Essay --

State Building in Turkey vs. Afghanistan Introduction: In the twentieth century the governments of Turkey and Afghanistan made attempts to build states in their countries. However, each country’s geopolitical and socio-economic structure directly impacted the state building process. State building in Turkey was unique, inevitable and had a sustained development process while for Afghanistan it was crucial, chaotic and had bad repercussions that caused the Afghan state to collapse. Both Kemal Attaturk and Amanullah Khan pioneered the concept of state building in their countries but the existing forces, constraints and challenges resulted into different achievements for them. During the era of Kemal Ataturk, the period of state building was very successful because Turkey was close to the center of modernization and possessed strong institutions, topography and easier social interaction of state with people. In Afghanistan, due to mountainous terrain, and a landlocked topography, with the majority of people being illiterate, impleme nting the state building strategies were far more difficult. In addition, the institutions in Afghanistan were fragile and the state-building process was largely dependent on foreign subsidies as well as there was less interaction between the state and the people. Thesis : At the beginning of the twentieth century, both Turkey and Afghanistan launched a state-building effort. However, due to the inherent geo-political and socio-economic conditions in place in both societies, the state building endeavors diverged into two different directions. Brief background about how the Turkish and Afghan states were established: Under the leadership of Ataturk, and following the War of Independence in September 19... ...d communitarian society. It was for the first time that rulers in Afghanistan had experimented with state building. Democracy, national assembly, building a professional army and political party were new practices for statesmen in Afghanistan. While the Turkish had centuries of state building experience, particularly during the rule of Ottomans, Afghans used to revolt, resist and take revenge from the state through intervention. Afghans have never adopted state building successfully in the past. Turkish state building compared to Afghanistan, therefore, was victorious. Turkey was able to rise on human resources, economy and society structure, modern culture and secular political institutions, while Afghanistan due to inherent socio-political and geo-political conditions embedded in its society was unable to implement similar state-building strategies successfully. â€Æ'