Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding

ISSN: 1750-2977 (Print) 1750-2985 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/risb20

Statebuilding and the politics of budgeting in

Afghanistan

Aureo de Toledo Gomes

To cite this article: Aureo de Toledo Gomes (2017): Statebuilding and the politics of budgeting in
Afghanistan, Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding, DOI: 10.1080/17502977.2017.1341369

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Published online: 06 Jul 2017.

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JOURNAL OF INTERVENTION AND STATEBUILDING, 2017
https://doi.org/10.1080/17502977.2017.1341369

Statebuilding and the politics of budgeting in Afghanistan

Aureo de Toledo Gomes
Uberlândia, Brazil

ABSTRACT KEYWORDS
Anchored in a framework drawn from the public finances literature Afghanistan; statebuilding;
and executive–legislative studies, the purpose of this article is to institutions; budget; political
assess the impacts of Afghan budgetary institutions on the system
statebuilding project. Two main questions drive the analysis: what
is the nature of the relationship between central government and
subnational units concerning the allocation and distribution of
resources, and – regarding budget preparation – what is the role
played by the legislature? It is argued that beyond Afghanistan’s
dependency on foreign aid to fund ordinary expenditures and
development projects, the presence of a set of budgetary rules
which not only centralizes the preparation and execution of
budget decisions at the expense of provinces but also
marginalizes the legislative involvement in the decision-making
process are two important features that prevent further
development in state capacity and the representative government.

Introduction
Despite achievements worth mentioning such as the crafting of a new constitution, the
holding of elections and the first democratic transition in the country,1 statebuilding in
Afghanistan is hindered by a number of flaws. For instance, poppy cultivation still rises,
and it is assumedly the main revenue source of criminal networks and warlords,2 not to
mention a substantial failure to improve social indicators.3 Notwithstanding these
issues, one of the chief debates centres on the continuing situation of aid dependency.
Entire sectors of the Afghan state are currently aid-dependent – especially the Afghan
National Security Forces, so far comprised of 352,000 personnel at an estimated cost of
US$4.1 billion annually (Byrd 2014). Moreover, according to the Special Inspector
General for Afghanistan Reconstruction,4 as of 31 March 2015 the United States (US)
has so far injected US$110 billion into Afghanistan. Adjusted for inflation, these appropria-
tions exceed the funds committed to the Marshal Plan of US$103.4 billion (SIGAR 2014, 4).
A considerable number of studies have scrutinized the impacts of aid dependency in
Afghanistan. Despite being built from different frameworks such as theories of aid rentier-
ism (Kühn 2008; Bliesemann de Guevara and Kühn 2013; Rubin 2013), the political
economy of the drug economy (Goodhand 2008), taxation (Ghani et al. 2007; Verkoren
and Kamphuis 2013; Isar 2014) and budget issues (Thiessen and Huber 2014), all these ana-
lyses share similar conclusions – and two of these must be stressed. First, as aid delivery is

CONTACT Aureo de Toledo Gomes aureotoledo@ufu.br

© 2017 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
2 A. DE TOLEDO GOMES

not predictable, ordinary payments and development projects are always at risk, thus
weakening state capacity for service delivery (Ghani et al. 2007, 153). Second, rent pay-
ments in Afghanistan have allowed recipients to avoid any revenue bargaining process,
as they must negotiate preferentially with foreign donors with the aim of gaining
access to aid and capital, therefore creating no fiscal bond between the government
and the people (Rubin 2013, 187).
The present article contributes to this debate from a different perspective. Anchored in
a framework drawn from the public finances literature and legislative studies, the focus is
on the institutional effects of the Afghan budget. The article attempts to answer the fol-
lowing two questions: what is the impact of budget institutions on the statebuilding
project in Afghanistan,, and does the budgetary institutional arrangement affect state
capacity and decision-making processes?
It is argued that the current budgetary institutions have two main effects. First, budget-
ary rules incentivize centralization in the preparation and execution of budget decisions at
the expense of provinces. Second, the budgetary decision-making process marginalizes
legislative involvement in the matter. This affects state legitimacy as it worsens the pro-
blems inherent to low-level provision of public services and prevents democratic develop-
ment because rules of allocation of resources – and the decision-making process itself –
are not clearly framed within the country.
The analysis relies on a theoretically-informed reading of official documents and
selected reports for the period 2004 to 2015. The article is divided into three sections:
the first introduces the analytical framework; the second interrogates how the Afghan
budget works and what consequences allocation decisions show; and the third summar-
izes the findings.

Why the budget?

