ABSTRACT

This chapter explains state weakness in Afghanistan by outlining a number of factors: social heterogeneity, the impact of the imperial past, international rivalry, and incomplete modernization. It explains the imperial model of governance adopted by the original Afghan state found by Abdur Rahman. This model was characterized by both relative resilience in the face of adversity, but also by strong internal fissures. The imperial model rested on the domination of a small tribal aristocracy, which had at different stages conquered the rest of what is today Afghanistan. The focus of the modernization effort after the Second World War was on the development of infrastructure rather than the expansion of agricultural/industrial production. The Afghan case shows well, perhaps in an extreme way, that the availability of financial resources per se is not the key factor in state-building; what matters is the way the cash is accumulated and then spent.