Political Parties and Political Development
in Afghanistan
S. Yaqub Ibrahimi
Introduction
In underdeveloped countries the institutionalization and development of political parties are
the prerequisite of the development of other political organizations such as the legislature and
the executive (Huntington, 1965: 424; Pye, 1966: 72-88). Accordingly, the institutionalization of
political organizations in general, and the institutionalization of political parties in particular, is
considered as the explanatory variable of the political development. In this context, this
research evaluates the level of institutionalization of the post-Taliban Afghanistan’s political
parties. The institutionalization of Afghanistan’s political parties is evaluated through examining
the degree of their adaptability, complexity, autonomy and coherence. The general purpose of
this research is to provide an institutionalist perspective of the post-Taliban Afghanistan’s
political development through evaluating the institutionalization of the country’s political
parties. My primary finding indicates that parties in Afghanistan have failed to be successfully
institutionalized and sufficiently developed during the last decade. Accordingly, the parties
broadly remain under the control of religious and ethnic leaders and representatives,
continuously following a traditional system of values. The supremacy of such individuallydirected traditional organizations has produced a dominant political pattern in which the
leaders or the representatives of the three largest ethnic groups divide the country’s top
political positions between each other. One can clearly see the dominance of this tri-ethnic
pattern in Afghanistan’s electoral politics and pre-election campaigns. For instance, all of the
candidates of the April 2014 presidential election, regardless of their political/ideological
backgrounds, clearly followed the pattern. For example, a Pashtun candidate for the
presidential position selected his first and second vice presidents a Tajik and Hazara leader
respectively, and a Tajik presidential nominee chose his first and second vice presidents a
Pashtun and a Hazara. Accordingly, none of the candidates represented an institutionalized
political party; therefore, none could provide a comprehensive agenda that can define the
country they wish to lead for the next five years. However it is essentially different than what is
called consociational democracy in Lebanon and elsewhere in the world. Unlike Lebanon, for
instance, the constitution of Afghanistan rejects any kind of power distribution based on
identity.
Political Development and Primacy of Party
Political development as the development of governmental capacity to direct the course and
the rate of social and economic change occupies a uniquely central position in the process of
social change (Finkle & Gable, 1971: 65). However, the difficulty with the concept of political
development is that there are so many legitimate ways of judging and evaluating a political
system. Because, the multi functional character of politics and the fact that a political system
cannot be thought of as producing a single “product” means that no single scale can be used for
measuring the level of political development in a given society (Pye, 1963: 16). Yet, the ultimate
test of political development must be met. To identify certain considerations as to what should
constitute development in a political sense the political development scholars provide different
answers. The answers mainly depend on the type and characteristics of different cases under
examination. In other words, in what type of society (modern or traditional, transitional or
authoritarian) we are examining political development, determines what theoretical context we
use. A main theoretical divide exists between the political development and the modernization
scholars. The former conceives political development as a process independent of the process
of modernization and define it as the institutionalization of political organizations and
procedures. In this context, the institutionalization of political organizations and procedures is
broadly evaluated as the main causal factor of the political development (Huntington, 1965:
393; Eisenstadt, 1964: 235-36). By contrast the modernization scholars, conceive political
development as the political aspect of modernization. In this context, political development in a
given society requires broader socioeconomic development (Binder, 1971: 16).
2
Despite the theoretical disagreement between the modernization and the political
development scholars, the former agrees that the characteristics and conditions of a given
society determine its priorities. Binder (1971), for instance, believes that to modernize an
“extra European” underdeveloped society, political development should precede the other
aspects of modernization (Binder, 1971: 16). In this sense, both groups of scholars admit the
priority of institutionalization of political organizations in “extra-European,” “underdeveloped”
societies.
Therefore since my case study is a non-European underdeveloped country, drawing on this
conclusion, I conceive political development as the institutionalization of political organizations
and procedures - a process independent of other aspects of modernization.
