STATE-BUILDING IN AFGHANISTAN: DECENTRALIZATION VS. CENTRALIZATION
Keywords:
Afghanistan, state-building, government decentralization and centralization, constitutionalism, separation of powers, ethnic balance in the state administration system, traditional mechanisms of social organization.Abstract
It appears that the multinational and Mult confessional nature of Afghan society itself is the main reason prompting examination of the problem raised in this article. Recently, there has been increasingly lively discussion about whether Afghanistan will be able to choose a development model that could ensure Longterm peace and stability in the “heart of Asia.”
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References
See: F. Fukuyama, State-Building: Governance and World Order in the 21st Century, Cornell University Press, Ithaca,New York, 2004, p. xi.
The following participants were involved in the formation of the provisional administration: members of the Northern Alliance; the Cyprus Group—representatives of Afghanistan’s Shi‘ite communities; the Rome Group—supporters of restoring monarchial rule; and the Peshawar Group—members of the Afghan Pashtun tribes in Pakistan.
After the murder of his father, Abdul Akhad, in July 1999, Hamid Karzai became the head of the Popalzai tribe that was considered the progenitor of Afghan statehood. Ahmad shah Durrani, founder of the Afghan state, and Mohammed Zahir Shah, the last king of Afghanistan, come from this tribe.
The matter concerns the convocations of the Emergency Loya Jirga in 2002 (under the chairmanship of Zalmai Khalil-zad, U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan), the Constitutional Loya Jirga in 2003-2004, as well as the organization and holding of the parliamentary and presidential elections in 2004 planned by the Bonn Agreements.
Afghanistan’s first constitution was adopted by emir Amanullah Khan in 1923, the next by Nadir Shah in 1931, then by Zahir shah in 1964, by Mohammed Daoud in 1977, and by Najibullah in 1987 (in 1980, a temporary constitution was ad-opted).
See: B.R. Rubin, “Crafting a Constitution for Afghanistan,” in: B.R. Rubin, Afghanistan from the Cold War through the War on Terror, Oxford University Press, 2013, pp. 155-156. B. Rubin also notes that as early as the Bonn conference in 2001, the groups that belonged to the United Front or the Northern Alliance were in favor of instituting the post of prime min-ister (see: B.R. Rubin, Is the Afghan Unity Government a Roadmap for Negotiations with the Taliban? 20 October, 2014, avail-able at [http://foreignpolicy.com/2014/10/20/is-the-afghan-unity-government-a-roadmap-for-negotiations-with-the-taliban/]).
I. Karimov, Speech at a Session of the Oliy Majlis of the Republic of Uzbekistan of the Second Convocation, 6 De-cember, 2001, in: Za bezopasnost i mir nado borotsia, Vol. 10, Uzbekiston, Tashkent, 2002, p. 133.
See: M.N. Shahrani, “Afghanistan’s Alternatives for Peace, Governance and Development: Transforming Subjects to
Citizens and Rulers to Civil Servants,” The Afghanistan Papers, No. 2, August 2009, p. 6.
See: T. Barfield, Afghanistan: A Cultural and Political History, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 2010, p. 220.
See: R.D. Lamb, B. Shawn, Political Governance and Strategy in Afghanistan, A Report of the CSIS, April 2012,p. 15, available at [http://csis.org/publication/political-governance-and-strategy-afghanistan].
See: B.R. Rubin, Crafting a Constitution for Afghanistan, pp. 159-160.
See: W. Maley, “State-Building in Afghanistan: Challenges and Pathologies,” Central Asian Survey, Vol. 32, No. 3,2013, p. 259.
According to Art 4 of the Constitution, the nation of Afghanistan is comprised of Pashtun, Tajik, Hazara, Uzbek,Turkmen, Baluch, Pachaie, Nuristani, Aimaq, Arab, Qirghiz, Qizilbash, Gujur, Brahwui, and other tribes.
In Afghanistan, “Hazara are Protesting against Infringement of Their Political Rights,” available in Russian at [http://
ww.aftag.info/news/detail.php?ID=341470&sphrase_id=36569.]
Creation of armed units of representatives of the Gilzai tribes and other ethnic groups; resettlement of the leaders of the Mohammedzai clan in Kabul, separating them from the tribal base; transfer of the capital from Kandahar to Kabul (1776),and other steps were aimed at reaching this goal.
See: T. Barfield, op. cit., p. 147.
Iu.V. Bosin, “Etnichesky factor vo vnutriafganskom konflikte (istorichesky analiz),” Vostok, No. 5, 1999, p. 72.
L. Dupree, Afghanistan, 2nd edition, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 1980, p. xix.
See: T. Barfield, op. cit.; M.N. Shahrani, op. cit.
The potential of the region was made active use of both by the Soviet Union and the U.S. These nations planned and
organized their own military operations within the regional military districts. In 2003, in order to advance into an Afghan vil-lage, the American command in Afghanistan initiated the creation of a Joint Regional Team according to the zonal principle.
he structure of the Taliban movement inside Afghanistan was also based on regional division.
See: T. Barfield, op. cit., p. 162.
Ibidem.
See: R.D. Lamb, B. Shawn, op. сit., pp. 20-24; A. Giustozzi, Empires of Mud: Wars and Warlords in Afghanistan,
Hurst & Co., London, 2009.
M.N. Shahrani, Resisting the Taliban and Talibanism in Afghanistan: Legacies of a Century of Internal Colonialism and Cold War Politics in a Buffer State, available at [http://sam.gov.tr/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/M.-NAZIF-SHAHRANI.df].
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