Course: Social change (541)

Semester: Autumn, 2020

ASSIGNMENT No.1
Q.1. How Social Scientists and philosophers define the term Social Change? Explain it with example.
Various theoretical schools have emphasized different aspects of change. Marxist theory suggests that changes
in modes of production can lead to changes in class systems, which can prompt other new forms of change or
incite class conflict. A different view is conflict theory, which operates on a broad base that includes all
institutions. The focus is not only on the purely divisive aspects of conflict, because conflict, while inevitable,
also brings about changes that promote social integration. Taking yet another approach, structural-functional
theory emphasizes the integrating forces in society that ultimately minimize instability.
Social change can evolve from a number of different sources, including contact with other societies (diffusion),
changes in the ecosystem (which can cause the loss of natural resources or widespread
disease), technological change (epitomized by the Industrial Revolution, which created a new social group, the
urban proletariat), and population growth and other demographic variables. Social change is also spurred by
ideological, economic, and political movements.
Social change in the broadest sense is any change in social relations. Viewed this way, social change is an ever-
present phenomenon in any society. A distinction is sometimes made then between processes of change within
the social structure, which serve in part to maintain the structure, and processes that modify the structure
(societal change).
The specific meaning of social change depends first on the social entity considered. Changes in a small group
may be important on the level of that group itself but negligible on the level of the larger society. Similarly, the
observation of social change depends on the time span studied; most short-term changes are negligible when
examined in the long run. Small-scale and short-term changes are characteristic of human societies, because
customs and norms change, new techniques and technologies are invented, environmental changes spur
new adaptations, and conflicts result in redistributions of power.
This universal human potential for social change has a biological basis. It is rooted in the flexibility and
adaptability of the human species—the near absence of biologically fixed action patterns (instincts) on the one
hand and the enormous capacity for learning, symbolizing, and creating on the other hand. The human
constitution makes possible changes that are not biologically (that is to say, genetically) determined. Social
change, in other words, is possible only by virtue of biological characteristics of the human species, but the
nature of the actual changes cannot be reduced to these species traits.
Historical background
Several ideas of social change have been developed in various cultures and historical periods. Three may be
distinguished as the most basic: (1) the idea of decline or degeneration, or, in religious terms, the fall from an
original state of grace, (2) the idea of cyclic change, a pattern of subsequent and recurring phases of growth and
decline, and (3) the idea of continuous progress. These three ideas were already prominent in Greek and Roman
antiquity and have characterized Western social thought since that time. The concept of progress, however, has

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become the most influential idea, especially since the Enlightenment movement of the 17th and 18th centuries.
Social thinkers such as Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot and the marquis de Condorcet in France and Adam
Smith and John Millar in Scotland advanced theories on the progress of human knowledge and technology.
Progress was also the key idea in 19th-century theories of social evolution, and evolutionism was the common
core shared by the most influential social theories of that century. Evolutionism implied that humans progressed
along one line of development, that this development was predetermined and inevitable, since it corresponded
to definite laws, that some societies were more advanced in this development than were others, and that
Western society was the most advanced of these and therefore indicated the future of the rest of the world’s
population. This line of thought has since been disputed and disproved.
Following a different approach, French philosopher and social theorist Auguste Comte advanced a “law of three
stages,” according to which human societies progress from a theological stage, which is dominated by religion,
through a metaphysical stage, in which abstract speculative thinking is most prominent, and onward toward a
positivist stage, in which empirically based scientific theories prevail.
The most encompassing theory of social evolution was developed by Herbert Spencer, who, unlike Comte,
linked social evolution to biological evolution. According to Spencer, biological organisms and human societies
follow the same universal, natural evolutionary law: “a change from a state of relatively indefinite,
incoherent, homogeneity to a state of relatively definite, coherent, heterogeneity.” In other words, as societies
grow in size, they become more complex; their parts differentiate, specialize into different functions, and
become, consequently, more interdependent.
Evolutionary thought also dominated the new field of social and cultural anthropology in the second half of the
19th century. Anthropologists such as Sir Edward Burnett Tylor and Lewis Henry Morgan classified
contemporary societies on an evolutionary scale. Tylor postulated an evolution of religious ideas from animism
through polytheism to monotheism. Morgan ranked societies from “savage” through “barbarian” to “civilized”
and classified them according to their levels of technology or sources of subsistence, which he connected with
the kinship system. He assumed that monogamy was preceded by polygamy and patrilineal descent
by matrilineal descent.
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels too were highly influenced by evolutionary ideas. The Marxian distinctions
between primitive communism, the Asiatic mode of production, ancient slavery, feudalism, capitalism, and
future socialism may be interpreted as a list of stages in one evolutionary development (although the Asiatic
mode does not fit well in this scheme). Marx and Engels were impressed by Morgan’s anthropological theory of
evolution, which became evident in Engels’s book The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the
State (1884).
Q.2. Discuss institutionalization and institutions in light of Horton and Hunt reading.
Institutionalization is thus a human activity that installs, adapts, and changes rules and procedures in both social
and political spheres. It affects the interactive behaviour of individuals and organizations as well as of political

