The answer to this ambiguous question can be seen in the context of Pakistan. The two factors that is, government and state are supposed to work in coalition. From the historical background of Pakistan, the military and the bureaucracy have been mostly in power. The initial bureaucratic governments, the three direct marshal laws and the lack of democracy have strenghtened the state power. But this kind of state is not what we have studied theoretically. With the perspective of four rival theories, Pakistan's state closely lie with the leviathan and patriarchal state. The state's monarchy can be examined by the removal of four consecutive govermnents from 1988 to 1999.
Globalisation is considered to be a threat for state, and in case of Pakistan this has benefited the governments as the overall world notion is now against monarchies. As when Musharraf came in view, most countries were not willing to go in any dealings with Pakistan and it was 9/11 that helped Musharraf to strengthen his regime. So it can be assumed that globalisation benefits the public mostly.
Now due to global pressure the Pakistani state is not capable enough to enjoy full authority yet it has still the ability to interfere in the government's decisions. Thus state is superior than a government as most of the time government has acted as a puppet in state's hand, in case of Pakistan. Although we study that "governmnet is the means through which the authority of the state is brought into operation" yet this concept is manipulated a lot of times in a realistic world by unfair means.
3 comments:
Both the Pakistani state and the government are weak compared to other more developed states. That being said, I think stronger governments will eventually be able to influence the direction of the state through a variety of means - such as through the power of the purse as you noted in comments on a previous post - and it remains to be seen where Pakistan ends up going.
You have mentioned in your post that governments have not been so powerful in Pakistan but I think the state has not been quite powerful as well. The state institutions haven't had enough power as well. Nawaz Sharif used to pick army chiefs of his own choice in his previous governments. Chief Justices of Supreme Court of Pakistan had to leave their offices because of the orders from presidents. In Pakistan there is a need to strengthen the state institutions as well as parliament or governments and their is a need to create a balance in the amount of power exercised by government and state.
Yes Noor you are right in power balance. As regards to Nawaz Sharif, Jehangir Karamat had to resign because of him but when when Sharif came in conflict with Musharraf, there was already a disrespect created in army because of the forceful resignation of Jahangir Karamat, so army used its power which shows that ultimately if any government personnel will show threat to state power, it can easily be removed.
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