Systematic Analysis of State-Nation Building and Political Development in Afghanistan: A Critical Approach to the Bonn Agreement and the Doctrine of Liberal Democracy from 2002 to 2021

By withdrawing from Afghanistan, the Soviet Union collapsed and the Cold War ended inthe 1990s. Throughout that decade, western governments forgot the people of Afghanistan.But the 1998 attack on the U.S. interests in Africa and al-Qaeda attacks of the September 11,2001 reintroduced the foreign aggression of the Western governments’ coalition againstAfghanistan. In the late 2001, NATO countries led by the United States brought down theTaliban regime. Concomitantly, the UN conducted a conference in Bonn, Germany in whichpolitical and paramilitary groups agreed to form an inclusive government without presenceof the Taliban. The Bonn Agreement contents show that most of its principles are based onthe doctrine of Liberal Democracy. Accordingly, in most of the ratified articles of the EighthConstitution of Afghanistan the doctrine of liberal democracy is reflected. In a countrywhere many political regimes and systems were experienced, the effectiveness of LiberalDemocracy doctrine was expected. Meanwhile, Liberal Democracy faced challenges andnation-state building development process witnessed deficiencies. The present paper usessystemic analysis of the liberal nation-state (system input, policy design, policyimplementation, evaluation and outcome) to respond the research question. The question is,how have the nation-state building process and political development in Afghanistan beenaffected by the Bonn Agreement and liberal democracy doctrine? And has that led to thedeficiencies in nation-state building and political development in the country?Hypothetically, nation-state building and political development in Afghanistan based on theBonn Agreement suffered from deficiencies due to the following reasons: disregarding thehistorical-traditional contexts of Afghanistan, the weak presence of liberal democrats inpower, disregard for the demands of the fragmented society, the continuation of nationalistpolicies, and the incorrect public-private divide in the liberal structure of democracy.