pakistan’s

new priorities that must inform its strategic rethinking. While the Pakistan Army may continue
to use sot power to put pressure on Islamabad when it feels that politicians and administrators
either are threatening fundamental interests of the state or have been ineffective in dealing with
particular threats, it is highly unlikely that the army will once again dislodge a civilian government
to restore itself back into the front seat. In this sense, though it may seem counterintuitive, the
military establishment has been tacitly supportive of civil society’s attempt to monitor and increase
the accountability, transparency, and efficiency of politicians and administrative arms of the state.
The fact that the military oten absolves itself of scrutiny does not change the fact that it has
been inclined to facilitate a more robust political culture where politics at its most elementary
level of “getting things done” is executed with relative efficacy. Despite its own corruption and
lack of transparency, there is a degree of order and stability that the military high command feels
that it must preserve—and protect from politicians. There is a broad consensus among military
leaders that certain grave security threats do exist in society that require a level of determination,
discipline, training, resources, and efficiency to tackle that only the military can deliver. The
fact that the military high command has publicly expressed its dissatisfaction with the lack of
“good governance” on the part of the civilian government sends a powerful signal to the Sharif
government to put its house in order. 31 Given this political dynamic, the most likely forthcoming
scenario is that some kind of agreement between the prime minister and General Raheel Sharif
will be reached, one that ensures the supremacy of the military over national security, defense,
and foreign policies with a grudging acquiescence of the civilian government. So the story of
civil-military relations ends where it began, and, as they say, the struggle continues.
Bureaucracy: Is the Steel Frame Cracking?
The bureaucracy in Pakistan is the second most important guardian of the state. As an heir to
the British colonial administration, the elite cadres of Pakistan’s civil service (district management,
police, foreign service, finance, excise and taxation, and customs groups) have exercised enormous
power in decision-making at both the federal and provincial levels, especially given the pattern of
weak and unstable civil governments followed by military rulers who lacked skills in managing
political affairs. 32 The unremitting infighting among politicians of all persuasions, as well as their
lack of interest in substantive public policy issues, has further facilitated the ascendancy of the
elite civil services to a position of inordinate power.
At the staff level, senior bureaucrats advise elected cabinet ministers on new policies in their
respective areas, prepare budgets, write new tax laws, manage public finance, negotiate loans
with the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, and formulate rules, regulations,
and procedures for implementation of policies and management of governmental affairs. At the
field level, they act as agents of federal and provincial governments, implement public policies and
development projects, collect taxes, maintain law and order, administer health and educational
institutions, and act as the eyes and ears of the state. In order to stave off any effort by the military
regimes to introduce administrative reforms, the top echelons of the civil service came up with
31 “Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) Press Release ater the Corps Commanders Meeting in Rawalpindi,” Dawn, November 11, 2015.
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32 Mumtaz Ahmad, Bureaucracy and Political Development in Pakistan (Karachi: National Institute of Public Administration, 1974).
SPECIAL REPORT u FEBRUARY 2016