What can a budget-oriented approach add to the political economy literature on state-
building? Roughly speaking a state has to fulfil three main functions: mobilize resources
for state action, regulation of violence, and generation of legitimacy (Bliesemann de
Guevara 2012, 7). To generate legitimacy, two dimensions are central: input-oriented legiti-
macy requires that political choices should be derived, directly or indirectly, from citizen’s
preferences (Scharpf 1999, 17) for which participative decision-making procedures are
decisive, while output-oriented legitimacy implies effective state control and is related to
the provision of public goods and services (Scharpf 1999, 20). Together, these processes
create the ideational basis for the stability of state rule (Bliesemann de Guevara 2012, 7).
According to a political economy perspective (Bliesemann de Guevara and Kühn 2013,
220), the mode of economic reproduction counts for the state’s legitimacy. The literature
on European state-formation highlights the establishment of the monopolies of taxation,
violence, and consequently the foundation of fiscal bonds between rulers and people as
key processes to the creation of both input- and output-oriented legitimacy. In non-
capitalist contexts, financing the state is – most of the time – not based on fiscal bonds
but on rents at the disposal of elites, independent of their capacity to provide services
and opening spaces for political participation. In light of these historical and theoretical
findings, studies have developed approaches for understanding the political economy
of rent dependency in international statebuilding contexts.
 JOURNAL OF INTERVENTION AND STATEBUILDING 3

This article holds that a budget approach to statebuilding can illustrate the effects
which budgetary institutions have on the input and output dimensions of state legitimacy.
First, however, a definition of the concepts of budget and budgetary institutions is intro-
duced in order to further establish their impact on legitimacy.
Usually, the budget is defined as legislation which, once approved, authorizes the gov-
ernment to raise revenues, incur debts, and effect expenditures to achieve certain goals
(Norton and Elson 2002, v). Budgetary institutions are all rules and regulations according
to which the budget is prepared, approved and executed (Alesina and Perotti 1999, 14).
However, as Wildavsky (1975, 5) states, the budget goes beyond its technical aspects: it
allocates financial resources through political processes in order to serve differing
human purposes.
Budgetary institutions matter particularly for peacebuilding efforts for at least three
reasons (Boyce and O’Donnell 2007, 6–7). First, governments need to ensure sustainable
funding for new democratic institutions and social programmes to ease tensions and grie-
vances. Second, fiscal capacities support a sense of legitimacy within war-torn countries:
democratic elections are a path for citizens to channel demands, but without fiscal
capacities states are unable to meet people’s needs. Moreover, there is a two-way relation-
ship between revenue and expenditure: governments need revenues – including taxes –
to provide services, but they must provide services in order for people to agree to pay
taxes. Finally, there is the urgency to restrain extralegal taxation, as this kind of activity
is one of the main resources which warlords and armed militias can use to challenging
state authority.
However, as Ghani et al. (2007, 153) argue, to foster legitimacy, a public expenditure
system must be predictable. First, and most obvious, resources for payments must be
available. Second, rules for allocation, reporting, and accountability for those responsible
for the use of resources must be agreed upon and observed. Third, decision rights at
various levels of government must be clear. Finally, a balance between centralization
and the delegation of authority to deal with questions concerning accountability and sus-
tainability of funds is necessary. Concerning the output dimension of state legitimacy,
budgetary institutions frame the ways in which resources flow, influencing the provision
of public goods and services. Considering the input dimension of state legitimacy, decid-
ing the budget is vital. At the core of public finances is the problem that some people
spend other people’s money (Von Hangen 2007, 27), so checking budgetary decisions
is extremely important.
Approaching the institutional effects of the budget invites two central questions. First,
what is the nature of the relationship between central government and subnational units
regarding the allocation and distribution of resources? The literature on public finances
focuses on the institutional framework in which national budgets are embedded and
establishes types of budgetary authority. Concerning the institutional framework, there
are hierarchical or collegial institutions (Alesina and Perotti 1999, 16). The former attributes
prerogatives to the Ministry of Finance to overrule spending ministries within intragovern-
mental negotiations over the budget, while the latter emphasizes the democratic govern-
ance of the budget at every stage, taking into consideration the requests of the spending
ministries, the role of the legislature, and opposition rights.
Regarding budget authority, the relationship between the central government and
subnational units can be understood through at least three different concepts:
4 A. DE TOLEDO GOMES

deconcentration refers to the decentralization of central government ministries and

arrangements whereby subnational governments act as agents for the centre; delegation
means that subnational governments are responsible for delivering certain services under
the central government supervision, instead of being considered only branches of the
centre; and devolution refers to independent or semi-independent – and typically
elected – subnational governments being responsible for delivering services and raising
their own revenues (World Bank 2005, 6).
In statebuilding efforts, input legitimacy is expected to be produced within the confines
of a liberal democratic polity, involving voters, their representatives in the legislature and
the executive power. Consequently, the second question is about the role to be played by
legislatures. On the one hand, budget responsibility is best achieved by centralizing
budget authority within the executive, particularly under the auspices of the Ministry of
Finance (Von Hangen 2007), out of the reach of politicians in parliament who tend to
be guided by election concerns rather than fiscal responsibility. On the other hand,
critics highlight the risks of an overcentralized budget, and the resultant lack of transpar-
ency. Hence, parliaments should have some measure of power over the budget to check
the executive and hold it accountable whenever necessary, be it before budget allocation,
during budget execution or after its implementation.
Following the above ideas, two axes of analysis are proposed, one of which relates to
the institutional framework the budgeting process is embedded in and points specifically
to the relations between donors, central government, and subnational units, and the other
of which focuses on the National Assembly – especially the Wolesi Jirga – in budget prep-
aration and allocation.

