IJALEL, Vol 9, No 2 (2020)

2009

Governance deficiencies have long vexed Pakistan, yet momentum for reform has not materialised, because elites maintain stability by limiting access to and control of valuable resources (such as land and capital) and valuable activities (such as contract enforcement). As a result Pakistan can best be understood as a "limited access order". Patronage and the capacity for violence play crucial roles in determining political outcomes, and manifest themselves in repeated coups, sectarian conflict and feudalistic relationships. Political parties and the military are merely platforms that grant various elites access to state resources. The military in particular has derived huge economic assets from its strong political position. Combined with a weak and corruption-ridden state, such conditions have produced a government where institutions work very differently for different people. While these entrenched power dynamics make wholesale reform daunting, incremental steps that enhance stability by obviating the need for threatening violence, strengthen the capacity of the state to ensure that the law applies more equitably, and embrace economic reforms that give businesspeople a greater interest in promoting change would gradually enable Pakistan to move towards a more stable, equitable and open rules-based political order.

E conomic and social outcomes in Pakistan over the last sixty years are a mixture of paradoxes. The economic growth rate has averaged 5 percent annually since 1947-a feat achieved by very few countries. Politically, however, the interplay of religious fundamentalism, sectarianism, ethnic cleavages and regional economic disparities has made the country volatile and unstable. Various East Asian countries that were behind Pakistan in the 1960s have surged far ahead in most economic and social indicators. Pakistan has thus been unable to realize its potential.

Since the beginning of war on terror world has realized not only the geo-strategic importance of Pakistan but also the fact that it can play a decisive role in bringing end to this war for good. Mean while with every passing day regional dynamics are becoming more intricate and complex, therefore new challenges have emerged. Hence in order to deal with them Pakistan requires extensive preemptive pragmatic approach. In war on terrorism Pakistan became an important US ally and got this natural edge over India by being the neighbor of Afghanistan. With the imminent US exit from Afghanistan and emerging India-Afghanistan nexus, Pakistan is pondering over to make much needed political paradigm shift which would bring long term internal stability and would lessen the involvement of non-state actors in damaging the internal and external security configurations of Pakistan. From 2001 to 2014, the region of South Asia has witnessed several changes ranging from harsh natural calamities, mounting economic crunches, changing security paradigm and above all the birth of new forms of terrorism. Moreover in general a new sense of insecurity and uncertainty has also prevailed across all the nations of South Asia. Although Global War on Terror is being fought on the western neighbor of Pakistan i.e. Afghanistan, however ironically the main protagonist and sufferer in this war has been the non-NATO ally of USA i.e. Pakistan. However even after a decade of war the victory of USA in Afghanistan is yet to be seen even though a lot of al-Qaeda recruiters and fugitives have been arrested or killed but the peace in war torn country of Afghanistan seems like a distant dream. On the other hand, Pakistan is slipping in a deep quagmire day by day and hopes for peace in this war affected country is nowhere to be seen. The biggest challenge faced by Pakistan since 2010 is to deal with the domestic pressure of curbing the terrorist activities and radical elements and the international demands of controlling the cross border terrorist infiltration from Afghanistan and to participate more actively in war on terrorism. Though Pakistan has been fulfilling its part of the deal nevertheless it has ended up making more enemies than friends not only domestically but also on the regional front. Despite of all the sacrifices, losses and adversities, the master

The Muslim/Islamic creation-narrative of Pakistan soon morphed into an Islamic (military) Security State narrative, which was associated with national identity and a certain political order. There was resistance to the imposed narrative, national identity, and political order that was brutally crushed to maintain the status quo. In the process, politics got subverted, and there was widespread suffering of the majority, while a few enjoyed limitless and unaccountable benefits. Relatively recently, a strong challenge to the official narrative has been gathering momentum, which has exposed the falsity of the official narrative and the farcical nature of politics in Pakistan.

