Democracy,

Authoritarianism and
Development in Pakistan
Dr. Muhammad Ali Jan
 Theories of the State and Democracy in
South Asia
• THE OVERDEVELOPED STATE: PRECURSOR TO THE HYBRID REGIME
• Alavi  Power effectively in the hands of a military-bureaucratic oligarchy for
most of Pakistan (and Bangladesh’s) history
• Relative autonomy of the state in the colonial and post-colonial social
formations
• Contentions between different social classes and different strata of classes
(landlords strongest group but also foreign and domestic capital, peasantry,
working class)  conditions created for power of the state as mediator.
• Role as developer of industrial capitalism  often went against landlords
• Goes against classic Marxist or liberal theories where state REFLECTS or is
subservient to the interests of INDIGENEOUS CAPITALISTS  here the state
often CREATES capital
 Pakistan as an overdeveloped state
• Colonial rule  bureaucracy (followed by military) were the instruments
of foreign rule since the ruling class was socially based in in London.
• Given a lot of powers which DID NOT exist in Europe itself where they
were subordinate to the crown or parliament.
• Bureaucrats were brought up on the myth of 'guardianship',
• mission to defend the interests of the people against supposed personal
ambitions of 'professional‘ politicians.
• Likewise Army brought up to be the custodian of 'law and order'
• politicians were the greatest threat to law and order.
“Incorrect to say that the army and the civil bureaucracy politically
neutral and to keep themselves uninvolved with politicians. On the
contrary, by virtue of their jobs, they were deeply involved in political
struggles of the times; but on behalf of the Imperial Power.”
Social Backgrounds of Military-Bureaucratic Oligarchy

• Military  difference between rank and file + major recruitment concentrated in a

few districts  created not just organizational but also social and ideological cohesion
• Most of the British Indian army (around 60%) was recruited from the Punjab
• As a bordering region it was very important for security.
• CSP  from the upper classes but also certain sections of the middle-classes  the
steel frame of the empire  became a caste of its own
• Paternalism and hierarchy  CSP was overwhelmingly White, slowly became brown;
then came the Provincial Services which were brown
• White officer was patron of brown officers and the bureaucrats as a whole were
patrons/guardians of the entire population. They knew better about how to rule than the
people themselves.
• Worst people were ‘political agitators’ etc.
• Slowly working with elected officials from 1919 onwards, especially after 1935
• Many of these traditions were continued in the post-colonial period but without the
overall control of the crown  now the bureaucracy had a country.
 In Pakistan, the I.C.S. was resurrected in the form of the Civil Service of Pakistan
(C.S.P.) the 500 or so members of which, held, as of right, the commanding positions
reserved them the administrative machinery, with over 500,000 government
employees under them during the 1950s and 1960s. About 20 members were
recruited to the C.S.P. each year from amongst those who secured top positions in a
competitive examination for the Central Superior Services (which comprised about a
dozen cadres) for which only candidates between the ages of 21 and 24 could
compete. The subsequent training, as well as the initial recruitment, was" controlled
by the Public Service Commission whose autonomy was jealously guarded—it was
itself manned by C.S.P. officers. It was a closed group-almost a caste of its own—
because membership was limited to those who had undergone the examination and
selection procedures at the prescribed age—no one could be appointed to it in any
other way.
 Some Factors increasing the power of the civil-
military oligarchy at independence
• Partition and refugee crisis  bureaucracy worked very hard to move and settle
millions of people
• Jinnah also had to rely on them because new state could only be created out of the old and
CSP was the vanguard.
• Much more organized than political parties and even created its own super-
bureaucratic post: Secretary General of the Government of Pakistan!
• The musical chairs in the first decade of Independence was largely as a result of
the inability of the institutions of the state (bureaucracy and the army high
command) to trust the elected representatives of the country
• Two other outstanding issues contributed to this distrust:
• Power-sharing arrangements between center and provinces
• The Role of Islam in the political system.
• Even after Ayub’s military coup, military returned to the barracks and it was
actually a civilian (bureaucratic) government
 Democracy at the grassroots: Social and
Political Determinants of voting behaviour
• Many common misconceptions about voting behaviour:
• People vote simply for their tribe/biraderi
• “People vote where their pirs or landlords tell them to.”
• “People vote in exchange for a plate of biryani” – extremely elitist views
• More scholarly literature argues that people DON’T vote for ideology nor for party
programs.
• In reality, local voting behavior is diverse and complex
• Broadly, can be divided into social and political determinants of voting
behaviour according to Andrew Wilder
• Social determinants include factors like biraderi, landlord or pir power
• Political determinants include factors like party/leader identification,
patronage orientation, national issue orientation
 FROM OVERDEVELOPED STATE TO
HYBRID REGIME IN PAKISTAN
• VERY FEW PURE DEMOCRACIES IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES
• LACKING IN SOME DIMENSION OF DEMOCRACY
• 3 CRUCIAL IN PARTICULAR
• COMPETITIVENESS
• CIVIL LIBERTIES
• TUTELARY INTERFERENCE
 Social Determinants of Voting Behaviour
• Most cited factors are biraderi (kinship/clan) identification
• Assumption is that most people will vote for their own clans (Jat will vote
for a Jat, Arain for an Arain, Rajput for a Rajput)
• Several problems with the assumption:
• Many villages/regions in Pakistan contain the same biraderi so often the rival
factions (dharas) are from the same biraderi
• In other villages no one biraderi has enough votes to win an election on its own
• Rival factions seek out support from other biraderis/sub-biraderis as well as from
political parties to create coalitions
• Other factors  increasing urbanization, the development record of a
candidate (can overturn caste/biraderi factor)
• Likewise, decreasing importance of big landlords (no longer dependent on
them as sharecroppers) as well as religious leaders (may still believe in a
pir but keep political decisions separate).
• Of course, landlords, biraderi leaders and pirs have an advantage over
other types of candidates due to historical reasons
• But they increasingly get votes NOT on the basis of their status but on
how they have performed in ‘service delivery’ to their constituencies
• Shandana Mohmand has done recent work on rural areas about how
locally biraderis still provide a powerful mechanism for initial
organization (their network is strong) but increasingly stay united if
there is patronage given to them.
 Political Determinants of Voting Behaviour: Party/leader
identification

