Abstract:
After the disintegration of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republic (USSR) and end of
Cold War era in 1991, many international organizations, contributor governments and
development foundations have advocated and worked for democratizations as a way
to accomplish improvements and peace in countries that experienced war and
instability such as Afghanistan. Following the collapse of the Taliban regime, an
absolutely new and unprecedented journey of democratization based on the Bon
agreement was started in Afghanistan under the observation of United Nations.
Despite of massive improvement in political, social and economic areas, the
expectations have not been met. This study aims to thoroughly analyze the last 17
years democratization process in Afghanistan, particularly focusing on challenges and
achievements. Qualitative research method is used in this research through the
implementation of liberal democracy theory. The study revealed that insecurity,
corruption, ethnic cleavage, vast production of opium and harmful neighbors are the
main challenges for democratization. Meanwhile, this research also found that
triumph of Medias and freedom of speech is one of the precious accomplishment of
democratization process. Conduction of periodic elections were also considered to be
a very important accomplishment although still has flaws and defects. Another
accomplishment was found to be the establishment of new political parties, but most
of them don not cross the ethnic and linguistic line. Finally, the presence of separate
judicial system was also considered to be an achievement but this organ of
government has been incredibly functioning weakly.
