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Bashir Mobasher draws on results of an opinion survey about public views in Afghanistan regarding concepts related to federalism.

Image courtesy of interviewee. March 20, 2024

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This video video discusses the politicization and ethnicization of the concepts of federal and unitary states in the context of Afghanistan. It argues that the federal system is often viewed negatively by ethnic groups, particularly by the Pashtun majority, due to fears of disintegration and foreign annexation. Conversely, some minority groups prefer a unitary state for the same reasons, associating it with potential ethno-authoritarian dominance.

The author points out the lack of clear understanding among ethnic groups about federalism and the nuances within decentralization debates. While a growing consensus among scholars favors decentralization as a means of ethnic accommodation, there remains an ongoing debate between segmental and non-segmental federalism designs.

This video video highlights recent global trends where the distinctions between unitary and federal systems are becoming blurred, with many unitary states, like Indonesia and Spain, adopting decentralized structures. This video video shift calls for a reevaluation of how these concepts are applied in practice.

In a study conducted in Afghanistan with over 2,100 respondents, the research found a strong preference across ethnic groups for elected local governance rather than appointed officials, revealing a consensus on certain political institutions regardless of ethnic identity. Furthermore, common identities—national and religious—are considered more important than ethnic identities, suggesting that decentralization does not necessarily threaten national unity.

The author argues for a focus on concrete, institution-based questions rather than politicized terms, proposing that clear discussions about governance preferences could foster consensus among varied groups. Ultimately, the text suggests prioritizing institutional design over the labels of political systems to better address the diverse needs of Afghan society when designing a constitution.

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A, well, I have to start with the fact that concept

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of federal, in which state has been very much cons

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politicized in the context of Afghanistan.

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In a way that federal system has been conflated

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with disintegration of Afghanistan

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and sometimes with the annexation of different part

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of the country by the neighboring states.

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And the very same time unitary states has also been miscon

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centralized in a sense that has been portrayed as a form

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of ethno authoritarianism.

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So at the same time

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that this concept has been miscon conceptualize

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and politicized, and has also been,

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eth ethnicized in a sense that the elite

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of different eth ethnic groups have given different

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meanings to these concepts.

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If you ask for example, a Ji Zara

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or in obe, they don't like

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because they think it's a form of the domination

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of PTOs on other eth ethnic groups.

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So in a way, there has been ethnicized

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where different ed ethnic groups have taken different

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positions about these different concepts,

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but at the same time, they do not necessarily have an ended

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knowledge of what these political institutions are.

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So for example, if you ask them what is a, for example,

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a federal system or you need to system,

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you may not get an accurate answer on this topic.

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The literature, as I said, is, increasingly

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favoring decentralization.

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Uh, but there are a lot of scholars who still, believe

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that the unitary state is good for the vital societies,

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particularly to ensure national unity.

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For example, territorial integrity of the states.

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They often give the example of, for example, Yugoslavia

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and the break of, of, Soviet Union and so on.

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But, I believe that a consensus among scholars

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of constitutional design

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and by society is emerging about the importance

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of decentralization for ethnic accommodation.

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For example, conservationalists

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and central ISTs, which are two important schools of thought

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on constitutional design

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and vice society, they both prefer decentralization,

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although they differ on what kind of federal system

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or decentralized status, good for divided society.

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So for example, conservationalists prefer segmental

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federalism, where the states

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and provinces are formed around identities

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of different ethnic groups.

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So different ethnic groups have their own states

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and provinces where,

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central ISTs prefer nons segmental federalism, where

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identity is not necessarily a determining factor in terms

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of the shapes and sizes of different states.

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So you can have multiple states from one of the groups

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and multiple states for different other ethnic groups.

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And their reason is basically that,

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the states no longer compete

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with each other based on the ethnicity.

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For example, in case of Afghanistan, a non segment

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of federalism means that a province that competes with pa

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with project dominated province will also have to compete

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with passion dominated province at the same time

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because, for, you know, economic development,

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political development and education, other issues.

