An Analysis of Voting Behavior of Afghan Voters in 2014 Presidential Elections

Voters as customers behave rationally when they vote. They are trying to maximize their gains from this action. As Afghanistan is experiencing new era of democracy and elections, it's very important to know the behavior of the voters. This article is trying to uncover the behaviors of the voters and the degree of this action's rationality in Afghanistan's context. The main purpose of the article is to test the rational choice and ethnicity and conflict theories as opposite arguments. An online survey has been conducted and a total of 1016 sample gathered. The analysis carried out in STATA 14 and EViews soft wares. The results show that the language, ethnicity and education have a statistically significant effect on voting behavior in Afghanistan. While the gender and age do not have any statistically significant effect on voting decision of Afghan voters which is consistent with ethnic and conflict theory and inconsistent with rational choice theory. This conclusion may be affecting the upcoming 2019 presidential elections in large scale.