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entities (e.g., states). This distinction between individuals, collective actors, and polities is important, because
the ways in which rules and procedures are developed and subsequently become operational are different for
each sphere. For example, the development and establishment of liberal democracy is actually an ongoing
process of institutionalization. On the one hand, it reflects a shared value within a society as expressed in its
appreciation of individual political and civil rights (Wertrationalität), but, on the other hand, the relationship
between state and society is organized by means of basic laws to define its mode of governance to make it work
democratically (Zweckrationalität).
With regard to social interactions, rules evolve more often than not in a nonbinding fashion, albeit depending on
informal hierarchies and whether they are born out of necessity. Eventually, many practical rules are developed
into institutionalized behaviour that remains more or less stable over time: practices become shared rules that in
turn are formalized in supra-individual terms (e.g., the Ten Commandments in the Bible and Jean-Jacques
Rousseau’s idea of the social contract).
This type of institutionalization may well be typical of organizations and societal development as such. Yet it is
not typical of the political sphere: political systems are by definition characterized by the existence of binding
rules that are formalized (e.g., by law or constitution) and can be enforced independently of individual actors (as
in the case of enforcement by the police). Although procedures may differ to some extent, both rules and
procedures are subject to scrutiny and external controls (by the judiciary, the legislature, electorates, and so on)
that are characterized by hierarchical relationships. In this view, human interactions within a polity are
prescribed and largely predictable. Hence, the process of institutionalization enhances a system’s stability. Yet
it should immediately be noticed that also in the political sphere rules and procedures change. For example, they
may be adapted when unintended consequences occur and the legitimacy of a political system is negatively
affected by the relationship between rules and procedures, on the one hand, and by political behaviour and the
system’s performance, on the other hand. Electoral reform and decentralization are examples of restoring the
institutional framework of the polity to enhance legitimacy. The debates on a constitution for the European
Union (EU) and on establishing democracy in postcommunist Europe in the 1990s reflected the attempt to
regulate political behaviour and to enhance responsible government. Political institutionalization is therefore not
a static but a dynamic process. Institutional analysis has produced various explanations for the emergence and
change of rule configurations and related behaviour with regard to political and social outcomes. The three main
types of explanation may be characterized as rational choice, culture matters, and shock and crisis.
In rational choice theory, institutionalization is regarded as the urge to promote general welfare, where rules of
behaviour constrain the actor in choosing strategies of goal attainment. This is a well-established and
widespread approach within institutional analysis and is well suited to understanding the emergence of
governance in all its variations (from public to private, and so on), assuming that the actors’ preferences are
stable and their interests are revealed in a transparent fashion (as is, for instance, assumed under democratic
conditions in relation to party competition). However, although rational choice does perform quite well if these