The politics of the budget

The institutional framework
External funding has been one of the key points of concern in Afghanistan. The US and
remaining donors injected billions of dollars in aid to facilitate reconstruction with an
emphasis on security institutions, fostering control of international agents over their pro-
grammes while national and local actors were pressing for local ownership (Suhrke 2011,
16). Additionally, local figures, such as warlords, were a challenge to the statebuilding
project, so the option for building a strong central state to control these actors (Lister
2009, 994). According to some analysts, this context led to a state upheld mainly by inter-
national aid and struggling to project its authority throughout the territory (Suhrke 2011,
15; Verkoren and Kamphuis 2013, 511). Hence, rebuilding state institutions attempted to
reconcile the tension between international assistance and local ownership as well as
create a central government capable of centralizing power.
During the first intervention years, revenue and fiscal administration were de facto
decentralized at the provincial level, and local governors collected most of the income
(World Bank 2008, 52). However, after 2003 the Karzai government centralized revenue
collection and created the new national budget, negotiated with foreign actors (Ghani
et al. 2007, 155–56) and designed with two parallel structures. Since then the core
budget has been subdivided into an operational budget, which encompasses ordinary
expenditures, salaries, and the acquisition of non-capital assets, and a development
budget, which is assigned to development projects and reconstruction (Figure 1). The
 JOURNAL OF INTERVENTION AND STATEBUILDING 5

Figure 1. National budget.

operating budget is largely financed through domestic revenues – mainly the custom
duties from international trade, sales tax, and income tax – while the development
budget is co-financed by the government, donor agencies and multilateral funds.
According to the Afghanistan Statistical Yearbook5, the total budget for the fiscal year
of 2015 was approximately US$7.10 billion,6 of which 62.4% (approximately US$4.43
billion)7 constituted the operating budget while 37.6% (approximately US$2.67 billion)8
comprised the development budget (ASY 2016b, 259). This is shown in Figure 2, and a
comparison with the fiscal years 2013, 2014 and 2015 is given in Figure 3. Currently, the
main bulk of the national budget (71.1%) is financed by foreign aid, while only 28.9% is
raised domestically (ASY 2016b, 259). Regarding donor assistance, available data from
2015 illustrates the dynamics of foreign aid (ASY 2016a, 286). In total, almost US$4.36
billion in aid and US$19 million in loans were committed to specific projects. Out of the
total aid and loans, US$3.73 billion in aid and US$19 million in loans were disbursed, or
85.65% of commitments (Figure 4).
On the other hand, the external budget consists of foreign funds from international
actors disbursed directly by donors and not funnelled through the budgetary structure
of the central government. The total resources in the external budget depend on
donations and has varied across the years. For instance, since the Kabul Conference in
2010, but mainly after the Tokyo Conference in 2012, donors and the Afghan government

Figure 2. Core national budget, 2015. Source: ASY (2016b, 259).

6 A. DE TOLEDO GOMES

Figure 3. Comparison of national budgets, 2013–2015. Source: ASY (2016b, 260).

agreed to channel above 50% of foreign aid through the national budget and align 80% to
national priorities. Nevertheless, in 2011 donors committed US$16 billion but disbursed US
$13 billion, of which only US$2.3 billion passed through the government budget (MOF
2012, 1). Additionally, off-budget aid is difficult to track. For example, the United States
Agency for International Development (USAID) usually contracts accredited US firms to

Figure 4. Bilateral donor commitment and disbursement, 2015. Source: (ASY 2016a, 265–266).
 JOURNAL OF INTERVENTION AND STATEBUILDING 7

run their projects which, in turn, subcontract to local companies, obscuring whether funds
are spent as intended (ICG 2011, 19) (Figures 1–4).
This budget structure is justified. First, in the post-Taliban period, the Afghan state had
no absorptive capacity for managing funds. To effectively spend foreign aid it required an
administrative infrastructure that was lacking in the country. Consequently, international
aid organizations and consultants were employed to manage the money flow. Second,
off-budget aid is deemed necessary because of corruption. According to the World
Bank (2009, 1–2), corruption in Afghanistan had become widespread, so it was hoped
that these particular budget institutions would insulate the new foreign aid from the
problem. For instance, according to a national survey conducted by the Integrity Watch
Afghanistan think tank, bribery remains the most common form of corruption in the
country and in 2014 an estimated total of US$1.9 billion was paid (IWA 2014a, 3).
Finally, the question of the international control of the funds had to be addressed.
Foreign donors tried to establish a thick network of controls and the external budget
became an instrument of direct control which could be used to impose conditions and
even determine how resources should be spent.
Besides aid dependency, the budget structure is also highly centralized. According to
the Constitution of Afghanistan, Article 1, the country is a unitary state. Following Articles
136 and 137, the state can delegate – while preserving the principle of centralism – certain
tasks to local administration units (Islamic Republic of Afghanistan 2004). According to the
Sub-national Governance Policy, provinces and district administrations are legally recog-
nized units of subnational administration,9 but their powers and responsibilities are deter-
mined by the central government and their autonomy is restricted (Islamic Republic of
Afghanistan 2010, 11–15). In light of the concepts previously presented, budgetary insti-
tutions in Afghanistan can be characterized as follows.
Concerning the decision-making process, there are hierarchical institutions, whereby
the Ministry of Finance centralizes the allocation of resources and can overrule provincial
requests. The relationship between the central government and provinces and districts10
might be described as deconcentrated. The government in Kabul deconcentrates auth-
ority to these units, but, for instance, all the revenues formally collected in a province
ought to be deposited in an account with the Da Afghanistan Bank. Even though there
is deconcentration concerning the collection of revenues, a very centralized phase starts
after collection. These revenues are then subject to analysis by the Ministry of Finance;
in most cases, the budget is formally prepared and expenditures are specified without
consulting the provincial departments.11 Moreover, formally there is no provincial
budget per se (Islamic Republic of Afghanistan 2010, 315); rather, the provincial budget
is the sum of the budgets of ministries that have projects in provinces, though some
are funded by agencies like the Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund (ARTF), a trust
pool established in 2002 that is mainly engaged in reconstruction and development pro-
jects, and which pays the salary of civil servants (World Bank 2013).
To improve the space for provinces to influence the budget cycle, since at least 2007
provincial budget reform has been directed towards a participatory approach between
capital and countryside. One of the first attempts was the creation of the Independent
Directorate of Local Governance (IDLG). Among its functions, the IDLG is responsible for
improving the coordination and management of provincial and district affairs and select-
ing provincial governors and other subnational leaders. After March 2010, the subnational
8 A. DE TOLEDO GOMES