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But there is a couple of things happening around the world

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that the literature needs to keep up with.

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Uh, one of those thing is the disappearance

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of the fine lines and the divergences between

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unitary states, and federal political systems be it's

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because a lot of countries

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that are constitutionally unitary states have

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begun to decentralize.

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So for example, Indonesia is constitutionally a unitary

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state, but it has decentralized considerably.

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It has elected governors, it has elected local institutions.

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Spain is another really good example where constitutionally,

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the country is unitary,

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but it has been decentralized to a large extent.

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United Kingdom to,

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some extent has decentralized as well.

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So at the same time, you have examples

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of federal systems like Malaysia that are

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to some extent trying to centralize some level of power,

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to the federal government.

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So the fine line is blurring, it's disappearing,

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and the concept of federal

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and unitary system no longer explains an institutional

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design in different countries.

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So that's what we need

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to take into consideration when we are writing a literature,

04:24.015 --> 04:26.535
a book or a journal about these topics and issues.

04:26.595 --> 04:29.455
And that's what we try to do with our own book, that instead

04:29.455 --> 04:32.415
of focusing on whether Afghanistan needed a federal system

04:32.515 --> 04:36.295
or a nutri system, we focused on underlying institutions

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and values that would determine the extent

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of centralization or decentralization.

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The different ethnic groups preferred surveyed around 2,100,

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over 2,100 respondents, from across the country,

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34 provinces and different district of different provinces.

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And the method we used was snowballing sampling.

04:58.355 --> 04:59.495
Now I have to mention

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that I am a co-author for this article.

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So the other co-author is Dr.

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Kaha, who is an assistant professor at the Seattle Pacific

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University in Seattle, Washington.

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So we understood that snowballing sampling is,

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not random sampling,

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or it's not even equivalent to random sampling,

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and some random sampling is very much better.

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But the problem for us, you order

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to conduct a random sampling type of survey research was

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because the Taliban were present in different part

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of the country, there were security issues.

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So we couldn't do random sampling.

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And that's why we started with snowballing sampling.

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We mobilized around 15 informants

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and researchers who did to the survey,

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and we people face to face.

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Uh, we also send them the survey questions through email.

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We have also had a large number

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of service con being conducted through food,

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phone calls.

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So the overall, the the sample represented different,

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a ethnic groups proportionally.

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Uh, for example, around 40% of the participants were ash

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and, the population of ash

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and Afghanistan is somewhere around 40%.

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So, and the same goes

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with all other ethnic groups in the gas.

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One of the most important finding we had was

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that once you put aside these politicized, abstract

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and ambiguous terms like federal

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and ary states, then you start to find out

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that different ethnic groups do not necessarily deeg

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when you're talking about the

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institutions, local institutions.

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So for example, when we asked them about whether they wanted

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an elected governor

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or a governor that's being appointed by,

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the central government, majority of all ethnical Pastor

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Orthodox Azar wanted an elected

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governor rather than an appointed governor.

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We asked them the same questions about, for example,

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the provincial councils, local district councils,

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they had almost the same answer

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and a concurrent plurality of all ethnic groups preferred

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and elected prevention council.

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We also asked them, for example,

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about distribution of power.

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So for example, what decision making authority must be

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assigned to the central government,

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but what decision making authority must be assigned

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to the local government?

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And again, we found, that, different,

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the groups actually converge on these different issues.

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Around 40% of all ethnic groups preferred,

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distribution of authorities

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between the central government and local government.

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Uh, 30 per around 30%

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of our participants favored the central government

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to make most of the decision around

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and around 29%

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of the participants favor the local governments

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to make most of the decisions.

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But generally, you do not see a lot of differences

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between different ethnic groups on these different issues.

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Mostly we asked them like four types of question.

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One of the questions we asked them was about the

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satisfaction and with the den central

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and local governments

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because that political system has, has collapsed

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after the tolerant took over.

