PAKISTAN STUDIES BOOK REVIEW

SUBMITTED TO MS. SOBIA KHURSHEED

BY ARHUM NAWEED

NDU-BS/PCS-21/S-004

“LOOKING BACK HOW

PAKISTAN BECAME AN ASIAN
TIGER BY 2050”
(Nadeem-ul-Haque)
Book’s introduction:
A thought provoking book written by the renowned Pakistani economist Nadeem-
ul-Haque, published in 2017 has been a rather popular book among economists and
experts all over the world. An optimistic approach to viewing the future for
Pakistan and the right steps in order to do that, is what the book revolves around. It
shines light on a unique perspective on development by identifying deep-rooted
principles of systematic change unless destructive practices such as rent seeking,
corruption and maladministration continue to tank economic productivity and
activity by boosting poverty. The book also provides a detailed critique of the
current economic plan and how it has proven to be unbeneficial, time and again. It
also highlights how self-serving governments and their half-hearted policies based
on international systems have caused disaster within countries and how Pakistan is
a huge example of this. The book puts emphasis on the need to move forward from
age old ways to enhance the economy. The sophisticated approach provides
another great way to promote deep change to allow for better policy and
development to emerge.

Author’s introduction:
Dr. Nadeem-ul-Haque, who holds a Ph.D. in economics from the University of
Chicago, is currently serving as the vice chancellor of Pakistan Institute of
Development Economics (PIDE) and has 5 books and numerous articles on his
account, all of which revolve around development, economy and finance. He has
wide ranging operational experience in policy development and economic
planning. Apart from his work in Pakistan, Nadeem-ul-Haque worked for the
International Monetary Fund for 24 years. During his long and illustrious
affiliation with the IMF, he implemented public structure reform in Sri Lanka and
worked in two central banks to organize a modernization effort, which included
improvements in the monetary framework and the policy formulation process.
Some of the key ideas and visions that his work revolves around are, is favor
towards local government and competing local ideas and initiatives, being critical
od aid that seeks centralization and top down initiatives. He likes to call ‘growth’
an urban phenomenon and believes that city reforms and development must be the
cornerstone of development policy, arguing that this focus will put governance,
public service delivery, and the constitution all in focus as well as give root to
entrepreneurship and innovation. He has a great vision for the economic sector of
Pakistan and wishes to extensively work towards sharpening domestic debate and
raising awareness on the local front.

Analysis:
The genre of the book can be considered as speculative fiction as it is based in the
future and predicts Pakistan to be economically developed. Though the book is
written and conceived on a strong theoretical basis, that is, ‘complexity analysis,’ it
remains a fictional work. The concept of the book is merely utopian as it portrays
Pakistan as “the Asian Tiger”, whereas, the current situation of Pakistan strongly
disagrees with what the author has in mind for the country.
Right at the beginning of the book, the author argues that conventional economic
analysis has failed to yield any sound analysis of the economy that can be
employed for development economics. He further adds that both macroeconomics
and microeconomics are inherently insufficient to lead to any meaningful policy
analysis and recommendations. Thus, the author presents complexity analysis as an
alternative tool for development economics.
The first part of the book is based on a critical analysis of the current situation and
the reasons behind the downfall of the country. Based on the complexity analysis
of Pakistan’s political economy, the author broadly presents these few major
problems of Pakistan:
➢ Foreign aid and the sanctions that arrive with it.
➢ Rent-seeking by the country’s elite and concentration of power/capital
➢ The self-serving institutes that promote bad governance and block all kinds
of reforms.
➢ Selection of candidates for jobs, not based on merit
➢ Constitutional reform is imperative for the country but is not being carried
out.
➢ The Parliament of Pakistan does not function to develop the country,
properly.
➢ The mismanagement of urban centers.
➢ The colonial mindset of all those in power that limits the development.
The next part of the book is based on a sketch of how Pakistan shaped itself into
the economic tiger it is known as, by 2050. The first step occurs in 2019 when the
state realizes its futility and provides seed money to academics and universities to
conduct research, free of technical red tapes. This initiates a home-grown quality
research initiative that results under the umbrella of Research for Pakistan. This
was the first step towards rolling a public-driven research agenda in Pakistan,
giving birth to ‘crowdsourced agenda.’ Then comes the “enlightenment” phase, as
is described by the author. This starts in 2022, as a result of the reforms that took
place in 2019 and causes the formation of networks that would debate public issues
and guide the public debate on issues, free of donor influence, promoting
enlightenment, common knowledge, democratic debate among the citizenry, and,
last but not least, the ownership of change among all stakeholders. By 2025, these
networks were being heard by the parliament as well. The reforms from this year
till 2030 were significant works of this research initiative.
The ideology of the author is based on “building the state first” and not
“development first”. Thus in the book, the country’s focus shifts, and all efforts are
directed towards building the state first so that development can follow. Hence, all
state departments, such as police, internal affairs, and others, are restructured.
Government performance is then judged by the security of life and property and
the quality and speed of justice.
The author next discusses the constitutional amendments carried out to shape and
build the state for development. He presents nine constitutional changes backed by
the networks in the country:
➢ electoral requirements are amended to do away with the overrepresentation
of elite families in the parliament.
➢ the arbitrary powers of the prime minister are curtailed, and the cabinet is
made more powerful.
➢ the budget is taken seriously due to constitutional amendments.
➢ practical rules for an independent judiciary are in place.
➢ a strong local government system is in present.
➢ the civil service, the police, public service delivery agencies, and regulatory
bodies are independent now and depoliticized.
➢ the four provinces have been abandoned, and the country consists of 20
states of the equal population
 ➢ the census is made mandatory and it is held regularly through constitutional
changes and is also tied with resource allocation to states.
➢ the colonial pyramid of authorities is dismantled, and ‘unified pay scales’
have been abandoned and replaced with good pay but without privileges,
thus making public service more efficient and localized.
The writer further argues that with the colonial system left behind, the public
service sector flourishes and becomes more localized. Hence, the cities were
managed more efficiently and became power houses of production. Industries were
also rebuilt. The author wrote that sugar, cotton, cement, and the banking sector
had been restructured by the existence of strictly ruled authorities, who had no
political influence. It was also told that the country had turned into a secular state
and not an Islamic one where genuine Islamic scholars were employed to counter
Mullahs.
In the next part of the book, the author explains the results that were obtained in
order for Pakistan to become an economical leader in Asia. Pakistani state worked
on system development and not on sectoral development. The state taxed the
inheritance and not everything else. Entrepreneurship emerged in Pakistan and
helped the country develop. Opportunities were provided to the poor due to strong
systems the state put in place. The development was public-centric and not
industry-centric. Education was in demand because people knew that it was the
only way to prosper in Pakistan, and family ties would not give them better
prospects. Due to planned urbanization and inheritance reforms, females were
included in the mainstream and were meaningfully contributing to the country’s
development.
Conclusion:
While listing down the problems of Pakistan, the author has ignored the problems
arising out of civil-military relations in the country. Another issue missing in this
analysis is the issue of Kashmir. This issue has been draining finances from
Pakistan’s coffers for a long now. The public agenda set by people, as presented by
the author, has completely ignored this vital issue of Pakistan’s politics and
defense strategy.
However, the book is an excellent read and recommended by great authors and
economists for other aspiring economists and social scientists to go through and
get guidance from. Dr. Nadeem has given the readers an experience beyond the
concept of utopia but has also made it seem like a huge possibility in the future of
Pakistan and given birth to optimism in the minds of the readers.