Is Pakistan a Praetorian democracy? Questioning the foundations of democratic culture
Abdul Wali Jamali*
Memona Afzal**
Muhammad Ali Khan***
Muzaffar Nizam****
 A nation is democratic insofar it chooses its government through popular voting mechanism. The choice by the people simply legitimises the existence of those elected to power. In the South Asian context, ‘third wave of democracy’ (Huntington 1991) is a partial reality to the extent that there is a competitive electioneering process. However, the latter is a myth if we bring individual freedoms and unbridled accumulation of power in the hands of vested interests into account.

Development thinkers, such as Sen, have identified development with fusion of ‘will and capability’ (Robeyns 2003: 8). The tragedy with the South Asian region is that they have obliterated the Maslowian concept of freedom by divorcing development from political freedom and vice-versa. Recent uprisings in the Arab world, most commonly referred to as the ‘Arab Spring’, have also given impetus to the fact that repression through deprivation or development can’t retard collective consciousness.

Diamond (2000) opines that Pakistan needs to come out of its ‘triple-crisis of governance’. He has doubts regarding the ability of political leadership to steer the country out of its deepening crises. Consequently, he fears that ‘a new reverse wave of democratization’ (Ibid.) can occur from likely failure to resolve the crisis of governance.

Observers have argued that countries like Pakistan inherently suffer from internalisation of conflicting ideologies. The third wave transition (Huntington 1999), which started in Pakistan in 1988, was seen as a hopeful change (Usmani 2012). However, the short period of 10 years (1988-99) saw the worst kind of political victimisation (Yousaf 2007). Successive governments have under-performed. In addition to this, the Army maintained a political balance in favour of themselves by improvising the electoral alliances such as I.J.I (Islami Jamhoori Ittehad). Political leadership in Pakistan has always been identified by the military as praetorian leadership lacking the capacity to understand the issues of strategic depth in the region.

This paper analyses the dimensions of praetorian democracy in Pakistan. It also outlines the absence of real middle class political consciousness and discusses the ‘triple crisis of governance’ as propounded by Diamond (2000) and its reversal to authoritarianism in Pakistan. Secondary sources will be consulted for data collection regarding voting behaviour, issue based electioneering, objective politics and the socio-economic determinants of voter behaviour. Few Focus Group Discussions will also be held in some villages in Sindh and Southern Punjab so as to rationalise the underlying reasons behind voting preferences. In addition, cultural foundations of democracy and its recurring failure to consolidate itself will be analysed from a sociological perspective, more specifically, conflict theory.

References

Diamond, L. 2000, ‘Is Pakistan the Reverse Wave of the Future?’ Journal of Democracy, vol. 11 no. 3, pp. 91-106, July,

<http://cddrl.stanford.edu/publications/is_pakistan_the_reverse_wave_of_the_future>, accessed 22 July 2012.

Huntington, S. P. 1993, ‘The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late 20th Century’, University of Oklahoma, <http://www.oupress.com/ECommerce/Book/Detail/1179/The%20Third%20Wave>, accessed 28 August 2012.

Robeyns, I. 2003, ‘The Capability Approach: An Interdisciplinary Introduction’,

<http://www.soc.spbu.ru/img/up/files/File/1.8%20Robeyns%20The%20Capability%20Approach.%20An%20Interdisciplinary%20Introduction.pdf>, accessed 12 August 2012.

Usmani, A. 2012, ‘The Failure of the Third Wave in Pakistan: Why Authoritarianism Returned’, <http://nyusociology.org/blogs/eps/files/2012/04/adaner-eps-april-2012.pdf>, accessed 14 May 2012.

Yousaf, N. 2007, ‘Why Democracy Failed in Pakistan’,

<http://www.allamamashraqi.com/images/Why_Democracy_Failed_in_Pakistan.pdf>
* Mr. Abdul Wali Jamali is a MS student at the Pakistan Institute of Development Economics (PIDE). His areas of interest include Sustainable Development, Social Ecology, Environment and Public Policy Management.
** Ms Memona Afzal is a graduate student at the School of Economics, Quaid-e-Azam University, Islamabad, Pakistan.
*** Mr. Muhammad Ali Khan is a Civil Servant. He is pursuing higher studies in Public Policy Management and Governance at National Defence University, Islamabad, Pakistan.
**** Mr. Muzaffar Nizam is a progressive writer. He works in a major public sector organisation in Pakistan.