The Y Factor. Washington, DC: United States Institute for Peace.
———. 2017. Afghan Views of Government and Elections: Legitimacy Pending. Washington, DC: United States Institute for Peace.
Mansfield, Peter, and Jack Snyder. 1995. Democratization and the Danger of War. International Security 20 (1 Summer): 5–38.
OECD. 2016. States of Fragility. http://www.keepeek.com/Digital-Asset-Management/oecd/development/states-of-fragility-2016_9789264267213-en#.WbZiL8iGPIU#page24.
Paris, Roland. 2004. At War’s End: Building Peace After Civil Conflict. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press.
Rashid, Ahmed. 2009. Descent into Chaos: The World’s most Unstable Region and the Threat to Global Security. New York: Penguin.
Rasmussen, Sune Engel. 2014. US and Afghanistan Sign Security Deal. The Guardian, September 30. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/30/us-afghanistan-sign-security-deal. Accessed 24 August 2017.
Reynolds, Andrew, and Andrew Wilder. 2004. Free, Fair or Flawed: Challenges for Legitimate Elections in Afghanistan. Kabul: Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit.
Rubin, Barnett R. 2002. The Fragmentation of Afghanistan: State Formation and Collapse in the International System. New Haven, CT and London: Yale University Press.
Saikal, Amin. 2004. Modern Afghanistan: A History of Struggle and Survival. London and New York: I.B. Tauris.
Scott, James. 1998. Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed. New Haven, CT and London: Yale University Press.
Smith, Deborah, and Shalita Manalan. 2009. Community-Based Dispute Resolution Processes in Bamiyan Province. Kabul: Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit.
Snyder, Jack. 2000. From Voting to Violence: Democratization and Nationalist Conflict. London and New York: W.W. Norton.
Stewart, Frances, and Graham Brown. 2009. Fragile States. CRISE Working Paper 51. Oxford: Centre for Research on Inequality, Human Security and Ethnicity (CRISE). http://www3.qeh.ox.ac.uk/pdf/crisewps/workingpaper51.pdf. Accessed 11 September 2017.
Stewart, Frances, and Meghan O’Sullivan. 1998. Democracy, Conflict and Development: Three Cases. QEH Working Paper 15. http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.200.695&rep=rep1&type=pdf. Accessed 13 September 2017.
Suhrke, Astri. 2011. When More Is Less. The International Project in Afghanistan. New York: Columbia University Press.
Their, Alex, and Scott Worden. 2017. Political Stability in Afghanistan: A 2020 Vision and Roadmap. Washington, DC: United States Institute for Peace.
Van Bijlert, Martine. 2009. How to Win an Afghan Election: Perceptions and Practices. Kabul: Afghan Analysts Network.
Wardak, Ali. 2002. Jirga: Power and Traditional Conflict Resolution in Afghanistan. In Law After Ground Zero, ed. Jon Strawson. New York: Routledge Cavendish.
Weinbaum, Marvin G. 1972. Nonparty Parliamentary Democracy. Journal of Developing Areas 7 (1): 57–74.
Wilder, Andrew. 2005. A House Divided? Analysing the 2005 Elections in Afghanistan. Kabul: Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit.
Wordsworth, Anna. 2007. A Matter of Interests: Gender and the Politics of Presence in Afghanistan’s Wolesi Jirga. Kabul: Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Larson, A. (2019). More Legitimate, Less Fragile, Less Liberal? The Adoption and Adaptation of Elections in Afghanistan. In: Lahai, J., von Strokirch, K., Brasted, H., Ware, H. (eds) Governance and Political Adaptation in Fragile States. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90749-9_9
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90749-9_9
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-90748-2
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-90749-9
eBook Packages: Political Science and International StudiesPolitical Science and International Studies (R0)