Search

The objective of the current study is to find out the male's perception about female political participation. Prior researchers in this area were mostly quantitative hence the current study is a qualitative study to get an in-depth understanding of the phenomenon. This study used purposive sampling technique and the findings of the study are based on 20 in-depth interviews and 2 focus group discussions. The study concluded that religious, economic and patriarchal mind-set is the main factors that hinder women in the field of politics. The findings of the current study can be effectively used to make women participate in a more productive way by increasing the awareness at the grass root level and by making appropriate policies and the national level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although, historically, the first political manifestations of Pakhtun nationalism may be traced to Bayazid Ansari's (1525-85) Roshani movement (Gregorian, 1969 :43-45; and Misdaq, 2006: 36-39) and Khushal Khan Khattak's (1513-89) rebellion against the Mughal rule, however, its ethno-nationalist roots are usually mapped out from the pre-partition mobilization of common Pakhtun masses by the Khudai Khidmatgar (servants of the God) movement of Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan. Starting off as a social reform society, the Khudai Khidmatgars metamorphosized into first an anti-colonial nationalist movement, evolving on the eve of partition of India, into one of ethnic nationalism. The post-independence period witnessed calls for attainment of either an independent Pakhtunistan or greater autonomy for the Pakhtun regions within a federal structure of the state. The irredentist trend in Pakhtun ethno-nationalist politics manifested itself in the controversial Pakhtunistan issue that strained relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Pakistani state's growth and rise in ethnic Pakhtun share in the civil-military bureaucracy witnessed greater integration of Pakhtuns within the polity of Pakistan and a dampening of separatist tendencies in them. Renaming of NWFP as Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and extension of provincial autonomy under the 18th Amendment further boosted Pakhtun ethnic integration into the state of Pakistan. More recently, however, Pakhtun ethno-nationalist movement is believed to be assuming a distinct fervor. The rise of Taliban phenomenon in the tribal belt and settled districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has been labeled as a violent manifestation of Pakhtun ethno-nationalism manifested in an Islamist garb. The paper, besides analyzing the integrationist and the separatist (irredentist) trends in Pakhtun ethno-nationalist politics, also aims at exploring the more recent phenomena of its construction around the conceptual framework of 'ethnicizing Islam' in the Pakhtun context. It argues that the current Islamist manifestation of Pakhtun ethno-politics is a product of Pakistani state's attempts at subduing the irredentist Pakhtun strain (that bothered the state throughout the 1960s and the 1970s in Pakhtunistan issue) through support to the Islamist movement inside Afghanistan, especially in later half of 1970s and in the wake of Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. This paper analyzes the Pakhtun ethno-nationalist struggle, especially in the earlier decades as a form of class struggle to attain political power in the state. As such, it primarily adopts a Marxist lens to the problem of ethnic nationalism among the Pakhtuns for the beginning phase of it. Most of the analyses are historical in a sense that the paper traces the history of Pakhtun ethno nationalism in Pakistan. Moreover, the paper does not claim to be a consummate effort, rather it proposes that there are alternative explanations as plausible as this one to understand the issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper attempts to explore and analyze the genesis and dynamics of extremism in Pakistan, phenomena which can have serious political implications for South Asia. While analyzing the evolution and growth of extremism in Pakistan, the underlying hypothesis of this paper is that Pakistani society as a whole, more specifically, its intellectuals, displayed strong resistance to extremism preached or practiced by any group or individual. Intellectuals from west Punjab, no less than those from other provinces and areas of Pakistan, were always in the forefront in all such political phases or instances. A general study of the times and literary works of Shah Hussain, Bullah Shah, Habib Jalib, Munir Niazi et al, will clearly reflect that throughout history, the Punjabi poets have never endorsed