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And generally all ethnic groups, a super majority

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of all ed ethnic groups were not satisfied.

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Neither would central government

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nor would the local institutions.

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The second type of question we asked them was whether they

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wanted elected offices

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and agencies for the local administrations.

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And again, there was a concurrent, there was a sort

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of consensus among different ethnic groups wanting

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to have elected local institutions and bodies.

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And the other type

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of questions we asked him was basically about some concerns

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with regard to decentralization of Afghanistan.

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So for example, one of the concern was that decentralization

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or federalization of Afghanistan would lead

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to disintegration of the country.

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So we asked them whether,

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we asked them ranked their identities, for example,

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and we gave them a number of identities that each aian has

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national identity, religious identity, ethnic identity,

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and tribal regional identity.

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And we asked them to rank them which one is more important

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to them than the others, because then it will explain

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to us whether people, whether decentralization will lead

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to disintegration of the camp shape.

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And it seems that religious identity and national identity,

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or the most important type of identity for most

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of the African, and these are the two unifying identities

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because, around 99%

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of the African population are Muslims,

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national identities all is basically inclusive as well.

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So they prefer the inclusive identities more than their

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exclusive identities like ethnic ident or tribal identity.

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We try to argue in the paper is that there is a way

09:55.345 --> 09:59.365
to depoliticize the process of constitution making.

09:59.435 --> 10:01.485
Obviously when you're talking about federal system

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or unitary system, centralization, decentralization,

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but their very nature, these are political concepts,

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but they can be further politicized

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and then given wrong meanings or incorrect

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and inaccurate meanings by the political elites

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of different ethnic groups.

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And one way to depoliticize the process of the choices

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among these different political institutions

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or systems is that instead of engaging these

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ambiguous concepts that are basically abstract

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and can be misconstrued

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and misunderstood, we can focus on underlying institutions

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on more concrete questions, asking people whether they want,

10:43.865 --> 10:47.365
for example, elected governor or appointed governor.

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And that is more concrete question

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and it's about the institution.

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And that's basically

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what we did throughout our research project, and

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therefore we understood

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that then you can actually build consensus

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among different ethnics.

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And I have to say that Afghanistan is not the only country

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where these concepts have been, have been politicized.

11:06.505 --> 11:09.285
And Ethnicized Indonesia is another example.

11:09.705 --> 11:10.925
It least another example.

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But you can look at different other countries

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that are still struggling with the issue

11:15.905 --> 11:18.005
of deciding these political systems.

11:18.705 --> 11:21.445
Uh, the different ethnic groups have decided different

11:21.705 --> 11:24.245
to the preferred different political systems.

11:24.785 --> 11:25.805
But then again,

11:25.855 --> 11:27.965
these concepts have been miscon conceptualist.

11:28.305 --> 11:32.765
So our argument basically in this paper is that we have

11:32.765 --> 11:36.945
to prioritize more concrete questions on an institutional

11:36.945 --> 11:39.305
designing over an institutional labeling.

11:39.395 --> 11:41.345
First we have to decide, for example,

11:41.345 --> 11:43.985
whether people want elected governance or not.

11:44.035 --> 11:46.345
First, people have to decide whether they,

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want more power, so less power and

11:48.605 --> 11:50.185
or what extent of power

11:50.645 --> 11:52.865
for their local institutions. And then we can

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Label it, either a unitary state or a federal state

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because as I argued earlier,

11:59.735 --> 12:03.925
these concepts have basically lost their impact in terms

12:03.925 --> 12:05.645
of an institutional designer sense

12:05.675 --> 12:08.205
that many countries or unitary states.

12:08.305 --> 12:10.845
But they have decentralized to a considerable extent, some

12:10.845 --> 12:14.365
of them if decentralized more than a federal system

12:14.425 --> 12:15.645
in some other countries.

12:16.105 --> 12:19.885
And therefore, our argument is that we have to prioritize

12:20.815 --> 12:23.235
an institutional designing over labeling

12:23.295 --> 12:24.555
of these political systems

12:24.695 --> 12:27.435
or institutions when we are designing constitution.