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assumptions are met with respect to analyzing highly institutionalized systems and circumstances, it does less
well in situations where conflict and values are prominent. It appears that this type of explanation is suitable
for policy analysis and routinized behaviour.
In the culture-matters explanation, the embeddedness of values and norms and their influence on social and
political relations is seen as constitutive of the process of institutionalization. In the cultural approach, mutual
trust is the basis for acceptance and justification of rulemaking and perseverance. For instance, the process of
democratization is thought to depend on the cultural context in which formal binding rules are operational. This
approach appears suitable for understanding behavioral variation of political actors under seemingly similar
institutional arrangements like liberal democracy.
According to shock and crisis theory, institutions change as a result of exogenous and indigenous shocks to a
system. Rule adaptation or the installment of new rules and procedures can be conceived as different responses
of political systems to a (perceived) crisis. Apart from a breakdown, this can also mean adapting the existing
framework of reference for problem solving by government. Alternatively, endogenous shocks are often seen as
sources for radical institutional change. More often than not, this is conducive to institutional battles over the
preferred direction of change and conflicts over the extent of change. Examples of this are the breakup of
the Soviet Union and the emergence and development of the EU. In this perspective, institutional change is
analyzed with a view on shifting power relations among actors. The reorganization of a polity’s rule adaptation
and related procedures is then considered as a redeployment of power resources.
Institutionalization is a complex process of evolving rules and procedures that is by definition dynamic. As
institutions must be considered as humanly devised contracts of social and political actors, the actual working
and related performance of institutions is conducive to changes in society and its mode of governance.
Q.3. Highlight modern political and economic system of the world and compare it with Pakistan.
Pakistan is among some of developing countries who have achieved an average growth rate over 5. Pakistan
economy has been emerged as an economy with 27th largest in world in term of Nominal. Pakistan has a mixed
economy, major decisions are taken by Government and private enterprise, and also economy is exercised by
these both sectors. Pakistan economy also depends on its industrialized sector like agriculture, textile etc.
Pakistan came in being in 1947 and that time to the fifth decade of it the growth rate of it higher than the
world’s economy at that time. In the decade of 1960 Pakistan was considered as a model f economic
progression throughout the world. It was so much appreciated due to its economic development. Its yearly
average growth rate at that time was 6.8 %. Karachi was the most dominant city who was participating god role
for increasing the GDP rate and many others cities copied him and South Korea was one of them. Pakistan
economy was down in the decade of 197 t0 1990 due to mismanagement of fiscal policy. But again it was
recovered by policy of deregulation.
Pakistan has become the 85th country among 181 countries in flagship report. Pakistan is better than china and
Russia and also comes highest in South Asia. Pakistan Government investing more in IT department and

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making their business more mobile. But Now Pakistan economy is going to dogs due to inflation and other
economic crisis, Pakistan Economy has to face a crisis like Balance of payment. In year 2008 Pakistan had been
bailed out by monetary funds to repay your loans that were increase $ 7.6 billion to $ 11.3 billion. Pakistan
economy condition in 2000 was the best condition that it had ever because that time it was emerged due to its
spectacular growth, average GDP was 7% between 2003 to 2007.In October 2007 Pakistan revenue increased
and become $ 13 billion due to increased in exports to $ 18 billons. Hence it was a turning point for Pakistan
economy because $ 8.4 billion had been invested by foreigners. Depression phase of Pakistan economy was
2008 because this time was a great terrorism. Terrorism had very bad impact on the overall economy, value of
money decreased, growth of output rate decreased. Everyone felt thread and investment f foreigners also
decreased hence devaluation of rupee occurred. Political environment also the reason f this situation, the
average of inflation n 2011 was 5 % to 7 %.
Small business has great impact on the overall economy of a country; here is also same thing SME has
contributed more than 40 % in the economy of the country. It also reduced the unemployment, use the skilled
people and increased the growth rate of output. Small businesses are running almost 90 % enterprises and also
make the jobs for people about 80 percent. Pakistan is also improving auto mobile industry and investing in it. It
also contributes the GDP like 2.8 percent. In 2010 Pakistan is on number one that used CNG. Almost 3000
CNG pumps are running in the country and more than 2000 are in under construction.
Pakistan is a country that is rewarded by its natural resources like rivers, cultivated land, mountains and many
other minerals. Among them one of the significant mineral is mining, using their own resources like labor; It etc
Pakistan has been found a most dominant country in this field. According to a survey at least 6, 00,000km 2
areas have metallic and non metallic commodities. Recently, a mining survey explores an ample which is the
evidence of great minerals. In 1995, minerals policy took a step and said we will explore ourselves and call
foreigners investors and it was favorably answered and now four projects are going for finding some new
minerals. [5] 250px-Service_Sector_by_Province.jpg
Pakistan serves sector is also trying to improve GDP yet also they are contributing about 53 percent. Pakistan is
also improving their IT department by investing more because it can make them more efficient and effective.
The massive part of economy is gradually grow towards telecommunication according to a survey Pakistan has
more than 18 million internet networks and 91 million mobile users in 2008. Banks are also providing massive
amount to the people and industries for investing more and more, it is a good sign because money is continually
flowing and the value f money could be increased. There was a very horrible situation in banking sectors in
2008; inspite of that Pakistan banking sector was massively enough determent at that situation. Pakistan is not
using their resources rightly in case of electricity, due t this disease a lot of small business has to shut down and
hence unemployment also increase. Like other countries Pakistan also has not good planning how to secure our
increasing population.
Q.4. Write short notes on the following;