governance policy elaborated by the IDLG was implemented, which includes legislation on
the formation of provincial, district, village and municipal councils, aiming at providing a
new institutional and legal framework for subnational governance.
In spite of all these changes, problems remain. At the time of writing, parliamentary
approval for a great deal of subnational governance legislation is pending. The IDLG is
seen as a political tool as it is accountable only to the executive, with minimal oversight
from the legislature (Nixon 2012, 121). This allows the president12 to use IDLG institutions
to accommodate political interests, mainly through appointments. Also, lack of resources
at the subnational level is still a serious problem. As there are no provincial budgets per se,
provincial development plans are usually funded by ministry projects and donors under
the coordination of provincial development committees. However, as detailed in IWA
(2014b, 10), the termination of provincial reconstruction teams following the withdrawal
of international troops and the low-budget execution has made resource allocation a
random exercise. In Afghanistan, where the central state is still trying to consolidate its
authority vis-à-vis local figures, this is particularly worrying concerning output legitimacy,
as the state is not fully capable of providing services. Finally, the government is still delay-
ing structural reforms – particularly those devolving authority, resources and decision-
making powers to the provincial and district levels. Some government officials argue
that provincial line departments should receive more discretion to change budget
codes and transfer funds between codes (Thiessen and Huber 2014, 32).
While this picture presents just a glimpse of the centralized nature of the Afghan state
and the persistence of aid dependency, some consequences are worth mentioning.
Although the adoption of the Afghanistan National Development Strategy in 2008 and
the 22 National Priority Programs in 2010 were important attempts to translate planned
development needs into implementation, the most obvious consequence is that the
bulk of funds are not raised by or made directly available to the government; thus, the
dependability of resources is uncertain, being contingent on the agendas of donors.
Second, although showing considerable improvements, low budget execution remains
a concern. In 2015, 87% of the operating budget was executed, while development budget
execution was 50.8% (ASY 2016b, 259). As discussed in IWA (2014b, 11–12), in the first half
of 2013, 36.4% of the operating budget was executed, while the development budget
execution was 17%, which is markedly lower in comparison with 50% and 24%, respect-
ively, in the first half of 2012. According to other reports (World Bank 2014, 12), this still
low execution rate resulted from the highly centralized nature of the ministries in Kabul
which slows the budget flow from the centre to the provinces, the low administrative
capacity of the Afghan institutions and, most recently, a decrease in economic activity
due to the insecurities of the transition period.
Other consequences of such centralization need further consideration beyond the flow
and control of resources. First, the off-budget funding led to the formation of an internal
public sector managed by the government alongside an external sector funded by donors,
which is described by Goodhand and Sedra (2010) as a dual public sector. One conse-
quence is a brain drain of the external sector where high salaries are paid which the gov-
ernment is unable to match. Therefore, the quality of public services tends to be at its
worst when better human resources are no longer available. Second, another important
consequence of off-budget aid can be apprehended in light of Tilly’s (1985, 165)
famous argument: if war-making and state-making are quintessentially protection
 JOURNAL OF INTERVENTION AND STATEBUILDING 9