Federalism and Ethnic Politics in Afghanistan

00:00:00 - A, well, I have to start with the fact that concept of federal, in which state has been very much cons politicized in the context of Afghanistan. In a way that federal system has been conflated with disintegration of Afghanistan and sometimes with the annexation of different part of the country by the neighboring states. And the very same time unitary states has also been miscon centralized in a sense that has been portrayed as a form of ethno authoritarianism.
00:00:32 - that this concept has been miscon conceptualize and politicized, and has also been, eth ethnicized in a sense that the elite of different eth ethnic groups have given different meanings to these concepts. If you ask for example, a Ji Zara or in obe, they don't like because they think it's a form of the domination of PTOs on other eth ethnic groups. So in a way, there has been ethnicized where different ed ethnic groups have taken different
00:01:03 - but at the same time, they do not necessarily have an ended knowledge of what these political institutions are. So for example, if you ask them what is a, for example, a federal system or you need to system, you may not get an accurate answer on this topic. The literature, as I said, is, increasingly favoring decentralization. but there are a lot of scholars who still, believe that the unitary state is good for the vital societies, particularly to ensure national unity.
00:01:37 - They often give the example of, for example, Yugoslavia and the break of, of, Soviet Union and so on. But, I believe that a consensus among scholars of constitutional design and by society is emerging about the importance of decentralization for ethnic accommodation. For example, conservationalists and central ISTs, which are two important schools of thought on constitutional design
00:02:07 - although they differ on what kind of federal system or decentralized status, good for divided society. So for example, conservationalists prefer segmental federalism, where the states and provinces are formed around identities of different ethnic groups. So different ethnic groups have their own states and provinces where, central ISTs prefer nons segmental federalism, where identity is not necessarily a determining factor in terms
00:02:39 - So you can have multiple states from one of the groups and multiple states for different other ethnic groups. And their reason is basically that, the states no longer compete with each other based on the ethnicity. For example, in case of Afghanistan, a non segment of federalism means that a province that competes with pa with project dominated province will also have to compete with passion dominated province at the same time because, for, you know, economic development,

Evolving Dynamics of Unitary and Federal Systems

00:03:11 - But there is a couple of things happening around the world that the literature needs to keep up with. one of those thing is the disappearance of the fine lines and the divergences between unitary states, and federal political systems be it's because a lot of countries that are constitutionally unitary states have begun to decentralize. So for example, Indonesia is constitutionally a unitary state, but it has decentralized considerably.
00:03:43 - Spain is another really good example where constitutionally, the country is unitary, but it has been decentralized to a large extent. United Kingdom to, some extent has decentralized as well. So at the same time, you have examples of federal systems like Malaysia that are to some extent trying to centralize some level of power, to the federal government. So the fine line is blurring, it's disappearing,
00:04:13 - and unitary system no longer explains an institutional design in different countries. So that's what we need to take into consideration when we are writing a literature, a book or a journal about these topics and issues. And that's what we try to do with our own book, that instead of focusing on whether Afghanistan needed a federal system or a nutri system, we focused on underlying institutions and values that would determine the extent of centralization or decentralization.
00:04:47 - over 2,100 respondents, from across the country, 34 provinces and different district of different provinces. And the method we used was snowballing sampling. Now I have to mention that I am a co-author for this article. So the other co-author is Dr. Kaha, who is an assistant professor at the Seattle Pacific University in Seattle, Washington. So we understood that snowballing sampling is,
00:05:17 - or it's not even equivalent to random sampling, and some random sampling is very much better. But the problem for us, you order to conduct a random sampling type of survey research was because the Taliban were present in different part of the country, there were security issues. So we couldn't do random sampling. And that's why we started with snowballing sampling. We mobilized around 15 informants and researchers who did to the survey, and we people face to face.
00:05:51 - We have also had a large number of service con being conducted through food, phone calls. So the overall, the the sample represented different, a ethnic groups proportionally. for example, around 40% of the participants were ash and, the population of ash and Afghanistan is somewhere around 40%. So, and the same goes with all other ethnic groups in the gas. One of the most important finding we had was