acts which might endanger human life and always stood up against violence and extremism. For them, human existence was not about hatred or violence. Instead, they always emphasised on unconditional love for humanity as a whole irrespective of caste, creed and religion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Balochistan is a land which has always been visited by different nations throughout the history. Despite of many phases of obscurity, this marvelous land never lost its geo political and geo-strategic importance. Being located close to Middle East, Central Asia, South Asia and Indian Ocean, Balochistan has always been serving as a passage for foreign historian, politicians and armies. The geographical location of Balochistan makes it a sensitive region not only for Pakistan but also plays the key role in determining the significance of this region on international level by developing historic interest of the global powers. Being the best possible marine passage in the Indian Ocean of the Eastern, Central, and Western divisions of Asia, Balochistan has attained highly significant position among international powers by developing great atmosphere of competition for securing and dominating its sea paths which are now essential for the enormous world trade and energy shipment. Unique and outstanding physical geography of Balochistan is taking on increased importance in regional political affairs. Vast fields of natural gas reserves and other valuable minerals have become the centre for attraction and interest of foreign investors and developers which would provide an ideal profitable aim for global powers. The objectives of foreign states are to become economically more powerful to get global hegemony by controlling the major portion of world's energy resources. so it is the biggest requirement of time to spread their influence over world energy resources, energy transit corridors, major land and maritime trade links and for this purpose, Balochistan has especially become the focus of global geo-political exploitation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes the complex relationships between identity, politics, and civil strife. The author challenges the material, structural, and functionalist approaches to ethnic conflict that undervalue the role of ethnic and religious identities in communal behavior, seeing them as instrumental factors of civil strife. The article focuses on the intersection of identity and politics in Pakistan, addressing attributes of state and substate actors that jointly shape collective behavior. It aims to show how interactions between the state and substate groups outline “the politics of identity,” in which cultural and material concerns jointly define the agendas of kinship networks. The review of the complex Pakistani scene shows that the intersection of sectarian identities and politics generates fierce conflict that threatens to tear Pakistan apart, yet the confluence of ethnic networks and politics keeps the strife-torn country together. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Government of Pakistan established several 'publicly funded, privately managed' companies based on the principles of Public Private Partnership. This paper analyses whether this unique PPP model protects the interests of both the public and private stakeholders, or is this just a means to public subsidizing of private interests? By drawing on evidence from primary and secondary sources, this paper finds that though some elements of PPP are present in these companies, they, as a whole, are not truly public private partnerships. They do, however, represent an innovative relationship between the public and private sectors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The arbitrary, discriminatory and oppressive application of blasphemy laws in Pakistan has been the cause of much discord and violence in recent years, affecting the non-Muslim population particularly harshly. This article traces the history of such laws and argues that the courts have done little to mitigate the adverse effects of their use by successive governments. The article calls for urgent and concerted international pressure to ensure that the Pakistani authorities respect their obligations under relevant legal instruments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the impacts of the decisions of former military ruler General Pervez Musharraf to support the war of terror led by U.S. focusing on the role of the Pakistani Army, politics and the war in Afghanistan. Topics include impacts of the war on the civilians, military aid offered to Pakistan by the U.S., and role of the terrorist organization Taliban in Afghanistan and the 9/11 terror attacks in the U.S.

