Student Name: Asfand Yar Khan

Student ID: 21-10470

List and explain 2 specific ways in which Iran acquired infrastructural power during the
reign of Reza Shah. Make sure you are able to differentiate this from despotic power.
Explain how Afghanistan under the Musahiban brothers did not follow this step. 
During the reign of Reza Shah, it was seen that Iran had been set to the path of modernization
which can be claimed to be that of infrastructural power, and eliminating the despotic power.
Follwing are the ways through which Iran acquired infrastcurual power during the reign of Reza
Shah,
 Under Mohammad Reza, national inclusion in the oil industry was maintained, although
in 1954 Iran entered into a financial agreement with a new international council
responsible for product management. With the help of the United States, Mohammad
Reza then embarked on a national development program, called the White Revolution,
which included the construction of an expanded road, rail, and air network, numerous
dam and irrigation projects, eradicating diseases such as malaria, promoting and
supporting industrial growth, and land reform. This showed that there were more steps in
terms of state benefits rather than personal benefits of the leaders. This showed that the
exercise of infrastructural power was in action rather than the despotic power.
 He also established literacy and health forces for large but isolated rural communities. In
the 1960s and 70s the shah sought to develop a more independent foreign policy and
established co-operative relations with the Soviet Union and the nations of eastern
Europe.
Musahiban Brothers
Musahiban Brothers on the other hand kept their power, keeping a step back from infrastructural
power. They tried to maintain the power in a more despotic sense from the top down. However,
it was one of the most stable periods in modern Afghanistan's history, in part because the
Musahibans understood the importance of local power. Musahiban's conservatism emphasized
the lessons from internal and external responses to strong interventions and powerful
mechanisms and their adverse effects on the state of the country. The Musahiban government
avoided opposition to any major power and sought to benefit from foreign competition without
going directly to it. Drawing on important lessons from Amanullah's failed internal and
international policies, Musahiban's conservatism adopted the goal of avoiding direct
confrontation with the rural and foreign powers that had brought down Amanullah's regime. In
Musahiban's worldview, the state-building would be a limited and slow-moving development
that would start in Kabul and then go out in a way that would aid development without stopping.
The Musahibans are surprisingly reducing direct interference in local affairs across the country.
However, the level and type of disturbance were not used uniformly. For example, the state has
actively intervened in non-Pashtun areas in the north rather than in the Pastun areas of the
southern border region.