The scholars who conceive the political development as the institutionalization of political
organizations emphasize that political development in underdeveloped societies is synonymous
with the establishment of democratic institutions (Pye, 1966: 40-42, 44). In this context,
competitive political parties tend to play a crucial role in formally establishing new democratic
system. Accordingly, in early stages of political development, political parties as primary
political organizations which are necessary for the development of other political organizations
should be institutionalized (Pye, 1966: 72-88). Such parties are the products of political
cleavages (Wolinetz, 1988: 1), which could be led by new or traditional agents of power in early
stages (Pridham, 1995: 9). However, in a successful political development process, the political
parties should undergo fundamental internal reforms to encourage the political elite adaption
to a new political environment or to democratic life (Pridham, 1995: 13). Thus,
institutionalization of political parties in this stage can be considered as the prerequisite of
institutionalization of other political organizations such as the executive, the legislature and
consequently the nation-state.
The institutionalization of political organizations in underdeveloped and developing societies is
a three stage process: In the first stage the “political parties” have to be welded out of
traditional and tribal structures, then the parties create government and the governments,
eventually, bring into existence the ‘nation-state’ (Huntington, 1965: 418; Pye, 1966: 37-38).
Parties are distinctly modern political organizations which in a developing country replace the
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traditional organizations and become the legitimate source of authority. In developing societies
where parties are poorly institutionalized the traditional institutions such as tribal, feudal and
ethnic institutions are carried over into the new era, parties play secondary and supplementary
role in the political system (Huntington, 1965: 424). In other words, in such societies, parties
become the instrument of traditional leaders and powerful individuals. In transitional society
where the parties only reflect identity-based and traditional cleavages the political
development processes face severe challenges and problems. The supremacy of traditional and
identity-based parties over the modern and democratic “political” parties in a developing
society indicates the primacy of ethnic, religious and cultural cleavages over the political ones.
Such process, instead of producing stable and progressive political institutions in a given
society, will result to ethnic divide and identity-based conflicts.
Institutionalization of Political Parties in Afghanistan
After the fall of the Taliban in 2001, a new constitution was approved in January 2004 which
provided for freedom of associations and parties in Afghanistan. Establishment of parties based
on ethnicity, language, religious sects, or regional ties is prohibited in the new constitution
(Article No: 35); however, most of the parties today entirely rely on ethnic and religious ties and
values. Afghanistan today has 57 registered and legally licensed political parties. Nevertheless,
these parties fall into two general categories: major parties which in turn can be classified into
“ethnic-religious” and “ethnic-linguistic” parties, and minor parties which include a wide range
of political organizations not strongly influential in Afghanistan’s political arena. The major
parties organizationally represent the four major ethnic groups of Afghanistan; ideologically call
themselves Islamist-nationalists and led by ethnic leaders. All major Mujahidin parties1 which
1
The Mujahidin parties in form of paramilitary groups emerged in exile in Pakistan in late 1970s to fight against
Afghanistan’s Soviet-backed one-party communist government. These parties first had little backing within
Afghanistan, but as soon as the Soviet invaded Afghanistan in December 1979, they managed to influence the local
ethnic-based resistant groups and organize them within their party frameworks (see George E. Delury eds., World
Encyclopedia of Political Systems and Parties, Volume I, New York and Oxford, 1983, pp. 1, 5). All Mujahidin parties
until the fall of the Kabul communist regime in 1992 fought for a single cause (the withdrawal the Soviet army and
the replacement of the Kabul communist regime with an Islamic government. But as soon as the goal was
achieved, the Mujahidin groups, raising ethnic causes, started a civil war which lasted until the capture of Kabul by
the Taliban in 1996. The Taliban, a Pashtun extremist group which controlled over the 90% of the country until the
US-led coalition invasion in Afghanistan, in October 2001, isolated the Mujahidin groups in the mountainous region
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have been playing crucial roles in Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban in 2001 fall into this
category. The minor parties include smaller organizations which are split from the major
Mujahidin parties and the former pro-Soviet People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA)
which led the country during the 1980s. This category also includes smaller ethnic, regional,
secular and a few newly established liberal parties.