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a) Neo Marxist views of late capitalism.

MARXISM IS COMPLICATED by the fact that Marx is by no means the only influence on this critical
school; indeed, given the various sorts of political movements that have been inspired by this thinker (socialism,
Trotskyism, communism, Leninism, Stalinism, Maoism, radical democracy, etc.), one despairs at trying to
provide a fair and lucid introduction. Add to that the fact that Marx himself changed his mind on various issues
or sometims expressed opinions that appear mutually exclusive, and one is faced with a rather high hurdle.
Nonetheless, there are a number of Marxist thoughts and thinkers that have been especially influential on recent
scholarly developments (particularly in literary, cultural, and political studies). In short, the goal of this section
of the Guide to Theory, as with any of the sections, is not to give an exhaustive account of this critical school
but, rather, to give a sense for the major concepts influencing this approach while attempting to stay conscious
of the various ways that individual terms have been contested over the last number of decades. The major
distinction in Marxist thought that influences literary and cultural theory is that between traditional Marxists
(sometimes, unfairly, called vulgar Marxists) and what are sometimes referred to as post-Marxists or neo-
Marxists. The major distinction between these two versions of Marxist thought lies in the concept of ideology:
traditional Marxists tend to believe that it is possible to get past ideology in an effort to reach some essential
truth (eg. the stages of economic development). Post-Marxists, especially after Louis Althusser, tend to think of
ideology in a way more akin to Jacques Lacan, as something that is so much a part of our culture and mental
make-up that it actively determines what we commonly refer to as "reality." According to these post-Marxist
critics, there may well be some hard kernel behind our obfuscating perceptions of reality but that kernel is by
definition resistant to articulation. As soon as one attempts to articulate it, one is at risk of falling back into
ideology. This understanding of ideology is what Fredric Jameson famously terms the "prison-house of
language." The links on the left will lead you to specific ideas discussed by Marx and those "post-Marxists"
who have proven to be most influential on literary and cultural studies; however, you might like to begin with a
quick overview:
KARL MARX is, along with Freud, one of a handful of thinkers from the last two centuries who has had a
truly transformative effect on society, on culture, and on our very understanding of ourselves. Although there
were a few critics claiming an end to Marxist thought (and even an end to ideology) after the fall of the
communist system in the former Soviet Union, Marxist thought has continued to have an important influence on
critical thought, all the more so recently after the rise of globalization studies. As protests at recent G7 and IMF
meetings make clear, the school can also still have important political effects.
LOUIS ALTHUSSER represents an important break in Marxist thought, particularly when it comes to the
notion of ideology. His Lacan-inspired version of Marxism significantly changed the way many Marxists
approached both capitalism and hegemony after the second world war.
FREDRIC JAMESON is surely the most influential contemporary Marxist thinker in the United States. His
own alterations of and dialogue with Althusserian and Lacanian thought have established him as an important