How and why do developmental state institutions persist? We address this conceptual question through an empirical puzzle: even though Pakistan and Turkey, like South Korea and Taiwan, constructed postwar developmental state institutions, the Pakistani and Turkish economies have been unable to upgrade to higher value-added production following the Korean and Taiwanese experience. If, as many scholars argue, the creation of developmental state institutions is necessary and sufficient for high growth outcomes, how can we understand the divergence between these two sets of cases? We argue that that the persistence of developmental state institutions is contingent on the absence of articulated opposition from agrarian actors and provincial capitalists against regimes of industrial promotion. While Korea and Taiwan suppressed or co-opted potential challengers from the countryside, such actors in Pakistan and Turkey effectively challenged the developmental state in the mid-1970s. We suggest that the politics of developmental state persistence are analytically distinct from the origins of developmental states, thus enabling a more dynamic understanding of the relationship between the politics of developmental state institutions and late industrialization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose - Jinnah was, to some extent, a successful leader in obtaining his goals of becoming the only spokesperson for Muslims in India and gaining a piece of land for Pakistan but the main question is whether these achievements can be attributed to transactional or transformational strategies. Has he managed transactional or transformational change in terms of political culture? This point will be discussed in the paper. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach - A documentary analysis of behaviors, statements and incidents of Jinnah and other relevant personages. Findings - The research shows that Jinnah was neither a transformational nor a charismatic leader. Therefore, his success cannot be attributed to his transformational ideology or charismatic personality. The political maneuvers that he adopted by frequently changing his espoused values and theories-in-use are the sources of his transactional success. Moreover, it is the international events and the vested political interests of the British are among the significant reasons that brought him success. Research limitations/implications - In this work, a detailed comparison has not been made between voluminous theories of leadership because it is beyond the scope of this research. Moreover, it is not the intention of the paper to compare his leadership with that of other leaders; however, the future research in this direction might be useful. Indeed, the relevant leadership examples have been selected from the All India Congress with the major point of reference being the All India Muslim League - the party that brought him real recognition and fame. Practical implications - It is stressed in the research that overt success is not a sufficient criterion to categorize a leader in a specific category without analyzing espoused theory and theories-in-use. The study will help those researchers who are interested in understanding the current political culture of Pakistan. The research will be helpful in enhancing the debate within the theme of leadership, especially transformational, transactional and charismatic. Moreover, the paper will encourage other researchers to compare Jinnah's leadership with that of other political leaders of the world. Originality/value - The research is original as Jinnah's leadership from the perspectives of transformational and transactional leadership styles and the espoused theory and theories-in-use has, so far, not been discussed. It presents significant new arguments and information, which will be in the interest of researchers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The election of new governments in Pakistan and India in 2013 and 2014, respectively, has sparked controversies about the likely trajectory of the enduring rivalry. Emerging individual and domestic conditions reportedly created new opportunities for incremental rapprochement. Equipped with strong political mandates and backed by powerful constituencies, Pakistan's Nawaz Sharif and India's Narendra Modi initially set out to stabilize and revive their countries’ fragile economies and declared improved bilateral ties as a key precondition for implementing their economic agendas. However, mutual recriminations and border tensions resurfaced soon to prevent the revival of the stalled diplomatic dialogue in late 2014. Drawing on a thorough review of research on rivalry maintenance and termination and, in particular, the assumptions of the punctuated equilibrium model developed by Paul Diehl and Gary Goertz, this paper demonstrates how the conflict's structural complexities are likely to persist and undermine the chances for conflict resolution in the years ahead. The prevalent role of the army and a vibrant anti-Indian Islamic ideology in Pakistan, the persistence of a conflict lobby in India, lingering territorial feuds and ever increasing power asymmetries between the two countries, and decreasing third-party mediation in the Indo-Pakistani conflict will likely suffocate any initiative, however well-intended or pragmatic it may be. Even if bold leadership manages to revive a comprehensive peace process, it would have to be based on systematic confidence building measures in order to make it resilient to crises. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A year after assuming power, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's government faced a political crisis fomented by the pro-military opposition leader Imran Khan, who mobilized his supporters to protest alleged electoral rigging in the 2013 poll. Khan had to call off the protests after the Pakistani Taliban's grisly terrorist attack on an army-run school in retaliation for the army's offensive against them in North Waziristan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pakistan detonated its nuclear test on May 28, 1998 in the Chagai hills which is along the western border of the province, Baluchistan. Many personalities and organizations were involved in developing the nuclear device against a backdrop of political, security and economic constraints, as well as opportunities. India's 1974 nuclear explosion had proved a fundamental flashpoint for Pakistan's nuclear program. Pakistan decided to accomplish its vow to "eat grass or go hungry" in its mission on its advance for the nuclear weapons. Pakistan's nuclear program evolved under immensely intricate and challenging security dilemmas and circumstances. Historical experience, a combination of cultural nuances, idiosyncrasies of personalities, and domestic politics existed throughout the nuclearization process. Pakistan faced regional crises, geographical compulsions, technical challenges, global politics, external pressure and international propaganda to nuclear materials know-how. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers the importance of Al-Qaeda and Pakistan in driving British Islamic extremist terrorism during the past decade. Between 2003 and 2013, almost 50 British-born Muslims engaged in multiple high-profile terrorism conspiracies. All were designed to kill or seriously injure British citizens. Drawing on recently obtained court transcripts which offer remarkable detail, these plots are analysed from the point of view of radicalization, finance, training and operational direction. The emergence of extremist terrorism in the UK has its genesis within the Islamic fundamentalist movement, a socio-political ideology that arrived in London in the early 1990s. Contrary to the prevailing discourse, members of the movement constitute a far from homogenous set of individuals. Based on age, overseas connections, experience of conflict and religiosity, they each fulfill diverse tasks that range from preaching and fundraising to facilitating combative jihad. A minority adopted an extremist position that led them to carry out acts of terrorism. Since 2006, the role of Al-Qaeda and Pakistan in relation to this process has steadily declined. For the past seven years British Islamic extremists have pursued terrorism in whatever way they can on their own, with little or any direct support or influence from overseas. The security agencies are now asking how far current events in Syria will overturn this state of affairs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How might we understand the maintenance of political order in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas from Pakistani Independence until the mid-2000s, when all the factors used to explain the current insurgency have been present for decades? This article argues that particularistic institutional arrangements between the state and tribal structures-what I call 'hybrid governance'-established and maintained political order in the region. It develops a conceptual framework for the creation and maintenance of hybrid governance-where the state explicitly shares coercion with societal elites-as a specific kind of indirect rule. Through archival, documentary, and interview-based research, the article then demonstrates the utility of hybrid governance concept in explaining the establishment and operation of political order, and how the marginalization of the agents of hybrid governance is a major causal factor in the onset of the insurgency. The article concludes with some comparative reflections on the sources of political order outside the state's monopoly of force. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that in the wake of 9/11, Pakistan engaged in two policy moves that were highly problematic and controversial from a domestic perspective: the alliance with the United States, and the simultaneous disengagement with the Taliban regime. While realist accounts largely posit these moves as a consequence of US diktat, this article is more interested in exploring how the actions were enabled by a domestic political narrative. Scholarly accounts in the post 9/11 era tend to marginalise the role of indigenous agency and ‘voice’, and overwhelmingly work within frameworks that emphasise the consequential effects of US hegemony. Conversely, in examining official Pakistani political discourses, the article argues that a number of identifiable rhetorical strategies played a performative role in enabling specific Pakistani policy outcomes in the wake of 9/11. In important ways, the analysis moves away from unproblematically assuming Pakistan as simply a passive recipient of American ‘empire’. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why do some militaries retain high authoritarian prerogatives during transitions from militarized authoritarian rule? The Pakistan military's 2007 extrication shows that an important part of the answer lies in the level of structural differentiation between the “military government” and the “military institution”. Despite sustained contentious opposition to military rule, the high level of separation between these two military dimensions of the state allowed the institutional military to delink itself from the discredited dictatorship and exit on its own terms. In the post-authoritarian context, the military has preserved its expansive prerogatives by using a variety of adaptive contestation mechanisms – including the mobilization of the media and the judiciary – that act as a continuing source of political instability and uncertainty. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In The Blood Telegram: Nixon, Kissinger, and a Forgotten Genocide, Gary Bass convincingly argues that the Nixon administration did little to rein in its ally Pakistan from perpetuating genocide against its own population largely because of Islamabad's vital role in facilitating U.S. diplomatic contact with the People's Republic of China. He also shows how the low strategic significance of South Asia for much of the global community, combined with an inordinate regard for the norm of sovereignty, led to a lack of support for the principle of humanitarian intervention. The Blood Telegram partially affirms the proposition that acts of genocide can stem from the choices of a handful of individuals who are determined to achieve a political goal using all available means. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is a local level examination of the political spaces and opportunities that arise for radical political agents in the aftermath of a climatic disaster. It explores the theoretical argument that disasters break the social contract between the state and disaster-affected communities by opening political space for change. The empirical work is based on a large-scale flooding disaster that affected southern Pakistan in 2010 and 2011 and caused international concern around increased Islamist mobilisation through their disaster relief programmes. The case study investigates the extent to which the climatic disaster opened political space for the radical Islamist group, theJamaat-ud-Dawa, to mobilise. Based on fieldwork conducted in three districts of Sindh in southern Pakistan, this paper demonstrates that climatic disasters are able to impact radical politics. This connection is not linear or causal but rather very complex. It further explains why this type of inquiry is relevant in order to understand climate change and security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pakistan state law and Taliban rule of Sharia law are at different ends of a politico-legal spectrum. They share advocacy of one system of law and attraction to eradication of alternatives. Muslahathi Committees in Pakistan are used to explore legal pluralism, hybrid institutions that allow deliberative democracy to seek workable responses to injustice. Formal and traditional systems can show mutual respect and check each other. On the basis of purely qualitative evidence, it is argued that Muslahathi Committees are restorative justice programs that sustainably reduce revenge violence, make a contribution to preventing Pakistan from spiraling into civil war, and assist a police force with low legitimacy to become somewhat more accountable to local civil society. These contributions are limited, but could be more significant with modest investment in human rights and gender awareness training to control abuses and increase accountability. The ruthless, murderous, divisive politics of policing and restorative justice in Pakistan seems a least likely case for deliberative democracy to work. In limited ways it does. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dentistry is a profession where due to the phenomenal growth of Pakistani population, the ratio of dentists to population has greatly decreased and is currently 1:16,426. Another contributing phenomenon in this regard is female dropouts from the profession. Many females occupy a place initially, and leave the profession eventually, whereas a male student having studied dentistry on this seat would have practiced his profession. The Pakistani government spends 7,500 US dollars on the education of a dentist. It actually becomes a double loss of the society. The designated role of a homemaker for females in the family centred society of Pakistan affects the professional lives of these women adversely as it is a heroic task to balance both family and professional life. The overwhelming household and motherhood responsibilities consequently results in, women leaving their occupation at a rate twice that of men. Also women feel strongly that males have stronger personal and professional support systems than women. The government of Pakistan / parents spend millions of rupees on this highly technical and professional education; shall it be transformed into well – educated good house – wives? Pakistan Medical and dental Council (PMDC) does not allow part time work options in teaching institutions and government hospitals. Accepting the women and understanding their requirements to keep up with their family needs and professional demands, is one step forward and this change agent will definitely bring many improvements and reforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay provides new evidence on local Pakistani politics in the immediate post-independence period. It reveals that far from being a period of national unity and service to the fledgling state, the country was mired in faction-building strategies between political rivals, competing for power and scrambling for resources, with debilitating consequences for democratic consolidation. While the new sources – largely based upon the archival records deposited at the National Documentation Centre, Islamabad – provide material relating primarily to Punjab, this essay demonstrates that the tensions between central government and the provinces can only be comprehended by reference to studies of localities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information on Pakistani prisoners, who were imprisoned by the U.S. in the War of Terror and discusses the press coverage of those incidents. Other topics mentioned in this article include modern journalism, the role of radical Islam, and the Pakistani government policy.