The major and most of the older minor parties reshaped themselves into the new era, without
adapting the modern values, outlooks and organizational principles. Therefore, instead of
instilling in society new values and new outlooks in early stages of political development (see
Pye, 1966: 83), these poorly institutionalized parties, have been mostly reflecting and
expanding the traditional, ethnic, religious and regional demands. However a few new parties
with liberal agendas also established during the last decade, their influences in Afghanistan’s
political arena have been invisible since the beginning.
Overall, party politics and parties’ influence in the Afghan political arena has remained minimal.
Afghanistan’s electoral politics and pre-election campaigns are clear indicators of party isolation
in the country’s political scene. The study of Afghanistan’s elections show that in all three
presidential and two parliamentary elections since 2001, all candidates were nominated as
individuals rather than party representatives or members. Leading international analyses
conceive the situation as the outcome of Afghanistan’s 2005 electoral law which has
discouraged party politics by adapting the ‘single-non-transferable-vote-system’ (Nixon &
Ponzio, 2007: 26-40; ICG, Asia Briefing, 2013: 1). The single-non-transferable-vote-system,
allows voters to cast a single vote for multi-member constituencies on a ballot that lists
candidates and not party affiliation (Nixon & Ponzio, 2007). Some other international analyses
think that Afghanistan’s parties have not been able to correspond with the new demands and
new political environment; therefore, their influence has remained minimal (RRT 2013: 6).
Afghan analysts argue that in addition to the discouraging legal frameworks and political
environment the Afghan ‘underdeveloped and traditional political culture’ is also unfavorable
for fostering modern political parties (Jafari, 2012).
of the North East Afghanistan. The Mujahidin groups returned to power by the US-led coalition’s support,
following the fall of the Taliban.
5
These are all remarkable explanatory factors of party politics failure in Afghanistan, but they are
all external to political parties. The analyses fail to explain why the parties entirely failed to
adopt the external changes and the new conditions, and consequently to cope with the
external challenges. In other words, these analyses fail to examine the institutional reasons of
the failure of political parties in Afghanistan. Considering the issue, this paper mainly focuses on
internal and institutional reasons of the Afghan political parties’ failure in post-2001 period. The
findings primarily indicate that the poor institutionalization of political parties in Afghanistan
and their institutional and functional reliance on specific individuals and traditional system of
values have failed them to cope with the external challenges. Therefore, the level of
institutionalization of Afghanistan’s political parties is examined as the explanatory variable of
parties’ internal failure, which is measured by four independent variables as the parties’ levels
of adaptability, autonomy, complexity and coherence.
Adaptability
The more adaptable an organization is the more highly institutionalized it is. The adaptability of
an organization can be measured by three indicators as organization’s chronological age, its
generational age and the organization’s functional terms. Chronologically, older organizations
are more adaptable than younger ones; however, the chronological age of an organization is
bound by its generational age. In other words the chronological age alone can’t define the level
of an organization’s adaptability. If a chronologically aged organization is not flexible for
admitting the ideas of new generation or if the new generation functions under the shadow of
previews generation its adaptability is in doubt (Huntington, 1965: 394). In this sense, the major
political parties of Afghanistan or specifically the Mujahidin parties can be classified as
chronologically adaptable; however, their generational adaptability is very poor. These
organizations have entirely been leading by the first generation or the “founding fathers”
during the last four decades. Accordingly, none of the Mujahidin parties have been flexible in
shifting leadership generation overtime, facing succession crises. The assassination of the
leader of Jamiat-e-Islami one the oldest and largest Mujahidin parties by the Taliban in 2011
was a clear example of such succession crisis. The party members did not come to an
6
agreement in filling the slain leader’s position who had led the party since the1960s.
Consequently, a small group of the party members, without holding the full party congress,
appointed the oldest son of former leader as the “temporary” party leader (Rutting, 2013).