rackets with the advantage of legitimacy, with local contractors paying bribes to the
Taliban and other armed groups in exchange for protection to work in areas outside
the government’s scope (ICG 2011, 20), then an ongoing process of funding potential
state rivals is established.
Third, although the official system of budget authority responsible for the delivery of
key public services such as health, education and water sanitation – among others – is
held centrally, formulated and executed mainly by line ministries without the consultation
of provinces in a significant way, several unofficial networks end up acting in parallel as a
result of the lack of state presence in the periphery. In this environment, provincial gover-
nors and other prominent members of subnational administrations exceed their narrow
formal roles, developing informal power relations from a combination of personal ties
with the president, tribal connections, licit and illicit revenues, and the control of armed
forces (World Bank 2007, 31–35; Nixon 2008, 14–15).
Formally, governors are tasked with coordinating the central government activities in
the provinces; informally, they are entitled to intervene in expenditure approvals and
political appointments. As a presidential representative and a significant power-
holder, a provincial governor can intervene in planning, expenditure, and procurement,
and dispute resolutions. Therefore, a weak centralized state structure coexists with an
informal political configuration of appointments and power distribution (Nixon 2008,
15; Kühn 2008). Direct formal functional and budget authority for service delivery in
the provinces is highly centralized by line ministries. At the same time, this system coex-
ists with the provincial governor system, which allows this political actor to intervene in
the affairs of line ministries and other agencies through other institutional and non-insti-
tutional channels.
The World Bank (2007, 12) deems this a systemic contradiction; however, critical studies
on peace and statebuilding informed by postcolonial ideas (Mac Ginty 2011) and political
economy perspectives (Bliesemann de Guevara 2012) argue that this so-called systemic
contradiction should not be understood as an abnormal situation. In statebuilding circum-
stances, what takes place is a sort of interaction between international and local actors,
resulting in a negotiated or even subverted form of peace (Richmond 2014, 5); therefore,
the power relations that circulate in such environments and the associated political insti-
tutions emerging from these encounters are much more complex than assumed by the
simplistic World Bank concept.
The transition period has thus resulted in serious consequences for the provinces.
Although the impact is not uniform throughout Afghanistan, there has been a reduction
in the number of development projects because of the transition period. For instance, in
the Nangahar provinces since the beginning of the transition period in 2010, there has
been a decrease of 80% in number of projects. Following IWA (2014b, 7), in the year SY
1389 (2010/11) there were 4284 projects, in SY 1390 (2011/12) there were 2800 projects,
and in SY 1391 (2012/13) there were 1480 projects. For the government, this reduction of
development projects is a temporary circumstance that is mainly due to security and pol-
itical uncertainties (MOF 1393, 4); however, this has implications for output legitimacy at
the local level due to the lack of services provided by the central government.
A structure that is primarily centralized around the budget in Afghanistan is in place,
with a bargaining process mainly centred on international actors and the Afghan govern-
ment, thus resulting in centre–periphery relations that leave little room for other
10 A. DE TOLEDO GOMES

subnational administration units. The budget thus fails to work as an instrument of state
legitimacy. At the international level, predictability is hampered because resources depend
on donors, culminating in problems for output legitimacy. From the perspective of centre–
province relations, output legitimacy is also hindered. First, rules for the allocation, transfer
and use of resources are still unclear. Second, as the country faces problems of budget
execution, the public goods, services and resources do not reach the people, opening
more opportunities for tribal and patronage networks to extend their influences based
on the distribution of selective benefits to groups and individuals (Sharan 2011, 1115).
The next step is to see whether this centralization is also a common trend concerning
budget decision-making, focusing on the role of the Afghan legislature, which – at least
theoretically – is responsible for holding the executive accountable for its spending actions.

The national assembly and the budget

Assessing the legislature’s role in the budgeting process, it is important to distinguish
between what the legislature is entitled to do – i.e. its de jure powers – and its actual
role, i.e. the ways in which the parliament practically engages in budgeting. According
to Santiso (2005, 5), legislatures participate in the governance of the budget by approving
budgeting allocations, overseeing budget execution and controlling performance. Relying
on amendment powers to change the executive budget, refuse draft proposals and estab-
lish mechanisms for verifying budget execution and implementations shape a legislature’s
role. Wehner (2004, 5) divides legislatures into three types. First, there are budget-making
legislatures, holding the capacity not only to amend or reject budget proposals but also to
formulate a budget autonomously. Second, there are budget-influencing legislatures,
entitled to amend or reject an executive proposal. Third, legislatures with little or no budget-
ary effect lack the capacity both to make proposals of their own and to amend or refuse the
executive draft.
In Afghanistan, the budget process has four different stages: drafting, legislation,
implementation, and control. Drafting refers to the formulation of the draft proposal,
while legislation is related to the assessment and approval/rejection of the drafts proposed
by the National Assembly. Implementation means executing the budget, while control is
concerned with whether resources have been spent, how they have been disbursed, and
so on. In Afghanistan, the legislature is bicameral, comprising the 242 directly elected
members of the Wolesi Jirga (House of the People) and the 102 members of the Meshrano
Jirga (House of the Elders), of which two thirds are elected by the population and one third
is appointed by the president. Formally, vis-à-vis the budget, the houses are constitution-
ally involved during steps two and four.
During legislation, the executive budget proposal is sent to the Meshrano Jirga 45 days
before the commencement of the new fiscal year. It is debated for 15 days, first in the
Commission on National Economic, Finance, Budget and General Accounts, and then in
a plenary session. After this, it is sent to the Wolesi Jirga, where the Commission on
Finance, Budget, Public Accounts and Banking Affairs deliberates before a debate in the
public plenary, where it is approved or refused.
The Afghan legislature does not have the right to amend the executive proposal, only
to approve or refuse it, which could be seen as a budget-influencing legislature.
However, there are some features in the Afghan case which make things more
complicated. For instance, according to Bizhan (2012, 11), as the country is mainly
 JOURNAL OF INTERVENTION AND STATEBUILDING 11

