Can the Design of Electoral Institutions Improve Perceptions of Democracy in Fragile States? Evidence from Afghanistan

Liberal peacebuilding efforts in fragile states often suffer from low levels of public support for democracy. This paper explores whether changes in the design of electoral institutions improves perceptions of democracy in states seeking to transition from conflict to a democratic order. We do so by embedding a vignette experiment in a nationally representative survey of households in Afghanistan. Our experiment varies the method of selecting members to the national legislature, which allows us to examine how changes to status quo electoral institutions influence perceptions of democracy. We find that support for democracy depends on the choice of electoral institutions, particularly among those respondents who express sympathy for the Taliban insurgency. These results show how electoral system design improves citizen support for democracy and helps explain why democracy struggles to live up to its promise in these challenging contexts

Establishing local government in fragile states: experimental evidence from Afghanistan

International and domestic policy makers often promote elections to establish village government in fragile states. However, two additional options are available in such countries: formalization of self-governing village councils and formalization of community development councils (CDCs). We designed a survey experiment in Afghanistan that compares the consequences of elections to establish village councils to each alternative. We find that elections, and to a lesser extent formalization of CDCs, improve support for democracy, while formalization of customary councils improves support for reconciliation with the Taliban. Moreover, the consequences of transplanting elections are contingent on social norms and institutions supportive of democracy

Social identity and voting in Afghanistan: evidence from a survey experiment

The basis of social identity in Afghanistan is the concept of qawm. As qawm refers to an individual’s solidarity group, such as village, tribe, subtribe, or even ethnic group, it captures broad in-group/out-group distinctions. We analyze a survey experiment to explore how qawm affiliation affects individual perceptions of politicians running for a fictitious local election. Contrary to expectations derived from the literatures on Afghanistan and on identity politics, we find qawm affiliation does not influence voter choice or perceived importance that a fellow qawm member should be elected. Moreover, qawm affiliation actually undermines individual perceptions a candidate will work on behalf of voters if elected. We explore two general mechanisms that may explain these findings, including weakening social ties and salience of the qawm