100 Treatises

How Many Afghans Does it Take to Build a State? Part 1

For the next few days, I will write an extended article on the proper way forward in Afghanistan, and the historical and sociopolitical reasoning behind it. It is adapted from a paper I wrote earlier this year, and will come in the form of several posts. It is a bit academic, and some basic knowledge of Afghan and European history will help the reader, but rest assured it is very accessible. Following is Part 1, dealing with the basic features of the thing we call “the state,” its history and what it means for Afghanistan.

State Building in Afghanistan

The United States is attempting to build a sustainable modern state in a country that has never known one, and that has frustrated repeated attempts thereof. In order to understand why the current effort in Afghanistan is wrongheaded and doomed to fail, as well as the proper approach the US should be taking, it is necessary to appreciate the key elements of successful modern state building and the history of attempts at state building in that country.

The history of the state in general, and of Afghanistan in particular, indicate that any effort to build a fully-functional state would require vast amounts of material and human resources above and beyond the current American commitment. There is, however, an easier and cheaper way to cultivate stability and peace, one that builds legitimate authority from already established regional and tribal political systems. But it requires a fundamental overhaul of the American and western mindset vis-à-vis Afghanistan.

Key elements of a sustainable state

According to Weber, a state is an organization that (1) is the ultimate political authority in a given area, (2) has authority over a bounded territory with defined borders, (3) makes a claim to monopolize the use of violence on that territory, and (4) that claim is legitimate for the people of that territory. Poggi identifies four further characteristics: differentiation from other organizations; autonomy or sovereignty; centralization; and formal coordination among its divisions.

In addition to these features, three processes that have characterized the development of the modern state are: (a) the depersonalization of political power, (b) the formalization of the exercise of political power, and (c) the integration of political power into a greater social whole.

The state requires both despotic (or decision-making) power and infrastructural (or decision-implementing) power in order to function, and to realize its exclusive claim to the legitimate use of violence. These forms of power, in turn, rest upon concentrated sovereignty and centralized territory, respectively.

The Birth of the Modern State

Accordingly, in the late middle ages and early modern era, those European governments that succeeded in centralizing sovereignty and territory were those that led the way in state-building. By the end of the Thirty Years’ War in 1648, the secular state had triumphed over the church in terms of the legitimacy for rule, thereby uniting political and moral authority in the single institution of the state. In addition, the territorially contiguous political community with centralized sovereignty arose as the best option for organizing, increasing and managing both capital and coercion (i.e. wealth and violence).

With their new and expanding despotic and infrastructural power, European states over the next several hundred years consolidated their monopoly on physical violence, along with legitimacy in the eyes of subjects. Legitimacy was consolidated indefinitely with the cultivation of a national identity and the merging of the state with the nation in the nation-state.

Given that the most important characteristic of the state is its monopoly on violence, the most important element that characterized the rise of the state in Europe was coercion—including everything from war with foreign invaders to police action against petty criminals. Charles Tilly takes the central place of coercion a step further: “to the extent that the threats against which a given government protects its citizens are imaginary or are consequences of its own activities, the government has organized a protection racket.”

Ultimately, if one places all instances of violence somewhere on the same continuum, as Tilly does, then the process of state-making is a process of organized crime in another guise, and the distinction between state violence and other forms of violence is simply that “the personnel of states purveyed violence on a larger scale, more effectively, more efficiently, with wider assent from their subject populations, and with readier collaboration from neighboring authorities than did the personnel of other organizations.” In the same way, it follows that the most successful states have been able to use this power more intelligently and with greater legitimacy from their populations than less successful states.

Structural Problems with Building an Afghan State

A cursory look at modern Afghanistan reveals glaring deficiencies on the aforementioned aspects of state structure. Problems arise with the third and fourth of Weber’s qualities, and with all of Poggi’s three major processes. Regarding Weber’s third factor, the current government makes a claim to monopolize violence, but is clearly incapable of making good on that claim, hence the chaos and violence in so much of the country. On the fourth factor, legitimacy in the eyes of the people, the central government is quite weak. This is of course related to its inability to project its influence and guarantee security, but stems ultimately from the fact that huge segments of the Afghan population simply do not identify with a single Afghanistan-wide identity, nor with a government claiming to act on behalf of such a community.

As for Poggi’s three processes, neither depersonalization, formalization, nor integration characterize the central Afghan “state.” Political power remains strongly tied to personal loyalties and relationships, as it always has in that country. It therefore maintains a largely informal character. (Afghanistan is considered the most corrupt country on the planet.) And political power is certainly integrated into a greater social whole, but only on the regional and tribal level, while the central state occupies a place mostly removed from the lives of Afghans outside of the capital.

The centrality of violence and war in the original process of state-building poses a special problem for the construction of a modern Afghanistan state. As already mentioned, the current government is incapable of enforcing its claim to a monopoly on violence. Perhaps even more importantly, whereas war was a much more “acceptable” option during the late middle ages, and well into the modern era, today it is eschewed and looked upon as a last resort by any government seeking legitimacy and by any serious decision-maker. Regardless of whether this is a positive or negative development overall (I believe it is positive), it is unquestionably negative as far as the consolidation of an Afghanistan state is concerned. Rather than aggressively seeking total control over their populations whatever the human costs, as the earliest European states often did, modern states are much more limited when it comes to the use of force. The prime tool used by the original modern states—war—is basically off the table.

To be continued…

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4

MORE ARTICLES:

How Many Afghans Does it Take to Build a State? Part 3

How Many Afghans Does it Take to Build a State? Part 2

How Many Afghans Does it Take to Build a State? Part 4