• Despite talks of the common person NOT being interested in party and simply
voting for other reasons, from the 1970s onward party and leader identification
has been a consistently powerful factor, ESPECIALLY in URBAN PAKISTAN.
• Wilder’s analysis of Data
• In 1970 and 1977 voters in urban Punjab voted primarily FOR Bhutto’s Pakistan Peoples
Party slogan of roti, kapra aur makan
• Since 1988 it was voting either FOR PML-N or AGAINST PPP
• Some key factors that explain this shift:
• The anti-Bhutto movement in 1977 included small and medium businessmen, religious
ulema, rightwing student groups and journalists, professionals: i.e. middle-classes
• This group gained more importance as a result of the changes after Zia’s martial law
• Groups such as labour unions and progressive student unions weakened
• These groups identified more strongly with PML-N than PPP
• By the 90s anyone who got a party ticked in urban Lahore would win irrespective
of other factors
 Voting in Rural Pakistan
• “There is a common perception in Pakistan that candidate votes far outnumber
party votes in rural constituencies, and that the former are determined
primarily by traditional social ties of family, kinship, and faction.5 The following
section will argue that while these social determinants are important, especially
in western Punjab, voting behaviour is increasingly being influenced by voter
concerns over local issues such as assistance in thana- katcheri (police station
and courthouse) affairs; or the need for a road, school, or basic health unit in
their village; or for an electricity, telephone, or natural gas connection for their
house; or for jobs, promotions, or transfers in the workplace (Wilder, p. 192-3).
Growing number of votes are therefore being cast for candidates with strong
records of addressing these local concerns by delivering patronage to their
constituents and introducing development schemes in their constituencies..”
How Party identification works in rural vs. urban Punjab

