ABSTRACT

The literature of fiscal federalism suggests two approaches to explaining the allocation of intergovernmental transfers. First, a normative approach that considers governments as benevolent social planners pursuing normative criteria of efficiency and equity; and second, a public choice approach assuming governments as self-maximizing actors who use intergovernmental transfers to purchase political capital, enhancing their chances of re-election. This paper seeks to test the hypotheses of these two approaches to explain the allocation of discretionary development budget among Afghan provinces during three fiscal years of 2016–17, 2017–18 and 2018–19. Findings indicate Afghanistan’s central government’s approach does not focus to achieve normative criteria of improved participation, predictability, transparency, and equity. Instead, Its central government considers certain political criteria such as political affiliation – ethnic affiliation and alignment with central government policies – political importance, and strength and weakness of local actors. This paper relies on both quantitative and qualitative data to support its arguments.

摘要

财政联邦主义文献提出了两种解释政府间转移支付分配的方法。首先，将政府视为仁慈的社会规划者，追求效率和公平的规范标准；第二，一种公共选择方法，假设政府是自我最大化的行为者，他们使用政府间转移支付购买政治资本，从而提高他们连任的机会。本文试图检验这两种方法的假设，以解释 2016-17、2017-18 和 2018-19 三个财政年度阿富汗各省的可自由支配发展预算分配。调查结果表明，阿富汗中央政府的做法并不专注于实现提高参与度、可预测性、透明度和公平性的规范标准。反而，其中央政府考虑某些政治标准，例如政治派别——民族派别和与中央政府政策的一致性——政治重要性，以及地方参与者的强弱。本文依靠定量和定性数据来支持其论点。