financed by donors, most discussions regarding the allocation of resources are agreed
between the executive and foreign contributors. This situation leads to a paucity of
the information that is needed to oversee budget performance, because reports
present overall allocation and expenditures rather than disaggregated data, which
makes it difficult for the parliament to evaluate failures and hold responsible agencies
accountable.
Furthermore, a common situation in Afghanistan is the rejection of an executive budget
proposal. For example, executive budget proposals were rejected five times in a row by the
Wolesi Jirga (in the fiscal years 1389 through to 1393), mainly due to disagreements in the
allocation of resources among provinces and privileges to the security sector, which could
be an indication that the legislature was indeed checking executive actions. The executive
then had to resubmit new proposals to meet the house’s demands. Ali (2013) reports that
even during a discussion in the Wolesi Jirga for the budget fiscal year of 2013, suggestions
were not fully adopted, mainly due to divergence among representatives about allo-
cations and pressure from the government to get the proposal approved. However, in
spite of the changes in the draft made to meet the legislature’s requests, the country
faces serious problems of low budget execution as stated above, which prevents the modi-
fications demanded from being carried out.
The process from submission to approval is expected to occur within two months.13 In
the implementation and control phases, the National Assembly nominally oversees and
monitors government performance. Specifically, both houses in Afghanistan are entitled
to call the minister of the relevant ministry if expenditures and activities related to
budget execution start presenting problems, such as low execution. Furthermore, from
an institutional standpoint, party majorities and party cohesion are two important
aspects for assessing the de facto engagement of parliaments in budgeting (Wehner
2004, 10). In Afghanistan, when assessing both factors and their relation to budgeting,
it is worth stressing some aspects of the electoral system.14
The Afghan electoral system is based on the single non-transferable vote (SNTV).
Afghan voters cast ballots for only one individual candidate, rather than political
parties.15 Each province elects a number of representatives, and some of them have to
be women (Reynolds 2006, 105). The candidates who get the majority of the votes are
elected – that is, if four seats have been allotted to a district then the top four candidates
with the most votes are elected. As affirmed by Reynolds (2006, 105), the great advantage
of the SNTV is that it is simple, promotes the representation of independents in a nascent
party system, and can promote a sense of accountability, as the voter knows for whom his
or her vote was cast.
Some problems are inherent to this system, however. According to Kasuya and Kendall
(2013, 70), the main flaw is that it fails to encourage the development of disciplined parties
for three reasons. First, party leaders do not have control over their ballot ranks or party
endorsements. Second, votes are not pooled across parties, but cast for individual candi-
dates – hence, the electoral fate of a politician is not tied up with the performance of his or
her entire party. Finally, the combination of SNTV and a multi-member district system
creates intra-party competition among candidates from the same party – i.e. in the
same district various candidates can run for the same seats, so the SNTV creates an incen-
tive for politicians to boost personal reputation at the risk of going against the direction of
party leaders.
12 A. DE TOLEDO GOMES

Despite its drawbacks, this system was chosen for Afghanistan for various reasons.
According to Suhrke (2008, 641), there was a danger that the political parties might
have crystallized ethnic divisions in Afghan politics. Moreover, Karzai and some of his
Pashtun ministers might also have made an ethnic calculation: with weak political
parties, it would be easy to mobilize the Pashtun votes in parliament. Further, the push
for the SNTV is understandable in light of US influence in the country. Still according to
Suhrke (2008, 636), US Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad personally pressed UN officials for
the SNTV. An electoral system capable of shielding the president from the parliament
and weakening party opposition was consistent with US interests, as it would enable
the US to reinforce its relationship with the presidency.
How is it possible, then, to explain the apparently coherent opposition within the
Wolesi Jirga demonstrated by the way in which the representatives rejected the executive
budget five times? According to Kasuya and Kendall (2013, 62), while the Afghan presi-
dency does not have partisan power – that is, the ruling party does not necessarily
have a bigger share in the legislature – it is endowed with strong constitutional powers
regarding legislation that allows it to enact its policy agenda and eventually bypass the
legislature. For this discussion, the following constitutional powers matter the most.
First is the package veto, which allows the vetoing of bills that the legislature has
passed. Second, regarding the budget, the Wolesi Jirga cannot delay the approval of
the budget proposal for more than one month after receiving it. In institutional terms,
this centres the legislature’s agenda on the budget and forces it to discuss and to
approve it. According to Article 98,
if for some reason the budget is not approved before the beginning of the new fiscal year, the
budget of the year before shall be applied pending the passage of the new budget but it has
to happen during this precise period. (Islamic Republic of Afghanistan 2004)

