Modernization: Afghanistan vs. Turkey

Afghanistan was used as a buffer zone during the Great Game by Soviet Union and the Great Britain. They did not provide Afghanistan with the means to industrialize and that is why Afghanistan remains subsistence agriculture and a reinter state. With the decline of Colonialism after the Third Angola-Afghan war Afghanistan declared Independent (Barfield). When Amanullah Khan seized the throne he was very enthusiastic to develop a strong and modern state. Before Amanullah Khan only some effort had been taken place for state building according to Charles Tilly which was exterminating the internal rival, during the reign of Amir Abdul Rahman Khan, he centralized the power. The trepidation that exists among most of the Afghans leader particularly Abdul Rahman Khan, he was afraid of modernizing the country and did not build railroad because he was assuming that once we build rail road it will open the gates for invasion by super power. And because of territorial integrity Abdul Rahman khan disregarded British direct involvement in building infrastructure. Instead, Abdul Rahman Khan primarily relied on subsidiaries which as a result Afghanistan remain “reinter state” (Barfied, 2010). As Tilly argues attributes of state building worked in Europe was because of industrialization prop up by capitalism. The state became powerful in bringing the producers under its supervision. Charles Tilly argues, war formulates state and duress exploitation played a vital part in the establishment of the European states. In addition, Tilly makes it very lucid that in Europe, state making and mercantile capitalism reinforced each other (Tilly 1985). By this, he means the four main aspects of state building: state making, war making, extraction and protecti...

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...ains had an immense impact on the economy of Afghanistan. These mountains were a huge barrier against the building infrastructure of Afghanistan because no ring road was building during Amanullah khan reign. Therefore, since there was lack of infrastructure the national economy did not developed. Materialization of a countrywide market is very crucial for modernization, but these mountains did not let an economically interact between Afghans with each other to shape a national market for Afghanistan. As Afghanistan national economy did not emerge the economy remained subsistent. However, he brings in monetized economy but it never worked in the mountainous rural area because gaining access was difficult at that time. In contrast, Turkey is flat and it does not have a mountainous terrain which is very easy to infiltrate the whole country and create a national market.