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Example research essay topic: Election Campaign State Building - 1,412 words

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Afghanistan In my essay I will try to make prognosis for democracy to take hold in Afghanistan. For this purpose I will analyze the current issues including 1) the new Afghan constitution; 2) governmental structure, and 3) political process in this country. My essay will also mention the matters of peace building, violence, security, economy, education that are characteristic for contemporary Afghanistan. The aim of my essay is to show the main political, economic and cultural processes taking place in the country and discuss their influence on the establishment of Afghan democracy. Additionally, I will conclude if Afghanistan can become a fully democratic country due to the shifts that occur in it or not. According to Mark Sedra and Peter Middlebrook, the state-building process in Afghanistan has reached a crossroads.

Due to the shifts made for the last few years, this country may boast of many achievements. First, Afghanistan has adopted a national development and budget framework, second, there has been made a reform of central government ministries, third, millions of children returned to school, fourth, 2. 5 million refugees repatriated and 600, 000 internally displaced peoples were resettled, fifth, the new currency (the Afghani) was introduced, and sixth, the constitution was adopted. At the same time the progress made has been diminished by the deterioration of security conditions. As one of the researchers, Boris Wilke, put it, Afghanistan may be a state in the legal sense but in sociological terms it is a region with blurred borders where political power has become internationalized and fragmented. In sum, further deterioration of Afghan security may not only become an obstacle for setting democracy in this country, but also provoke regress and collapse of its the state-building process. The researchers Mark Sedra and Peter Middlebrook argued in their article that there are four principal challenges that confront state-building process in Afghanistan.

They are: civil service public and administration reform, security sector reform, government ownership and coordination and economic development and donor funding. However, setbacks, primarily relating to the delivery of reconstruction assistance and the complexity of re-engaging with a largely dysfunctional state, have been encountered in each of these areas, revealing deficiencies in the Bonn framework. First, the security reform has proceeded very slowly because of many barriers and obstacles, such as lack of funding, poor planning and coordination, adverse security conditions. Second, there is an acute capacity deficit that in particular regards to the government civil service. Also, this problem is compounded by a great number of other ones, such as: legal, corrupted and inefficient bureaucratic structures, an anaemic private sector that resulted from economic stagnation and the large-scale exodus of human and material capital. In addition, the state-building process in Afghanistan will take longer than anticipated, as Mark Sedra and Peter Middlebrook stated, because of poor conditions of its national institutions.

The experience in other post-conflict settings clearly dictates that a state-building process will be hard-pressed to succeed if it is not directed by indigenous institutions, the researchers wrote, and then added that sustainable reform can not be successful if it only donor driven, and in case with Afghanistan it is critical, because Afghan government ministries can not find common language and mutual understanding with donor states. Consequently, the major part of donor support is allocated outside the National Development Budget. And thus Afghanistan faces the situation when donors have effectively dis empowered the government and divested it of its leadership role in the process. All in all, the process of state-building of Afghanistan embodies many dilemmas that require changes in conventional donor approaches as well as long-term vigilance of Afghans.

Also important for Afghanistan's state-building process is the adoption of the constitution. It designates this country as Islamic republic and guarantees that men and women are equal and have duties before the law. The constitution calls for multiethnic representation in the structure of government. Thus, the President must have the majority of votes, which can arrive via a runoff of the top two candidates in a field and the President cannot serve more than two terms. Also, according to S S Misras interpretation of the constitution of Afghanistan, the president works with a bicameral legislature, the Wales Jirga (House of People) consisting of 220 - 250 directly elected delegates and Meshrano Jirga (House of Elders) consisting of appointees from provincial councils, from district councils, and from the presidents list. On the whole, the constitution of Afghanistan is considered to establish strong presidency and weak parliament.

Though, on the paper the constitution protects political economic and human rights, guarantees democracy and equality, it has little about creating the necessary institutions to implement these provisions. Thus, it is more nominal than normative. The change of political regime in Afghanistan was associated with the first elections of President scheduled for June-July 2004. This election campaign was designated to become the first experiment of setting democracy in this country. Afghans were given a chance to choose the president for themselves and thus to encourage some positive changes in their countrys order.

It is significant, that the number of those who desired to participate in the campaign was bigger than expected. This is notable for the country where, according to Conrad Schetter, politics and the state did not mean anything for the majority of people in Afghanistan for the most of the twentieth century. It was estimated that 10. 35 million Afghans had registered to vote for the period of August 21, 2004, which was one week after the official close of registration. This fact evidences the enthusiasm of Afghans for elections and for forthcoming changes in the country. Nevertheless, as Mark Sedra noted in his report, the electoral process in Afghanistan had prompted many international observers and prominent citizens to reaffirm doubts about the timing of the countrys first experiment with democracy.

This statement implies that it remains a problem of setting democracy before peace. The country survives through wartime and thus it has the problems of violence, lack of security, and thus the wide spread of corruption and lawless actions. In spite of the efforts of peacemaking, the situation with Afghan security had worsened for the period of the year preceding the elections. Mark Sedra described the situation in the following way: Nearly 1, 000 people have been killed in violence over the past year.

With circumstances so volatile, even the smallest hiccup in the electoral process could ignite a firestorm. Also, as 804 Afghans indicated in the survey regarding the election campaign 2004, that vote-buying and corruption will not allow the elections to be fair. The contra argument was offered by Grant Kippen, country director for the National Democratic Institute, who said that it was more important merely to hold the election regardless of all the faults it had. But, Mark Sedra wrote that such argument was dangerous because it denied the major aim of elections: to demonstrate the value and power of democracy to transform a society.

Summing up, I would like to say people in Afghanistan can not expect that their country will be rebuilt for a short period of time after years of war conflicts. Also, as Mark Sedra, Peter Middlebrook concluded, Afghans, whose expectations were heightened after the Tokyo Conference in early 2002, will be the first to turn their backs on the new administration, unless improvements in security and access to basic services are achieved. Thus, one of my personal conclusions is that the establishment of democracy in Afghanistan is impossible without peace, the other one the process of bettering security conditions will take a long period of time because of many obstacles and barriers I have mentioned above. Thus, I believe that Afghanistan will not become a democratic country, at least for the nearest future. Bibliography: Boris Wilke: State-building in Afghanistan? August 2004, Berlin: Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politic, p. 21 Conrad Schetter: Die territorialisierung national und ethische Vorstellung en in Afghanistan, Orient Vol. 44, no 1 (2003), pp. 75 - 97 Mark Sedra, Afghanistan: Democracy Before Peace? , Silver City, NM & Washington, DC: Foreign Policy In Focus, Sept. 2004, 3 Apr. 2005 < web > Mark Sedra, Peter Middlebrook: Afghanistan's Problematic Path to Peace: Lessons in State Building in the Post-September 11 Era, Silver City, NM & Washington, DC: Foreign Policy In Focus, Mar. 2004. 3 Apr. 2005 < web > S S Misra: Afghanistan at Crossroads Portends for a Future Government, Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi, 2005. 3 Apr. 2005 < web >


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Research essay sample on Election Campaign State Building

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