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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY This essay examines both the pivotal institutional structures of the Pakistani state and the current dynamics of national political processes, with a view to evaluate the country’s capabilities to address internal and external security issues. MAIN ARGUMENT Notwithstanding the long history of political crises and religious, sectarian, and ethnic conflicts, Pakistan has more than muddled through numerous crises and upheavals despite structural weaknesses of state and governmental institutions. This is largely thanks to the military and the civil bureaucracy. Both during military dictatorships and civilian governments, these two “superstructures” of the state have ensured that borders are secure, insurgencies do not threaten the state’s very existence, nuclear assets are safe and secure, law and order is maintained—howsoever inadequately—and the day-to-day business of the government continues to be performed. The pivotal institutions of the state—the parliament, civil bureaucracy, the military, paramilitary outfits, intelligence agencies, the judiciary, police, and provincial and local governments—do face multiple challenges and inadequacies in terms of institutional capacity, resources, sophistication, and operating procedures. Yet despite the enormity and multiplicity of threats to internal security, they have been able to steer through crises and avert a major catastrophic situation that threatens Pakistan’s integrity and legitimacy. POLICY IMPLICATIONS • All relevant stakeholders—both domestic and international—that are concerned about the threats to the peace and stability of Pakistan should support new policy reforms (legal, institutional, socioeconomic, and educational), while also working to address the socioeconomic, political, and religious and ideological conditions that give rise to extremism and militancy. • The foremost task to ensure Pakistan’s internal security and to deal with militancy is to enhance the capacity of the state’s institutional structures—especially the civil bureaucracy, the judiciary, and law-enforcement agencies—through organizational reforms and technical support. • The convergence of two recent developments—massive military operations against the militants in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas and the consensus among major political parties and civil society activists that extremism and militancy are the most imminent threats to Pakistan’s security—calls for a deeper commitment by the international community to strengthen these trends through a package of incentives.
Few countries in the developing world have faced as many internal and external crises and upheavals as has Pakistan since its inception in 1947: four military coups resulting in 36 years under military dictatorship in its 68-year history as an independent state; dismemberment of the state resulting in the secession of East Pakistan in 1971; four wars with India with dire consequences for Pakistan’s security, economy, and polity; three constitutions that were either annulled or amended in accordance with the whims of the military rulers; frequent dismissals of elected governments; insurgencies of various intensities in former East Pakistan, Baluchistan, rural Sindh, and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA); and more than 30 years of continuous involvement in the affairs of Afghanistan, which resulted in the inflow of more than five million Afghan refugees, 1 introduction of drugs and weapons throughout the country, and the unprecedented upsurge of Islamic extremism, militancy, terrorism, and suicide bombing. Pakistan has muddled through all these crises and upheavals thanks to the two structurally solid and self-consciously cohesive institutions: the military and the civil bureaucracy. Over the course of both military dictatorships and civilian governments, these two superstructures of the state ensured that borders remained secure, insurgencies did not threaten the very existence of the state, nuclear assets were safe and secure, law and order was maintained—howsoever inadequately—day-to-day government business was done, and educational institutions and hospitals kept functioning. This is, indeed, not a small achievement given Pakistan’s tumultuous history. It is oten tempting to reduce the current condition of political and institutional structures in a nation like Pakistan to a particular event or series of events within a specific time frame. The reality, however, is that beneath the surface is a network of branches so vast and intertwined that to take any one patch in isolation not only would be misleading but also would not do justice to the complexity and richness of the country’s institutions. Nonetheless, in attempting to map the causes of current issues affecting the country, it is appropriate to examine more recent events to ascertain their effects on contemporary governance and politics. With this in mind, this essay will focus on events surrounding the 2008 elections onward. These elections marked a turning point in Pakistan’s historical trajectory, with power finally being handed over to a civilian government following a decade under the dictatorship of General Pervez Musharraf. Galvanized by the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) came into power—its fourth stint since 1972. When the PPP took charge of the government in early 2008, the state was facing enormous political and security challenges. Terrorist attacks were becoming much more frequent than in previous years. Increasingly, not only security personnel and government establishments but also civilians were becoming targets of sectarian militant groups like Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP) and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ). The judiciary and the executive were at loggerheads, thus paralyzing the state machinery, and parliamentary democracy as envisaged by the 1973 constitution was all but subverted by the unbalanced distribution of power between the president and the elected legislature that had resulted from decades of military rule. The assassination of Bhutto in December 2007 further exposed the vulnerability of the political system in the face of terrorism and militancy and created a most inhospitable environment for economic investments. Just as the starting point selected for this analysis is the election period of 2008, the end point will be the atermath of Pakistan’s national elections in 2013 that brought Muhammad Nawaz Sharif into power for the third time as head of the Pakistan Muslim League–Nawaz (PML-N). 1 Kamal Sadiq, Paper Citizens: How Illegal Immigrants Acquire Citizenship in Developing Countries (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008). MAPPING PAKISTAN’S POLITICAL SUPERSTRUCTURE u AHMAD 13
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Page 44 and 45: f i g u r e 1 All political violenc
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political accountability. The essay
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Residents of the area note that Cha
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modernizing middle-class nationalis
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From Religious Education to Sectari
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During the past few years the mains
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worker did not plan to vote for Imr
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Baluch (backed by the PPP) against
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so oten compete. Teachers and their
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the national bureau of asian resear
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The trauma of partition in 1947 emb
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the Siachen and Sir Creek disputes.
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t a b l e 1 Bilateral trade between
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Challenges in the Bilateral Relatio
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war of liberation in 1971, the Sovi
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within India view the November 26 a
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that such groups or individuals—t
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political and strategic discourse,
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project. 74 In November 2014, the s
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Diplomatic relations between China
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in military equipment to Pakistan.
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High-Level Diplomacy and Exchanges
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September 2009, Chinese vice foreig
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Islamic countries. Pakistan, Bangla
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY This essay examin
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military cooperation with Pakistan.
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Ironically, the quest for energy se
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Iran is equally (if not more) worri
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automatically draw in Iran as a par
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acceptable than what might emerge i
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY This essay discus
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problems extend to the military, co
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parliament building. 10 During the
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and other regional countries. Yet i
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ater Ghani’s outreach to Pakistan
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latter’s ability to regroup, resu
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United States will succeed in stabi
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But like many other diplomatic even
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All of Afghanistan’s neighbors, a
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY This essay traces
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foreign funding, and policy choices
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South Asia Terrorism Portal, in Pak
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people with an unstable polity, num
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In recent years, however, there has
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dangerous repercussions for Pakista
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In an interview in 2006, Robert Gal
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states. This or a similar network c
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Intelligence (ISI) over the last th
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would be its impact on the Iranian
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The volatile security environment i
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Civil Society Pakistan’s civil so
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Civil-Military Relations The Pakist
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The majority of judges were also no
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What is not in doubt, however, is t
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Outlook Pakistan is a deeply troubl
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