Trials of the Past: A Theoretical Approach to State Centralisation in Afghanistan

Abstract

German sociologist Max Weber observes that the centralisation of administrative function is imperative to a stable nation state. Yet, despite this sovereign necessity, attempts at incorporating heterogeneous sociopolitical entities into a cohesive society eluded nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Afghanistan. Ahmad Shah Durrani is known as the father of Afghanistan. He bears this title because he unified a collection of tribes and established a pseudo-confederation of territories in 1747. However, the following two centuries were less constructive and subsequent state centralisation was fraught and ultimately fruitless for Afghanistan. Contemporaneous centralisation remains embryonic and strained by tribal clout. It is within this context that nineteenth- and twentieth-century Afghan amirs, khans, and kings attempted to modernise, centralise, and unify a consortium of conservative tribal microsocieties. Many of the same complications of the nineteenth and twentieth century continue to obfuscate modern Afghanistan.