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influence on the rise of globalization studies, an important critical school of the last few years. In particular, he
has attempted to make sense of the continuing staying power of capitalism and the ways that capitalism has
transformed since Marx wrote his critiques in the nineteenth century, addressing such issues as multi-national
(or "late") capitalism, the power of the media, and the influence of postmodernity on Marxist debate. The
lattermost issue is explored in the Jameson modules under Postmodernism.
b) Democracy and economic development.
Democracy and economic growth and development have had a strong correlative and interactive relationship
throughout history. While evidence of this relationship's existence is irrefutable, [1] economists' and historians'
opinions of its exact nature have been sharply split, hence the latter has been the subject of many debates and
studies.
The period of Ancient Greece 4th century B.C. and later of the Roman Empire marks the beginning not only of
democracy, but as well as its connection to economic growth. [citation needed] All throughout history, up until the
present they have stayed intertwined.[citation needed] While there is no doubt of their existing relationship, whether it
being in favor of economic development or democracy, there is no evidence to claim that it is in fact a causal
relationship.[2]
In other words, a country that undergoes democratization does not have to necessarily experience economic
growth, most often measured in income per capita, or vice versa. For every such case there exists a counter
example. What this means is that there are multiple factors, such as political stability and political
institutions, social insurance, government capacity, religion and many other which influence the outcome. In
two similar countries, almost identical democratic regimes can yield completely different results. [3] However,
the concepts highly complement each other, and in cases through history where they were separated there has
been great difficulty.
Democratization of a country from a non-democratic regime is usually preceded by a fall in GDP, and a volatile
but expected growth in the long run, While on the other hand authoritarian regimes experience significant
growth at the beginning and decline in the long run. [4] The cause of such behavior is that non-democratic
regimes, mainly authoritarian ones, are more effective at implementing decisive policies and choices as well as
solving ethnic and sub-national conflicts, but are unsustainable in the long run as there is more incentive to
extract money from society which in turn leads to less prosperity. [5] Democratic regimes revolve around
institutions and policies which lay the foundations, through which principles of liberty and equality are designed
and followed, thus directly or indirectly affecting firms or individuals who benefit from the directives and
increase their growth, which in turn has a positive impact on economy.[6]
The positive changes of democracy to economic growth such as delegation of authority and regulations of social
conflicts heavily outweigh the negative and restrictive effects, especially when compared to autocracy. One of
the main reasons for this is that society, i.e. voters are able to support difficult trade offs and changes when
there is no perceived alternative. This is primarily true in countries with a higher level of education. So it ties

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the development level of a country as one of the decisive factors to undergo positive democratic changes and
reforms. Thus, countries that embark in democratization at higher levels of education are more likely than not to
continue their development under democracy.[7]
As mentioned before, all of these factors do not guarantee success. As for each such case, there is a failure.
There is never a single formula for democracy. The processes in associations with peace, social stability and
rapid socioeconomic development are not yet fully understood, which may be the reason for a widespread
opinion and many hypothesis.[8]
A 2006 meta-analysis found that democracy has no direct effect on economic growth. However, it has strong
and significant indirect effects which contribute to growth. Democracy is associated with higher human capital
accumulation, lower inflation, lower political instability, and higher economic freedom. Democracy is closely
tied with economic sources of growth, like education levels and lifespan through improvement of educative
institutions as well as healthcare. "As democracy expands in developing countries, newly empowered workers
are likely to demand better living conditions, health care, access to clean water, and so on—all conditions that
contribute to increased life expectancy and, in turn, to increased productivity". [9] There is also some evidence
that it is associated with larger governments and more restrictions on international trade.[10]
If leaving out East Asia, then during the last forty-five years poor democracies have grown their economies
50% more rapidly than nondemocracies. Poor democracies such as the Baltic countries, Botswana, Costa Rica,
Ghana, and Senegal have grown more rapidly than nondemocracies such as Angola, Syria, Uzbekistan, and
Zimbabwe.[11]
Of the eighty worst financial catastrophes during the last four decades, only five were in democracies.
Similarly, poor democracies are half likely as nondemocracies to experience a 10 percent decline in GDP per
capita over the course of a single year.
Q.5. Discuss the origin of Pakistan and its ruling elites in light of suggested reading by kahalid Bin
Saeed.
When Pakistan became a country on August 14th, 1947, to form the largest Muslim state in the world at that
time. The creation of Pakistan was catalyst to the largest demographic movement in recorded history. Nearly
seventeen million people-Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs-are reported to have moved in both directions between
India and the two wings of Pakistan (the eastern wing is now Bangladesh). Sixty million of the ninety-five
million Muslims on the Indian subcontinent became citizens of Pakistan at the time of its creation.
Subsequently, thirty-five million Muslims remained inside India making it the largest Muslim minority in a
non-Muslim state.
Scarred from birth, Pakistan's quest for survival has been as compelling as it has been uncertain. Despite the
shared religion of its overwhelmingly Muslim population, Pakistan has been engaged in a precarious struggle to
define a national identity and evolve a political system for its linguistically diverse population. Pakistan is
known to have over twenty languages and over 300 distinct dialects, Urdu and English are the official languages

