Ma`rifat Farhangi Ejtemaei

This article analyzes the formation, expansion, and decline of the modernist discourse in Afghanistan from the early twentieth century to the 1970s. Utilizing a combined theoretical framework of discourse analysis, research programs, scientific revolutions, and hegemonic analysis, this study investigates the reasons for the failure of this project to establish an organic national order. The discourse of modernity, manifesting in various forms from constitutionalism to ethnic nationalism and the rule of law, sought institutionalization through actors such as state institutions, media, and political parties, yet ultimately faced rejection and collapse. This article argues that this failure stemmed from structural problems and weak agency, including: socio-cultural dissonance and superficial implementation of reforms; the imported and prescriptive nature of modernization; elite dependency, weak agency, and ineffectiveness; a lack of economic and technical infrastructure; an inability to forge a discursive link between religion and the exigencies of the modern world and human innovation; and its instrumental appropriation by a dominant ethnic hegemonic project. The findings indicate that the modernist discourse failed to construct a chain of national equivalence against a coherent religious counter-discourse and rival paradigms (leftist and Islamist), which were more successful in articulating popular grievances, ultimately leading to its paradigmatic collapse.