Military Review English Edition January-February 2014 | Page 39

T H E A F G H A N S TAT E
provinces functioned as “virtual mini-kingdoms,”
where, “provincial governors handled local administration and were practically independent . . . in
most nonmilitary matters.”22 In Migdal’s terms, the
state extracted and appropriated certain kinds of
resources, but did not penetrate society very deeply
and was not the only agent of social regulation.
If Durrani is remembered for establishing an
independent Afghanistan, Amir Abdur Rahman,
who came to power in 1880, is considered to have
created the modern, centralized Afghan state. Yet
even his success showed the limits of the Westernideal type in Afghanistan. Abdur Rahman filled
many subnational state positions with his own
people. Rather than deriving their authority from
tribal or religious standing and/or retaining their
own revenue sources and armies as they had in
the past, these officials owed their authority to
the state. At the same time, Rahman implemented
unprecedented direct taxation, most of which was
on land holdings, and control over trade. This
revenue funded his army and bureaucracy.23 These
endeavors required persistent violence, forced relocation of whole communities, and intense internal
surveillance. And yet, despite even these efforts
Rahman did not convert the Afghan state from
Swiss to American cheese. Rahman’s state did not
assume complete, consistent control over resources
and social relations. While he extracted more taxes,
increased control over trade, and sharply reduced
the autonomy of subnational leaders, the primary
result was his own security, not a transformation
of state-society relations. Rural society remained
largely unchanged. Rahman resisted transportation and communications technology, while rural
economies remained subsistence-based and qawms
(local solidarity networks) remained the primary
structure of social organization.
Amanullah K