• Access to patronage only available if candidate wins  winning now increasingly

requires party ticket
• Parties also want candidates who have shown some potential: right biraderi or
faction, good record of development/service delivery
• All these factors can reinforce one another
• “while in urban areas a major party ticket is essential as a result of the party
identification of voters, in rural areas it is necessary to establish a candidate’s
credibility as a potential patron. In other words, while urban voters are voting for
political parties and their leaders, rural voters are voting for patrons who must
belong to a party in order to be effective”
• The emergence of a two-party system and the ever-decreasing percentage of the
vote won by Islamic parties (only 6.6 per cent of the vote and 9 of 207 seats in 1993)
can largely be explained by the unwillingness of voters to ‘waste’ their votes on third
party candidates who would not be in a position to provide patronage
• Even in rural areas, independents getting less votes and most join party after winning
 The changing meaning of ‘delivery’
• Before 1970, delivery might just mean helping people solve local
factional disputes, i.e. ‘Thana-Kacheri’
• Also, in 1970 rural poor thought PPP would be in the position to
deliver
• Many were disappointed and after 1970 voted once again for old
influential but their DEMANDS had INCREASED
• So Bhutto’s PPP did succeed in increasing the ASPIRATIONs of the
rural poor even if it did not fulfil them.
• Post-Bhutto in rural Punjab delivery meant water, electricity, schools
health etc.
Qualities of candidates: Gallop Survey
 The Democratization of Patronage
• Patronage has been a long standing feature of South Asian politics
• What is a recent development, however, is the extent to which
patronage has been ‘democratized’. With the crumbling of traditional
hierarchical social structures in much of the Punjab, the hold of group
leaders over their followers is decreasing. Providing patronage to
these leaders alone, therefore, is no longer sufficient. Today, the
average voter is demanding direct access to patronage in exchange for
support on election day.
 Patronage, corruption and rule of law
• The demand for patronage is not necessarily a demand for greater following of laws
nor one of decreasing ‘corruption’ (however defined)
• In fact, the expectation of voters/constituents is that the ideal candidate will be able
to BEND the rules/laws in order to get their work done
• Equally importantly therefore, they are NOT looking for LEGISLATORS or people with
great understanding of legislation/law-making/creating bills etc.
• How does this change ones perception of ‘corruption’?
• This is further helped by the ‘commercialization of politics’ and the need to raise large
amounts of funds for contesting elections
• Big question about ‘corruption’ missing in mainstream discussions: in a country with
such large constituencies and so-called local electables, how does one make sure that
the party has enough money? In other words, financing parties is the key question.
• ‘Look, we get elected because we are ba asr log [effective people] in our area.
People vote for me because they perceive me as someone who can help them.
And what kind of help do they seek from me? Somebody’s brother has committed
a murder and he comes to me and I protect him from the authorities. Somebody’s
son is a matric fail and I get him a job as a teacher or a government servant.
Somebody’s nephew has been caught thieving and I protect him. This sort of
thing. That is my power…My skill is that laws don’t mean anything to me, and that
I can cut right across them and help people whether they are in the right or in the
wrong. If somebody’s son is first class, he’s not coming to me to get him a job. If
somebody has merit they very rarely come to me— occasionally they come to
me. But it’s the real wrongdoers who come to me (Anonymous MNA)
 The dark side of patronage
• It politicizes bureaucratic institutions
• It can create instability because there are NEVER enough resources to
satisfy the demands of patronage/service delivery  unmet
expectations  instability
• Keep in mind this is the same time period as IMF’s Structural Adjustment
Programs which liberalized the economy and asked to cut government
expenditure
• This also meant that anti-incumbency is a big feature in Pakistani
politics (to what extent still true?)
 National Issue Orientation
• Roti Kapra Makan in 1970
• Charismatic leaders Going over the heads of local
politicians/influential
• Electricity crisis and the anti-PPP vote in 2013 in Punjab?
• 2018: regional blocs of party power (PPP in Interior Sindh, PTI in
North Punjab and KPK and PML-N in central Punjab?)
• Need to pay more attention to regional trends and parties and how
they change in a competitive but also a situation where non-party
institutions are also involved in elections.