Journal of International and Global Studies, 2012

Picking up Ahutosh Misra and Michael E. Clarke's edited volume, one is first struck by the cover image of a demonstration featuring gun-toting Pakistani youth and bearded men, with banners held aloft against an overcast sky. The image is one that has been popularized by mainstream media due to the central place that Pakistan has come to occupy in what is known as the "War on Terror." Coupled with the title of the book, the image draws the readers' attention to the instability of Pakistan and the lurking threat of its collapse. Yet, if one looks carefully at the image on the cover, the faces of those youth, with guns held high, are striking for their widegrinned smiles, as if they are posing for the camera, trying to appear angry and tough but unable to hold back their light-hearted laughter. The discrepancy between what the image on the cover intends to portray and how the youths in the photograph may perceive themselves is reflective of a broader paradox in which the security threat Pakistan poses is a presumed truth, regardless of not only the ways in which the U.S. has "created" this truth but also the ways in which the people of Pakistan may perceive their own involvement in the "War on Terror." However, seeing that this edited volume is a result of a three-day conference organized by the Griffith Asia Institute and held in Brisbane, Australia in November of 2009, where "security experts" from Pakistan, India, Australia, and the United States addressed "some of the most pressing challenges facing the country," it is not surprising that such paradoxes are not addressed in the text (p. xvi). While the "mediatization" of Pakistan's role in the "War on Terror" is not addressed, Misra and Clarke have set out to pull together a series of papers that do address the domestic, regional, and international challenges facing Pakistan. In the preface, they begin by pointing to the 2.5 per cent GDP growth rate, double-digit inflation rate, and US$56 billion in foreign debt. They write that there is unanimous recognition that the failure of the state would have devastating consequences for international security "and must be prevented at all costs." At the same time, the picture that emerges from the essays is that while Pakistan does face significant challenges, the state is unlikely to collapse. The first five of the book's twelve chapters focus on Pakistan's domestic sphere. Ashutosh Misra begins with a look at the interplay in Pakistan between the three forms of government (FOG): military dictatorship, democracy, and Islamism. Using a stability-instability model in which these three forces compete with each other and engage in co-option, he argues that the interplay between these three forms of government lies at the core of Pakistan's political instability. The author suggests that for the sake of Pakistan's stability, this jostling among political parties must cease; still, he acknowledges that "this may only be possible when one of these FOGs becomes self-reliant and does not have to align with the other two in order to stay in power" (p. 3). Misra concludes his essay by pointing to developments within Pakistan's judiciary system and by asserting that such developments reflect positively on the future of democracy in Pakistan. The conclusion of the first chapter provides a fitting transition to the excellent second chapter by Tasneem Kausar. Kausar focuses on the Pakistani judiciary system during the 2007 lawyers' movement and provides a helpful historical overview of the Pakistani Supreme Court and its historic role in the development of democracy in the country. Underscoring the historical significance of the strides made by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry in helping the court establish "its own identity, [secure] its legitimacy and [win] its independence" (pp. 28, 32),

Middle East, 2007

Over the past 60 years, Pakistan has seen a variety of paradoxical economic and social effects. Few countries have managed to develop their economies by an average of 5% yearly since 1947. However, the country has become volatile and unpredictable politically as a result of the interaction between sectarianism, racial cleavages, religious extremism, and regional economic inequalities. In the 1960s, a number of East Asian nations lagged behind Pakistan in terms of economic and social metrics. Pakistan has not been able to reach its full potential as a result. The Pakistani instance defies conventional thinking, which holds that economic progress can only occur in the midst of political stability. This article tries to answer the following questions in order to explain these paradoxes and contradictions: • How is strong economic development possible in a nation that has experienced political turbulence and instability for such a long time? • Have times in Pakistan that were marked by stable authoritarian administrations given rise to long-term economic success? • Has the impact of other countries-especially the United States-been positive? Although Pakistan and India share a similar historical, cultural, and social environment, they have taken separate routes since gaining independence in 1947. Both nations have made progress in boosting their economies and lowering their rates of absolute poverty. While Pakistan spent half of its post-independence years under military dictatorships and is presently working to put down an Islamic insurgency in the northwest of the nation, India has emerged as a stable and thriving democracy. In India, the relationship between democracy and growth looks to be strong, but it is stumbling in Pakistan. However, fewer attempts have been made to solve this conundrum in the case of India and Pakistan, two nations that are more like one another and share a shared history. A great deal of recent literature has suggested that China and India are the typical representatives of authoritarian and democratic regimes.