Legitimizing the De Facto Decentralized Afghan Government

Abstract

Following the dissolution of the Taliban administration in 2001, the Bonn Agreement laid a roadmap for the reconstruction of the Afghan state. The product of this agreement was the 2004 constitution that established Afghanistan as a unitary republic. The unitary state is not a viable model for Afghanistan, which has never in its history been ruled by a centralized government. There has been a significant academic debate surrounding federalism as a solution to this problem, however there is a lack of stability in the periphery of the state to support even this. Further, a significant portion of the debate misidentifies federalism as a proposed solution to an overstated ethnic problem. To build government control, recognizing and legitimizing the valuable role that tribal and strongman provincial administrations fill in Afghanistan is the correct solution for the ongoing state-building project in the country. By formally relinquishing aspects of sovereignty such as the monopoly on violence and limited legislation, Afghanistan’s periphery administrations will be better able to exert some degree of governmental control to facilitate progress until the state can handle deeper reform.