Therefore, in political terms, if not approved, representatives miss the opportunity to frame
the flow of resources vis-à-vis their particular interests.
This institutional setting influences the executive–legislative relationship. Within an
electoral system that enforces party fragmentation, representatives have incentives to
support the executive agenda if siding with a popular president is expected to boost
chances of re-election. When a president is unpopular, it becomes more likely according
to this line of reasoning that representatives will oppose the presidential agenda,
aiming at improving individual popularity with the electorate (Kasuya and Kendall 2013,
74). During Karzai’s first term, the Wolesi Jirga tended to support the president’s
agenda, but when his popularity started to fall – especially during his second term –
there was more opposition, as evidenced in the rejection of the budgets. However,
despite this opposition, the powers of the presidency allowed Karzai to bypass the
Wolesi Jirga and circumvent the blockade.
As the SNTV discourages party cohesion, networks of patronage become functional,
with two main implications for budgeting. In the absence of active political parties,
voting behaviour is influenced by family, ethnic and community ties, among others
(Coburn and Larson 2013, 6–10; Perelli and Smith 2014, 6). To get elected, most represen-
tatives must rely both on these networks and on business connections to raise
the necessary funds for campaigning. Thus, representatives are more accountable to
these networks than to political parties, which also explains political behaviour. Such
 JOURNAL OF INTERVENTION AND STATEBUILDING 13

networks support a politics of opposition to established institutions rather than integrating

constituencies in policymaking processes. During Karzai’s mandate, beyond relying on
constitutional powers Karzai also used his political networks. As an example, during the
2011 election of the new Wolesi Jirga speaker, representatives stated that a vote cost
around US$10,000 (Coburn 2011, 8). Additionally, an MP stated the following reason for
his support of Karzai: ‘I have been accused of killing 41 people so if I do not support
him what guarantee is there that they would not kill me?’ (quoted in Sharan 2011, 1123).
In sum, concerning the role of the legislature in budget issues, the institutional frame-
work in which budgetary discussion is embedded in Afghanistan restricts a more active
participation for three main reasons. Constitutionally, the legislature lacks the capacity
to amend proposals; it only can approve or reject them. When rejected, the changes
demanded face difficulties in implementation. Second, although the Wolesi Jirga has on
occasion checked executive initiatives and budget proposals, this behaviour needs to
be understood in light of the Afghan electoral system. As the parliament’s moves can
be circumvented by the presidency through its legislative powers, the legislature’s
limited legitimacy cannot be expanded. An Afghan parliament without the power of
the purse is destined to remain more of a forum for debate than an instrument with
which to channel popular demands and enhance representative government (Suhrke
2008, 644). Finally, networks of patronage continue to play a substantial role in Afghan
politics, and to be structurally incentivized by institutional rules in function.

Final remarks
The purpose of this analysis is to interrogate which sorts of budgetary rules have been
transplanted to Afghanistan and assess their likely impacts on the statebuilding process.
A particular focus is placed on centre–province relations and legislative engagement in
the budgeting process. This analytical framework is drawn from a body of thinking
which argues that budget issues matter for questions concerning state capacity and repre-
sentative government.
It is hoped that this analysis will contribute to understanding from a political economy
perspective how a state’s legitimacy in a statebuilding contexts depends on finances and
control thereof. While not discarding alternative explanations, the purpose of this
approach is to provide insights into how a particular set of institutions affects the provision
of public goods and services through the highlighting processes of representative govern-
ment. The claim here is that embedded in complex power relations, budgetary institutions
have significant impacts regarding state legitimacy. Thus, the institutional and political
effects and the politics of budgeting need to be taken into account.
Empirically, revenue in Afghanistan stems primarily from external actors and the
decision-making process is highly hierarchical, as provinces find it difficult to access
resources. Moreover, the policy process is very centralized. The National Assembly – and
the Wolesi Jirga in particular – enjoys no constitutional right to amend budgets; as a
result, representatives tend to engage effectively in budgeting by obstructing and threa-
tening state crises based on the consideration that this might boost their electoral support.
This amounts to a fictitious – or proxy – governance, as the executive possesses ways to
circumvent such gridlock situations. Further, both the merely public but not substantial
control – as well as the staged nature of it – encourage patronage networks in Afghan
14 A. DE TOLEDO GOMES

politics. Informal channels to formulate policy, allocate funds and find ways around block-
ades gain greater saliency than formal, institutional processes of governing, mainly due to
the absence of a state presence at the provincial level and to an electoral system that
fosters party fragmentation.
Proposals such as channelling 50% of foreign aid through the national budget and
aligning 80% of external resources to national priorities are meaningful initiatives. Never-
theless, without reforms to the institutional framework through which both resources and
decision-making procedures become centralized and the legislature’s de facto engage-
ment in budgeting is restricted, such changed spending practice may amount to little.
Despite alternative allocation patterns, the problems with the input and output dimen-
sions of a state’s legitimacy might remain untouched.
Additional research – for instance into the role of the Meshrano Jirga, and especially the
budget commissions’ work in both houses – might produce insights into the more infor-
mal side of budget control and oversight. Scrutinizing the political economy of the new
chief executive officer position and how it influences budgeting is also an important
step. After nearly 15 years of statebuilding in Afghanistan, the subject of whether or not
awareness of the limitations of the current system has been established, and whether
or not the parliament is providing technical support to politicians engaged in budgeting,
still deserves more attention.