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but Punjabi, Sindhi, Pashtu, Baluchi and Seraiki are considered main languages. This diversity has caused
chronic regional tensions and successive failures in forming a constitution. Pakistan has also been burdened by
full-scale wars with India, a strategically exposed northwestern frontier, and series of economic crises. It has
difficulty allocating its scarce economic and natural resources in an equitable manner.
All of Pakistan's struggles underpin the dilemma they face in reconciling the goal of national integration with
the imperatives of national security.
Following a military defeat at the hands of India the breakaway of its eastern territory, which India divides it
from, caused the establishment of Bangladesh in 1971. This situation epitomizes the most dramatic
manifestation of Pakistan's dilemma as a decentralized nation. Political developments in Pakistan continue to be
marred by provincial jealousies and, in particular, by the deep resentments in the smaller provinces of Sind,
Baluchistan, and the North-West Frontier Province against what is seen to be a monopoly by the Punjabi
majority of the benefits of power, profit, and patronage. Pakistan's political instability over time has been
matched by a fierce ideological debate about the form of government it should adopt, Islamic or secular. In the
absence of any nationally based political party, Pakistan has long had to rely on the civil service and the army to
maintain the continuities of government.
The roots of Pakistan's multifaceted problems can be traced to March 1940 when the All-India Muslim League
formally orchestrated the demand for a Pakistan consisting of Muslim-majority provinces in the northwest and
northeast of India. By asserting that the Indian Muslims were a nation, not a minority, the Muslim League and
its leader, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, had hoped to negotiate a constitutional arrangement that provided an
equitable share of power between Hindus and Muslims once the British relinquished control of India. The
demand for a "Pakistan" was Jinnah's and the League's bid to register their claim to be the spokesmen of all
Indian Muslims, both in provinces were they were in a majority as well as in provinces where they were a
minority. Jinnah and the League's main bases of support, however, were in the Muslim-minority provinces. In
the 1937 general elections, the league had met a serious rejection from the Muslim voters in the majority
provinces.
There was an obvious contradiction in a demand for a separate Muslim state and the claim to be speaking for all
Indian Muslims. During the remaining years of the British Raj in India neither Jinnah nor the Muslim League
explained how Muslims in the minority provinces could benefit from a Pakistan based on an undivided Punjab,
Sind, North-West Frontier Province, and Baluchistan in the northwest, and an undivided Bengal and Assam in
the northeast. Jinnah did at least had tried to get around the inconsistencies by arguing that since there were two
nations in India-Hindu and Muslim-any transfer of power from British to Indian hands would necessarily entail
disbanding of the unitary center created by the imperial rulers. Reconstitution of the Indian union would have to
be based on either confederal or treaty arrangements between Pakistan (representing the Muslim-majority
provinces) and Hindustan (representing the Hindu-majority provinces). Jinnah also maintained that Pakistan
would have to include an undivided Punjab and Bengal. The substantial non-Muslim minorities in both these

