Connecting With Kabul: The Importance of the Wolesi Jirga Election and Local Political Networks in Afghanistan

This paper argued that the international community needed to pay more attention to the 2010 parliamentary election—not only for the precedents it would set in attempts to promote representational governance in Afghanistan, but, more pressingly, because of the ability of parliamentary elections to stimulate local political debate and reshape local political networks across Afghanistan in a meaningful manner. It suggests several broad measures that the Afghan government and the international community should take to better concentrate their efforts to support more active, local and democratic political debates.