April 5, 2012
Shahid Javed Burki

Pakistan is undergoing three transitions simultaneously. How they unfold matters not only for Pakistan, but also for much of the Muslim world, particularly as the Arab Spring forces change upon governments across the wider Middle East. Most Muslim countries were governed for decades by autocrats, who had either emerged directly from the armed forces, or had strong khaki support. That was the case in Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Syria, and, of course, Pakistan. The Arab Spring drained away whatever spurious legitimacy that style of governance ever had. But, in Pakistan, de-legitimation of military rule had actually occurred three years earlier, and the pressure for change came from much the same source - a restive and mobilised new middle class.

Several decades ago, the American political scientist, Samuel P. Huntington, argued that economic prosperity in developing countries with weak governing institutions would not necessarily lead to political stability. On the contrary, economic growth in such contexts can be - and often is - politically destabilising. That proved to be the case in Turkey and Pakistan in the 1990s and early 2000s, and later in much of the Arab world. Indeed, the rising aspirations of Arab youth in Egypt and Tunisia, the wellspring of the Arab Spring, followed impressive economic growth that had failed to trickle down. And such rising expectations have been visible in all large Muslim countries.
As Huntington suggested, when young people see their economies grow, they begin to demand participation in decisions that affect all aspects of their lives, not just their economic well being. Military-dominated political systems precluded such participation, so, with economic growth, demilitarisation of politics became a rallying cry in all large military-led Muslim states, from Indonesia to the Mediterranean coast.

But demilitarisation means more than transferring power and policymaking from the armed forces to elected parliaments. In their recent book, Why Nations Fail, Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson suggest that elections - even those that are free and fair - do not necessarily move societies from what they call “extractive” to “inclusive” systems. Indeed, extraction of a country’s wealth for use by the elite can occur even in democratic societies when those who dominate the political system face no constraints other than periodic elections. This is where the effort to devise institutional mechanisms to check and balance elite behaviour enters the picture. Indeed, the search for such mechanisms is precisely what is now underway in Pakistan.

In Pakistan, a discredited military dictator was forced by public opinion to withdraw from power, creating political space for elected representatives. They assumed control, but did not govern wisely. While their personal wealth increased, living standards for everyone else either stagnated or, for lower-income groups, declined. So, as Pakistan negotiated its political transition, it experienced significant economic decline. As a result, Pakistan’s judiciary, media, and many civil-society organisations are now engaged in attempts not only to keep the soldiers in their barracks, but also to constrain the political establishment’s rapacious behaviour.

Three cases before the country’s increasingly assertive Supreme Court promise to take Pakistan from the phase of demilitarisation to a system in which meaningful checks can be exercised on those who wield power. One case is an attempt to force PM Gilani’s administration to reopen proceedings in a Swiss court that were examining charges of money laundering and misuse of public funds by President Zardari. In the second case, the Supreme Court wants the intelligence agencies to account for the missing people. The third case opened an old complaint lodged by a politician decades ago against the “troika” - composed of the President, the PM, and the COAS - that then governed Pakistan. The plaintiff alleged that large amounts of funds were channelled to the troika’s favoured candidates to contest the 1990 general election.

Finally, Pakistan is undergoing a transition in which power is moving from the central administration to sub-national governments. The 18th Amendment to the Constitution, adopted in 2010, does precisely that, but implementation is being delayed by parties that prefer a highly centralised political structure.
If Pakistan’s transformation of its political system succeeds, it could serve as a model for other Muslim countries that are attempting to move from extractive to inclusive systems of governance. Turkey has already travelled some distance along this path. If Pakistan also advances, demilitarisation of politics elsewhere in the Islamic world might not be far behind.


The writer is a former finance minister of Pakistan and vice president of the World Bank, and is currently Chairman of the Institute of Public Policy in Lahore. The article has been reproduced from the Turkish newspaper, Today’s Zaman, with which TheNation has a content sharing agreement.

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