Notes
1. On 29 September 2014, former Minister of Finance Ashraf Ghani replaced Hamid Karzai as pre-
sident and assumed office for an initial five-year term. Although such a transition can be con-
sidered successful, the process had its shortcomings. During the elections there were
suspicions of fraud that drove supporters of the defeated candidate, Abdullah Abdullah, to
reject the preliminary results. After international mediation took place, both candidates
accepted a revision of all votes and the formation of a unity government, with the losing can-
didate to occupy the role of chief executive officer (ICG 2014, 14–20).
2. According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNDOC 2013, 3), in 2013 cultiva-
tion amounted to some 209,000 hectares, surpassing the previous 2007 record of 193,000 hec-
tares and representing an increase of 36% over the 154,000 hectares of 2012. Poppy
production represented 4% of the overall 2013 Afghan GDP of US$21 billion.
3. For example, among the 187 countries listed in the Human Development Index, Afghanistan
ranks 169th (http://hdr.undp.org/en/countries/profiles/AFG).
4. The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) is an office created by
the US congress to provide oversight and facilitate aid projects in Afghanistan (https://
www.sigar.mil/).
5. All economic data has been collected from Afghan sources, particularly the Afghan Ministry of
Finance (http://mof.gov.af/en), the Budget Department (http://www.budgetmof.gov.af/index.
php/en/), and the Central Statistic Organization (http://cso.gov.af/en). To this particular sen-
tence, the 2015 World Bank exchange rate for US$ to AFD was applied to convert the
numbers, which was US$1 to AFD61.14 at the time (http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/PA.
NUS.FCRF).
6. AFD434.3 billion.
7. AFD271.0 billion.
8. AFD163.3 billion.
9. There are four types of subnational administration in Afghanistan: 34 provinces, 368 districts,
provincial municipalities, and rural municipalities (ASY 2015, 1).
 JOURNAL OF INTERVENTION AND STATEBUILDING 15

10. Municipalities are a separate level of government and enjoy some limited autonomy in budget
preparation and execution, which might be framed as a relation of devolution with the central
government. However, municipalities face several challenges, from constitutional ones (the
law regulating their activities was promulgated in 2000 and therefore inconsistent with the
2004 constitution) to practical ones (problems for raising their own revenues). For an analysis
of municipalities in Afghanistan, see the Sub-national Governance Policy (Islamic Republic of
Afghanistan 2010).
11. This situation is recognized by the Afghan government (http://www.budgetmof.gov.af/index.
php/en/using-joomla/modules/provincial-budgetting).
12. According to Nixon (2012, 121), Hamid Karzai used political appointments at the IDLG as a tool
to wield more influence at the subnational level, especially during the preparations for the
2009 presidential elections.
13. Some comparative perspective might be useful here. For instance, in the Association of South-
east Asian Nations countries such as Cambodia and Indonesia, the annual budget is submitted
to Cambodian parliament in the first week of November and must be approved by 25 Decem-
ber. In Indonesia, representatives must make a decision on the budget bill no later than two
months prior to the beginning of the new fiscal year (Lienert 2004). In neighbouring Pakistan,
the parliament has from 12 to 17 working days to scrutinize the budget (PILDAT 2013). On
average, Latin American countries have 90 days to review and approve the executive proposal
(Santiso 2005). Finally, in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
countries, in 28.2% of the cases legislatures have two months while in 56.4% of the cases
they have between two and four months to review and approve or refuse the budget
(Santiso 2005).
14. The point is to explore what Duverger (1954) called mechanical effects of electoral systems,
which flow directly from electoral rules. For the Afghan case, this kind of analysis is worth
exploring because, as Giustozzi (2012, 169; 2013, 327) and Perelli and Smith (2014, 6) have
argued, despite all its problems, the electoral process wasn’t just a farce. The actors involved
abided by democratic procedures, mainly because they saw them as sources of political
legitimacy.
15. During the 2005 legislative election, from the 2835 candidates enrolled, only 14% were for-
mally affiliated with a party. As reported by the National Democratic Institute (2011), those
elected in this particular election were either individuals with strong ties to communities or
candidates from parties with the capacity to mobilize supporters at the local level. A new
party law was introduced in 2009, and political parties had to be re-registered. Currently,
there are 57 registered political parties in Afghanistan, according to the Ministry of Justice
(MOJ, 2016).

Acknowledgments
I would like to thank Roger Mac Ginty, Karolina Olofsson, Sarajuddin Isar, and Nemat Bizhan for com-
ments and constructive criticism on earlier ideas and drafts of this article. I am also most grateful to
the two anonymous reviewers for their important suggestions. Finally, a special thank you goes to
the editors – and particularly to Florian Kühn for his patience and assistance.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Funding
This work was supported by the CAPES Foundation, Ministry of Education of Brazil [grant number
BEX 1454/14-5].
16 A. DE TOLEDO GOMES

Notes on contributor
Aureo de Toledo Gomes, Ph.D., is Professor of International Relations at the Institute of Economics
and International Relations, Federal University of Uberlândia, Uberlândia, Brazil. He was a visiting
scholar at the Humanitarian and Conflict Response Institute, University of Manchester, UK in 2014/15.

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