We studied different concepts of governments and regimes in the reading that was assigned for session 6. Pakistan is a third world (developing) country with a complex system of government and an institutional framework that is different from a lot of other countries. The concepts of 'western polyarchies', 'islamic regimes' and 'military regimes' can all be applied to describe the system of Pakistan at once.
For instance Pakistan has a similar system of democracy or multiparty elections etc as India. But India has never had a military rule but Pakistan had military governments for almost 45 years since independence. At the same time we have the notion of 'Islamic Republic' attached to our name which makes things even more complicated in my opinion. I mean like Saudi Arabia we don't have a strict implementation of the Shariah law at all levels. But we do have Shariah courts that are quite influential and we have other councils working for implementation of Islamic laws as well for example CII (council of islamic ideology) etc. And there are other organizations as TTP, various Sunni organizations, Shia organizations that constantly try to project the idea that Pakistan was made in the name of Islam and it can only run by strict adherence Shariah laws at all levels of working of state.
While applying the concept of military governments in Pakistan we can see that our many important state institutions or state enterprises are under the control of military. Retired military personnels of higher rank are usually hired as the directors of organizations like PTCL or PIA etc. Military is thought to be the most important player in Pakistan's policy making. Milbus is another example of military's exploitation of state's resources for their own benefit.
Hence, when I tried to reflect on different modern world regimes in terms of Pakistan's political system I couldn't relate to a single one and I found our situation quite different or complicated may be.
1 comment:
No offence, but saying that one cannot simply relate to a single modern world regime would be quite harsh. Although dictatorship had dominated the governmental framework of Pakistan but the regime of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and the last couple of years as a democratic state has somehow managed to give a firm grip to democracy in Pakistan.
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