Such generational inadaptability is applicable to all Mujahidin parties. To some extent, there
were some attempts to reshape some of these major parties, making them more adaptable,
they all failed because of the parties’ structural rigidity and the leadership’s resistance to
maintain the traditional structures. For example the attempt to reshape Jamiat-e-Islami into a
new political party, Nohzat-e Melli-ye Afghanistan, or ‘National Movement of Afghanistan’ in
2003 failed without achieving any result (see Rutting, 2006: 17), because the leadership resisted
to not change traditional structure of the party.
By contrast, the minor parties are mostly too young and therefore chronologically inadaptable.
The “Right and Justice Party” for instance, a liberal party established in 2011, is too young and
therefore limited in the capital Kabul. The party, being limited among a number of middle class
Kabul based elite, have failed to recruit from different social strata outside of the capital. Same
chronological inadaptability is applicable to all parties separated from the former PDPA and to
all newly established parties.
In addition to chronological and generational age, as noted above, organizational adaptability
can also be defined by an organization’s functional terms. An organization is created to perform
one or a set of function(s). When that function is no longer needed the organization faces a
major crisis. Therefore, an adaptable organization produces and reproduces new functional
purposes over time. In this sense Afghanistan’s major parties have entirely failed to reproduce
new functional purposes in accordance to the external changes and new political and
socioeconomic conditions. The Mujahidin parties were basically created to overthrow the proSoviet communist regime and replace it with an Islamic government. These aims by
overthrowing the pro-Soviet regime were achieved; therefore the Mujahidin parties since 1992
have faced the crisis of defining alternative functional purposes. Lacking new functional
purposes, they are forced to continuously justify their existence by relying on the “holy Jihad”
they fought against the Soviets; however, it is no longer interesting for the people.
Consequently, the Mujahidin parties are entirely failed to develop a set of responses for dealing
7
effectively with different types of problems rising over time. By contrast, a number of the minor
parties, particularly the newly established ones, have relatively been able to introduce some
new functional purposes, such as building a democratic regime, promoting gender and new
foreign policy goals. These functional purposes can be seen in the platforms of some newly
established parties and a few factions of the former PDPA. However, due to their chronological
inadaptability, the minor parties’ functional purposes are not fully understandable for the mass
of the people, particularly out of the capital Kabul. This indicates that the both categories of
Afghanistan’s political parties are not sufficiently adaptable, lacking legitimacy and functional
capability the new political and socioeconomic environment requires.
Autonomy
An autonomous political organization is insulated from the impact of non-political groups such
as families, clans, and ethnic, linguistic and religious groups (Huntington, 1965: 401). An
institutionalized political organization is not the expressions of the interests of such social
groupings. Such an organization develops procedures to minimize the influence of the interests
of such groups in the system. Political organizations which are vulnerable to non-political
groupings from within society are also usually vulnerable to influences from outside the society,
for instance the political or financial influence of a foreign country. In this sense, Afghanistan’s
political parties are very vulnerable organizations to the influences from both within and
without the society. The major parties internally depend on a system of values consists of
ethnic, religious and linguistic values. Specifically, all major parties representing the four major
ethnic groups of Afghanistan, Pahtun, Tajik, Hazara and Uzbeks, are organized along specific
ethnic and linguistic lines (Rutting, 2006: 1). Further, most of them referring to their struggles
against the Soviet army, call themselves the “parties of the holy war.” The major parties’
dependence on external, particularly the regional countries such as Iran, Pakistan, India and
Turkey also has affected their degree of autonomy (Arwin, 2013). During the years of the civil
war in the 1990s each Mujahidin party received financial and military aid from a specific
regional country. These countries have been continuously influencing these parties until today.
