Afghanistan: Post-Modernizing a Pre-modern Society?

The defined purpose of this paper is to analyse the phenomenon of post-modernizing pre-modern societies, having as example the case of Afghanistan. Assuming that political modernity implies the existence of a centralized state, we will show that there never was a modern period in the history of Afgh...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Liviu Bogdan Vlad, Adina Negrea
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: European Institute of Romania 2009-09-01
Series:Romanian Journal of European Affairs
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Online Access:https://rjea.ier.gov.ro/wp-content/uploads/articole/RJEA_Vol_9_No3_AFGHANISTAN_POST-MODERNIZING_A_PRE-MODERN_SOCIETY.pdf
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Summary:The defined purpose of this paper is to analyse the phenomenon of post-modernizing pre-modern societies, having as example the case of Afghanistan. Assuming that political modernity implies the existence of a centralized state, we will show that there never was a modern period in the history of Afghanistan. The last part of this paper focuses on presenting the impact that the phenomenon of post-modernization has had on Afghanistan, by analysing four characteristics of the contemporary world – the world after the collapse of the Soviet Union: the critique of the fungible character of power; the privatisation of security; the new types of wars; the regionalization and fragmentation of the world. The dilemma that needs to be solved is that of surpassing the risks brought about by the co-existence of three levels of evolution: the pre-modern level (the segmented Afghan society), the modern level (the attempt to found a centralized state), the post-modern level (the attempt to anchor the new-founded state in the global system, from a political, economic and cultural point of view).
ISSN:1582-8271
1841-4273