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provinces were the best guarantee that the Indian National Congress would see sense in negotiating reciprocal
arrangements with the Muslim League to safeguard the interests of Muslim minorities in Hindustan.
Despite Jinnah's large claims, the Muslim League failed to build up effective party machinery in the Muslim-
majority provinces. Consequently the league had no real control over either the politicians or the populace at the
base that was mobilized in the name of Islam. During the final negotiations, Jinnah's options were limited by
uncertain commitment of the Muslim-majority province politicians to the league's goals in the demand for
Pakistan. The outbreak of communal troubles constrained Jinnah further still. In the end he had little choice but
to settle for a Pakistan stripped of the non-Muslim majority districts of the Punjab and Bengal and to abandon
his hopes of a settlement that might have secured the interests of all Muslims. But the worst cut of all was
Congress's refusal to interpret partition as a division of India between Pakistan and Hindustan. According to the
Congress, partition simply meant that certain areas with Muslim majorities were 'splitting off' from the "Indian
union." The implication was that if Pakistan failed to survive, the Muslim areas would have to return to the
Indian union; there would be no assistance to recreate it on the basis of two sovereign states.
With this agreement nothing stood in the way of the reincorporation of the Muslim areas into the Indian union
except the notion of a central authority, which had yet to be firmly established. To establish a central authority
proved to be difficult, especially since the provinces had been governed from New Delhi for so long and the
separation of Pakistan's eastern and western wings by one thousand miles of Indian territory. Even if Islamic
sentiments were the best hope of keeping the Pakistani provinces unified, their pluralistic traditions and
linguistic affiliations were formidable stumbling blocks. Islam had certainly been a useful rallying cry, but it
had not been effectively translated into the solid support that Jinnah and the League needed from the Muslim
provinces in order to negotiate an arrangement on behalf of all Indian Muslims.
The diversity of Pakistan's provinces, therefore, was a potential threat to central authority. While the provincial
arenas continued to be the main centers of political activity, those who set about creating the centralized
government in Karachi were either politicians with no real support or civil servants trained in the old traditions
of British Indian administration. The inherent weaknesses of the Muslim League's structure, together with the
absence of a central administrative apparatus that could coordinate the affairs of the state, proved to be a
crippling disadvantage for Pakistan overall. The presence of millions of refugees called for urgent remedial
action by a central government that, beyond not being established, had neither adequate resources nor
capacities. The commercial groups had yet to invest in some desperately needed industrial units. And the need
to extract revenues from the agrarian sector called for state interventions, which caused a schism between the
administrative apparatus of the Muslim League and the landed elite who dominated the Muslim League.
Both the military and the civil bureaucracy were affected by the disruptions wrought by partition. Pakistan
cycled through a number of politicians through their beginning political and economic crises. The politicians
were corrupt, interested in maintaining their political power and securing the interests of the elite, so to have
them as the representative authority did not provide much hope of a democratic state that provided socio-

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economic justice and fair administration to all Pakistani citizens. Ranging controversies over the issue of the
national language, the role of Islam, provincial representation, and the distribution of power between the center
and the provinces delayed constitution making and postponed general elections. In October 1956 a consensus
was cobbled together and Pakistan's first constitution declared. The experiment in democratic government was
short but not sweet. Ministries were made and broken in quick succession and in October 1958, with national
elections scheduled for the following year, General Mohammad Ayub Khan carried out a military coup with
confounding ease.
Between 1958 and 1971 President Ayub Khan, through autocratic rule was able to centralize the government
without the inconvenience of unstable ministerial coalitions that had characterized its first decade after
independence. Khan brought together an alliance of a predominantly Punjabi army and civil bureaucracy with
the small but influential industrial class as well as segments of the landed elite, to replace the parliamentary
government by a system of Basic Democracies. Basic Democracies code was founded on the premise of Khan's
diagnosis that the politicians and their "free-for-all" type of fighting had had ill effect on the country. He
therefore disqualified all old politicians under the Elective Bodies Disqualification Order, 1959 (EBDO). The
Basic Democracies institution was then enforced justifying "that it was democracy that suited the genius of the
people." A small number of basic democrats (initially eighty thousand divided equally between the two wings
and later increased by another forty thousand) elected the members of both the provincial and national
assemblies. Consequently the Basic Democracies system did not empower the individual citizens to participate
in the democratic process, but opened up the opportunity to bribe and buy votes from the limited voters who
were privileged enough to vote.
By giving the civil bureaucracy (the chosen few) a part in electoral politics, Khan had hoped to bolster central
authority, and largely American-directed, programs for Pakistan's economic development. But his policies
exacerbated existing disparities between the provinces as well as within them. Which gave the grievances of the
eastern wing a potency that threatened the very centralized control Khan was trying to establish. In West
Pakistan, notable successes in increasing productivity were more than offset by growing inequalities in the
agrarian sector and their lack of representation, an agonizing process of urbanization, and the concentration of
wealth in a few industrial houses. In the aftermath of the 1965 war with India, mounting regional discontent in
East Pakistan and urban unrest in West Pakistan helped undermine Ayub Khan's authority, forcing him to
relinquish power in March 1969.

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