8
The minor parties too, are vulnerable to the influences from both within and without the
society. Some secular minor parties such as “the Congress party” and the “Afghanistan Social
Democratic party/Afghan Millat” like the Mujahidin parties are clearly organized along specific
ethnic and linguistic lines. The Congress Party is organized and led by the Persian speaking Tajik
seculars whose political cause is ethnic and linguistic equality in Afghanistan, and consequently
the establishment of a Federal state for breaking the central domination of the Pashtuns. In
contrary fashion the Social Democratic Party, led by the Pashtun urban elites, attempts to
justify the Pashtuns’ ethnic majority as a legitimate source of Pashtuns’ political domination in
Afghanistan (Bezhan, 2013: 937). On the other hand, most of the newly established minor
parties that are not basically influenced by ethnicity or religion are usually vulnerable to
influences from outside the society. These parties relatively rely on external or the
“international community’s” financial and logistical aid. Since the fall of the Taliban the USAID
have been founding an Afghan branch of the “National Democratic Institute (NDI)” to work
mainly with the newly established parties, technically and logistically helping them to survive
(NDI: Afghanistan homepage). The Institute “to support and strengthen democratic institutions
in Afghanistan” have been providing technical and financial support for the parties in need
(NDI: Afghanistan homepage). According to the NDI reports, most of the newly established
parties have been receiving the support. The minor parties’ dependence on the external aid has
made them severely vulnerable. For example, during the last decade dozens of newly
established parties disappeared as soon as the aid cut.
Complexity
The complexity of an organization is measured by two indicators: multiplication of
organization’s subunits and differentiation of different types of subunits (Huntington, 1965:
399). In other words, if an organization is hierarchically and functionally more complex its level
of vulnerability and dependence on individuals and leaders are lower. By contrast simple and
primitive traditional political systems and organizations are more dependent on one or a few
individual(s) for a long period of time (Neumann, 1956: 403). Consequently, more complex
9
organizations are more able to be adjusted in the new environment and transform over time
than simple organizations.
The major parties of Afghanistan, having simple and traditional structures and bureaucracies,
are entirely dependent on individuals, particularly the founders. Functionally and hierarchically
these parties follow a simple bureaucracy in which all decisions are directly taken by leaders.
More specifically, since the establishment of the Mujahidin parties, the leaders have been
taking the decisions concerned with the broad strategies of the parties, the parties’ policies,
appointing of the executive members, and selection of candidates for key electoral positions
personally. For instance the leaders personally decide whether the party should join the
government or remain in opposition. Accordingly the ‘party personalization of leadership’
(Blondel et al. 2010: 69) in Afghanistan has negatively affected the complexity of the major
parties in both hierarchical and functional senses. For example, the internal mechanisms of
Junbesh-e-Meli Islami, another major party representing the Uzbek and Turkmen ethnic groups
of the North, are entirely dominated by its leader General Dostum who has been leading the
party since its establishment in the 1990s (Rutting, 2006: 26). Several unsuccessful attempts at
internal democratization of Jonbesh-e-Meli Islami led to the alienation of many of its secondranking leaders who wanted structural change (Rutting, 2006: 26).
Lack of complexity is not bound to only the major parties; most of the minor parties also follow
the same principle of the ‘personalization of leadership’ in which a political party is almost
equal to its leader. Only a few newly established minor parties such as the Rights and Justice
Party (RJP) have been able to develop a relatively complex hierarchical and functional system.
According to the RJP’s platform, the organization consists of a general assembly and a number
of executive committees and sub-committees, conducting different tasks (RJP Platform, 2:4).
However, the party is basically limited in Kabul; therefore, failed to multiply its executive units
in other provinces. Other minor parties like RJP who were relatively successful in establishing
complex organizational systems in Kabul, entirely failed to expand the party units to other
provinces. According to the new regulations, parties have to establish offices in a minimum of
twenty provinces (Afghanistan Official Gazette: 1075), but none of the parties have appeared to
achieve the required number of offices. The Republican Party of Afghanistan, for instance, is
10
another newly established minor party that had some chance of opening a few offices in the
provinces. But even party’s officials have repeatedly complained that they have difficulty with
meeting the requirements (ICG, 2013: 10).
