ABSTRACT
The Afghan state emerged through a complex process of state formation, involving both the defining of territory and the emergence of instrumentalities through which power could be exercised. Although Afghanistan was never colonised, it was invaded from time to time, and its rulers struggled to find bases upon which they could exercise power securely. From the late nineteenth century, it was heavily dependent on ‘rentier’ income, in the form either of direct subventions from other powers, or later, revenue from the sale of natural resources and from foreign aid. This was unstable and contributed to the circumstances that resulted in the communist coup of April 1978 and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979. Thereafter, the state was on life support for much of the 1980s, and collapsed – together with the communist regime – in April 1992, contributing to a situation of disorder exploited by the Pakistan-backed Taliban. After the international intervention that overthrew the Taliban in 2001, a new state-building process was initiated, but the result was a ‘neopatrimonial’ state, with patronage and formal institutions entwined. Afghan politics has been struggling to cope with the effects of this structure ever since.