Decentralization Preferences Among Ethnic Groups

00:06:25 - and ambiguous terms like federal and ary states, then you start to find out that different ethnic groups do not necessarily deeg when you're talking about the institutions, local institutions. So for example, when we asked them about whether they wanted an elected governor or a governor that's being appointed by, the central government, majority of all ethnical Pastor Orthodox Azar wanted an elected
00:06:54 - We asked them the same questions about, for example, the provincial councils, local district councils, they had almost the same answer and a concurrent plurality of all ethnic groups preferred and elected prevention council. We also asked them, for example, about distribution of power. So for example, what decision making authority must be assigned to the central government, but what decision making authority must be assigned to the local government?
00:07:27 - the groups actually converge on these different issues. Around 40% of all ethnic groups preferred, distribution of authorities between the central government and local government. 30 per around 30% of our participants favored the central government to make most of the decision around and around 29% of the participants favor the local governments to make most of the decisions.
00:07:56 - between different ethnic groups on these different issues. Mostly we asked them like four types of question. One of the questions we asked them was about the satisfaction and with the den central and local governments because that political system has, has collapsed after the tolerant took over. And generally all ethnic groups, a super majority of all ed ethnic groups were not satisfied. Neither would central government nor would the local institutions.
00:08:27 - wanted elected offices and agencies for the local administrations. And again, there was a concurrent, there was a sort of consensus among different ethnic groups wanting to have elected local institutions and bodies. And the other type of questions we asked him was basically about some concerns with regard to decentralization of Afghanistan. So for example, one of the concern was that decentralization or federalization of Afghanistan would lead
00:08:57 - So we asked them whether, we asked them ranked their identities, for example, and we gave them a number of identities that each aian has national identity, religious identity, ethnic identity, and tribal regional identity. And we asked them to rank them which one is more important to them than the others, because then it will explain to us whether people, whether decentralization will lead to disintegration of the camp shape. And it seems that religious identity and national identity,

Depoliticizing Identity in Constitutional Design

00:09:30 - of the African, and these are the two unifying identities because, around 99% of the African population are Muslims, national identities all is basically inclusive as well. So they prefer the inclusive identities more than their exclusive identities like ethnic ident or tribal identity. We try to argue in the paper is that there is a way to depoliticize the process of constitution making.
00:10:01 - or unitary system, centralization, decentralization, but their very nature, these are political concepts, but they can be further politicized and then given wrong meanings or incorrect and inaccurate meanings by the political elites of different ethnic groups. And one way to depoliticize the process of the choices among these different political institutions or systems is that instead of engaging these
00:10:34 - and can be misconstrued and misunderstood, we can focus on underlying institutions on more concrete questions, asking people whether they want, for example, elected governor or appointed governor. And that is more concrete question and it's about the institution. And that's basically what we did throughout our research project, and therefore we understood that then you can actually build consensus among different ethnics.
00:11:03 - where these concepts have been, have been politicized. And Ethnicized Indonesia is another example. It least another example. But you can look at different other countries that are still struggling with the issue of deciding these political systems. the different ethnic groups have decided different to the preferred different political systems. But then again, these concepts have been miscon conceptualist. So our argument basically in this paper is that we have
00:11:36 - designing over an institutional labeling. First we have to decide, for example, whether people want elected governance or not. First, people have to decide whether they, want more power, so less power and or what extent of power for their local institutions. And then we can Label it, either a unitary state or a federal state because as I argued earlier, these concepts have basically lost their impact in terms
00:12:24 - that many countries or unitary states. But they have decentralized to a considerable extent, some of them if decentralized more than a federal system in some other countries. And therefore, our argument is that we have to prioritize an institutional designing over labeling of these political systems or institutions when we are designing constitution.

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