| I take a comparative historical approach to the state in tracing the development of infrastructural power in Afghanistan and Iran through the course of the 20th century. Following Mann, I define infrastructural power as the state's ability to penetrate its territory and implement its decisions in a routinized manner. I ask why, given their remarkably similar social and political contexts in the early part of the century, Iran came to be characterized by strong political institutions with effective reach across the entire territory, whereas the Afghan state remained weak with limited authority over peripheral actors. I argue that standard approaches to the state that focus on structural conditions or rational rulers do not pay enough attention to the ideology of new elites. I show that ideology, mediated by elite perceptions and institutional strategies, plays a determinative role in the development of the state in non-colonized societies originating as imperial buffers in the early 20th century. Newly empowered modernist rulers view all traditional regional elites as potential rivals and hindrances for their reformist programs and seek to usurp them. They choose to pursue an institutional strategy of direct rule, and concomitantly build up an extensive long-term presence in the periphery. New traditionalist rulers, however, only view some regional elites as rivals, while considering other elites as allies due to their family, clan network, or tribal ties. Here, the state tends to develop in a patchwork pattern, as traditionalist rulers continue to give considerable autonomy to their perceived allies while seeking to build up a direct state presence in regions heretofore dominated by perceived rivals. According to my findings, based on an analysis of the road network and education system in both countries, political ideology provides a more satisfactory explanation for the development of infrastructural power at the provincial level, compared to other theories that privilege the role of rational utility-maximizing rent-seeking or office-seeking elites simply responding to structural conditions. |