Coherence
The more unified and coherent an organization is the more institutionalized it is. An adaptable,
complex and autonomous organization for being highly institutionalized requires substantial
consensus on the functional boundaries and on the procedures for resolving disputes within
those boundaries (Huntington, 1965: 403). In other words the actors in diverse subunits of a
complex organization must agree in following the central organizational principles and its
unified goals. The Ottoman Empire’s ruling institution, for instance, retained its validity and
coherence as long as followed a unified and single principle of admission: as long as admission
was restricted and recruits were put through an elaborate education, with selection and
specialization at every age. The institution perished when everybody pressed in to share its
privileges. Consequently number of employees increased, discipline and efficiency declined
(Toynbee, 1947: 174-77). In this sense, the fractionalization and disintegration of both major
and minor parties in Afghanistan indicates that different units and subunits of parties don’t
intend to follow the central principle and unified goal of the organization. As soon as the
subunits of the parties were able to function independently, they split from the organization,
establishing new independent parties. For example, Hezb-e-Islami or the Islamic Party, one of
the largest Mujahidin parties in Afghanistan, disintegrated as soon as some subunits disagreed
with the party’s central strategy. Specifically, the units that disagreed with the use of force as a
means of political struggle broke with the traditional leader and consequently established new
political organizations (Rutting, 2006: 24-5). Also the leftist People’s Democratic Party of
Afghanistan (PDPA) due to disagreements among its second generation leaders in different
areas of worldview, decision makings and political goals disintegrated into several smaller
parties. Today there are at least 15 registered parties led by former PDPA officials (Rutting,
2006: 29). In other cases, because of the generational inadaptability of the major parties, the
new generations instead of breaking the party into separate new organizations, preferred
11
layering independent newer subunits within the old organizations. For example, examining
some major parties such as Jamiat-e-Islami, indicates that the party is consists of several
subunits which structurally and traditionally call themselves a portion of the party; however,
each subunit follows different functional principals and even different goals (Rutting, 2006: 1620). Finally, there are only a few newly established minor parties whose all units and subunits
follow a unified and coherent functional and procedural principle. In case of the Rights and
Justice Party, for instance, all units and subunits of the party follow the central principle and a
unified goal which is to democratize the country (AJP, 2:4). However, the relative coherence of
such newly established parties can’t be a strong indicator of their high level of
institutionalization. Their chronological inadaptability, weak autonomy and poor complexity, as
discussed, negatively affect their level of institutionalization.
Conclusion
Examining Afghanistan’s political parties indicates that both major and minor parties, in early
stages of political development have failed to be institutionalized. In other words, the political
parties have mainly failed to undergo fundamental internal reforms to encourage the political
elite adaption to a new political environment or to democratic life. The major parties,
regardless of their chronological adaptability, have entirely failed to develop functionally and
generationally adaptable systems. Further, their organizational complexity, autonomy and
coherence are negatively affected by the domination of individually directed politics and by the
parties’ reliance on traditional system of values. On the other hand the newly established minor
parties, functionally adaptable and relatively complex, are chronologically inadaptable and
vulnerable to influences from within and without the society. Further, the minor parties have
not been very successful in expanding their organizational influences out of the capital Kabul
and finally most of them lack a unified functional principle. Consequently, both major and
minor parties are very poorly institutionalized. Since, the institutionalization of political parties
in early stages of political development is considered as the prerequisite of institutionalization
of other political organizations and accordingly the prerequisite of political development, the
poorly institutionalized political parties of Afghanistan can be considered as an explanatory
12
variable of the country’s poor political development. On the other hand, since the
institutionalization of other political organizations such as the legislature and the executive
requires a highly institutionalized party system, the domination of ethnic politics in both the
parliament and the government can be considered as the outcome of the failed party politics in
Afghanistan.
S. Yaqub Ibrahimi is a Ph.D. candidate at Political Science Department of Carleton University in Canada.
Before attending graduate school he worked as a journalist and researcher in Afghanistan with the
London based Institute for War and Peace Reporting from 2003 to 2010.
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