Scenarios for the future

[taimurak]

Dr Maleeha Lodhi
Tuesday, April 10, 2012

The writer is special adviser to the Jang Group/Geo and a former envoy to the US and the UK.

Can Pakistan escape its chequered political past to chart a hopeful way forward? Can it overcome its faultlines to build a better future? Is Pakistan fated to repeat the past rather than learn from it?

Analysts looking beyond the immediate to evaluate the country’s longer-term prospects offer varying answers. Scenario building about Pakistan’s future has been something of a growth industry in western countries that see their interests tied up with the country’s fortunes. But even when foreigners have war-gamed the country’s future they have often relied on the expertise of Pakistani scholars or practitioners.

Among such projects three are noteworthy. All pick a Goldilocks ‘middle’ way to predict something in between success and failure as the country’s most plausible outcome.

In a 2010 study, Jonathan Paris, a London-based American analyst, looked at a one to three year horizon to suggest three scenarios. After reviewing a number of variables including the economy, civil-military relations and ‘Islamist trends’ he concluded that in confronting imposing challenges, Pakistan will ‘muddle through’ rather than find a ‘pathway to success’ or become a failed state.

In a recently published book, Stephen Cohen sets out seven scenarios for the next five years. He argues that the most likely is some form of ‘muddling through’ in what he calls ‘an establishment-dominated Pakistan’. In this outlook “the state is always in transition but never arrives.”

His six other scenarios are explained by their titles: emergence of parallel Pakistans, democratic consolidation, breakaway and breakup, civil or military authoritarianism, an army-led revolution, and what he calls a post-crisis scenario, in which a major calamity pushes the country on an unpredictable path. He does not regard these as likely in the near term but sees a combination of ‘muddling through’ and ‘parallel Pakistans’ as Pakistan’s probable future. ‘Parallel Pakistans’ refers to provinces or regions charting their own course on governance, economic development and accommodating Islamist and regional forces.

A workshop organised in 2011 by New York University’s Centre for Global Affairs suggested three broad outcomes: Radicalisation, Fragmentation and Reform. It discussed variations of these three futures to consider where Pakistan would be in 2020. In the radicalisation scenario a rather fanciful trajectory is mapped in which spiralling economic losses, political infighting and perceived military threats ignite nationalist populist sentiment that leads to the election of a conservative military officer. A radical Islamic agenda is adopted by the new regime, which seeks to strengthen Pakistan by reinforcing bonds with the Muslim world. The study hastens to add that none of its scenarios describe the most likely future, only plausible developments. None assumes Pakistan will attain stability by 2020.

My scenarios for the country’s near term future are outlined in the book I edited and published last year*. I suggested five possible scenarios for the next few years. The first is more of the same or muddling through. I see this as more dangerous in its consequences than other writers because it can lead to economic collapse, uncontrollable social unrest and even fragmentation.

Political and economic dysfunction feed on each other in this scenario. Politics remains stuck in a stagnant mode unable to represent a changing, more urbanised Pakistan, or the aspirations of a growing middle class and youthful population. The political system also fails to reflect the dynamics created by a shift in the country’s economic centre of gravity. There is little change in patronage-driven governance and in the character of parties built around families rather than issues.

This leads to avoidance of urgent decisions to stem the country’s fiscal crisis. The ‘fire fighting’ approach and policy drift that characterises this scenario fails to reverse the country’s downward spiral. Far from being benign, the muddling through scenario poses a danger to the country’s stability. Not only does business as usual compound the governance vacuum and result in economic breakdown but it also culminates in unprecedented public unrest and lawlessness.

The second scenario figures in political conversations and in fears voiced by many politicians. But that does not make it plausible. This is a phase of military backed civilian technocratic rule ushered in to implement urgent structural reforms and avert a financial breakdown. This is an improbable scenario, as any such course of action will lack public acceptability and be fiercely opposed by all political parties. Any extra-constitutional intervention would be open to certain and successful challenge from an independent judiciary and a powerful media.

If the past is a guide, the shortcomings of this option have already been exposed in terms of both performance and legitimacy. Experience also suggests that political management in this scenario closely mirrors that in the ‘muddling through’ one. Cooption of the same elites stymies rather than spurs much needed reforms.

A third scenario frequently peddled by outsiders is social breakdown under the weight of mounting challenges, leading to state collapse, and possible takeover by those labelled as Islamist extremists. This alarmist scenario is based more on fear than objective assessment of critical variables. It mistakenly assumes that ‘Islamist’ forces are monolithic or unified and fails to recognise the country’s size and diversity. It also underestimates the capacity of countervailing forces – the predominantly ‘moderate’ character of traditional society and a disciplined military – to prevent the state’s capture by radicals. Despite its atrophying authority the state possesses sufficient capacity and coercive power to avert such an outcome.

The fourth scenario is one in which one or more of the established parties, fearful of losing political ground to changes in the social and economic landscape consider adjusting to these new dynamics. They start shifting from patronage to issue-based politics and modifying ticketing policies to embrace urban middle class members and professionals. They also formulate serious policy platforms to tap changing popular aspirations. What makes this scenario somewhat implausible is that these parties’ capacity to remake themselves is inhibited by their dominating characteristics: dynastic or hereditary leadership, clientelist bases of support among biradaris and tribes, and patronage-focused activity that oils their operation and rewards their supporters.

The fifth scenario is the most promising for its transformative potential to break from a past that has hindered Pakistan’s progress. This is of a middle class-led coalition galvanising a reform movement to fundamentally change the way the country is governed. Its aim is to make governance responsive to people’s needs, not just the interests of privileged elites. This coalition mobilises higher public participation in politics and spurs the large non-voting electorate to vote for change. It builds wider support in the cities as well as the countryside, reaching out to the young.

Changing economic and social dynamics become drivers to transform the basis of representative politics and in time, governance. Factors that can be a force for change include greater urbanisation, shift in the structure and location of economic power (indicated by the sharply declining share of agriculture in GDP), rise of a sizeable middle class, spread of modern communications and public awareness brought about by an energetic media.

These changes offer an unprecedented opportunity to align politics with the energy and dynamism of a more urbanised Pakistan and the public yearning for change. The lawyers’ movement of 2007-09 was an early indicator of the possibilities of urban-led politics. But this single-issue campaign dissipated once its goal was achieved.

In this scenario a coalition is built to pursue a broader agenda and extricate representative politics from sterile and moribund practices, ultimately replacing the politics of patronage with that of public service. The coalition either allies with a party that is persuaded to adopt a reform agenda or organises its own to push this agenda.

Prospects for realisation of this scenario may not appear strong in the immediate future. But it would be a mistake to underestimate the stirring for change that manifests itself across society today and resonates almost daily in the media. This may take time to crystallise but could eventually morph into a new kind of politics.

*Pakistan: Beyond the crisis state, (Hurst/Columbia University Press/OUP, 2011)

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