A long-standing research tradition on political culture argues that greater support for core liberal values leads to a rejection of destructive political activities and reduced support for violent politics. In this vein, many contemporary analysts of security policy contend that a lack of democratic values in the Middle East promotes the development of violent political organizations. Unfortunately, there have been few direct tests of the hypothesis that an individual’s rejection of democratic values correlates with support for militant groups. We conduct such a test in Pakistan using an original 6,000-person provincially representative survey. We find that strong supporters of democratic values are actually more supportive of militant groups and that this relationship is strongest among those who believe that Muslim rights and sovereignty are being violated in Kashmir. This is consistent with the context of Pakistani politics, where many militant groups use the principle of azadi (i.e., freedom and self-determination) to justify their actions. These results challenge the conventional wisdom about the roots of militancy and underscore the importance of understanding how local context mediates the influence of civic culture on political stability and violence. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The spread of violent extremism, known as radicalization, is one of the major challenges that the state of Pakistan is confronted with. Thousands of people, including women and children, have lost their lives either in the hands of terrorists or in the global war on terror, waged by a number of countries. The major focus of researchers, both in the West and the rest, is on finding out ways and means of arresting radical tendencies in the Muslim world, disengage the extremists from terrorist outfits and help Muslim countries initiate programmes for de-radicalization of their societies. A lot of investment has been done by all important western capitals, USA, NGOs and some developing countries as well to conduct research on various aspects of radicalization and spread of religious extremism in Muslim countries, including Pakistan. There are a number of factors which are responsible for the spread of extremism and radicalism in Pakistani society. An unbalanced education system is one of them. The role of education in the development of the outlooks and behaviors of citizens in any society needs no emphasis. A cohesive, purposeful and well planned / organized education system produces a responsible citizenry, whereas, a divisive, ineffective and disjointed education system produces confused and directionless citizenry. This research examines the dilemma of education in Pakistan and its role in preventing the spread of extremism of various kinds in our society. The objective of this paper is to draw the attention of researchers and policy makers towards a major cause for diffusion of intolerance, extremism, despondency and criminality in the society i.e. the lack of provision for an efficient and adequate education for the citizens of Pakistan. The gist of the study is that prevailing education system of Pakistanis is 'divisive in nature'. It has many streams without any common guiding principles. Barring the elite educational institutions, most of the public sector as well as private sector educational institutions lack the infrastructure, programmes and educational wherewithal to provide sound education, balanced outlook and adequate skills to their graduates. This, in turn, results in unemployment, spread of extremism and criminality in the society. Therefore, any effort to address the issue of radicalization in society is unlikely to achieve significant results, unless a cohesive education system, with a broad consensus on principles, goals and objectives, is developed. The focus of such an education system should be on the provision of sufficient technical skills for the employment of youth and sound citizens' skills to make them future responsible citizens, both at home and abroad. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are several theoretical frameworks proposed by a wide range of scholars to explicate and understand civil and military relations. Rebecca Schiff's concordance theory is one of the recent models in this theoretical tradition. She argues that the theory of separation of civil and military relations given by Huntington not only fails to give an adequate account of domestic military interventions in Pakistan but also attempts to impose the American model of civil and military relations on it. Given the problems and flaws of the separation model, she proposes the concordance theory in place of the separation model. Schiff claims that the concordance theory provides an appropriate model to explain and to avoid military intervention in Pakistan. She purports to demonstrate that a military coup takes place due to discordance among three partners on four indicators. This article will show through the case study of Pakistan that concordance theory fails on four accounts. First, Pakistan's military coup is not the consequence of discordance but concordance. Second, there are not three partners but two. Third, the notion of four indicators runs the risk of oversimplification. Fourth, concordance theory makes somewhat the same mistake committed by the separation model attempting to superimpose the American civil and military framework upon Pakistan. This article will demonstrate that concordance theory draws the civil and military relations upon two rival approaches: abstract theoretical and multicultural approach. By consequence it goes through the internal contradiction because of which it is fated to fail. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Historically, judiciary in Pakistan is not known for its independence. Over the years the courts have frequently been frightened to support military coups and other acts contrary to the rule of law. Military governments have then manipulated the courts and introduced legal and constitutional changes to strengthen the military's political hold, also benefiting rightwing political parties. Due to military coup in 1999, judiciary was intervened to pave the way for legitimacy. With the passage of time the situation changed when the judiciary showed independence, challenging government policies. In this connection, Musharraf suspended the Chief Justice of Pakistan Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry. In November 2007, he suspended the Constitution, imposed strict restrictions on media, imprisoned lawyers, judges, human rights activists, and removed dozens of senior judges. A countrywide movement was started by lawyers, political parties and human rights activists for the restoration of judiciary and the deposed judges - including the Chief Justice of Pakistan. This paper describes the judicial crisis during the Musharraf regime and the restoration of Chief Justice of Pakistan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Extremism and militancy is the prime issue of Pakistan in general and Southern Punjab in particular. As far as demographic enormity of the province is concerned, the issue of radicalization has got primacy. Do economic and social conditions echo in the backdrop of this issue or these are religious organizations that are coining their vested agendas? These questions need to be addressed with empirical evidence. This research article prods into issue and bring put some genuine results. In order to address the issue of radicalization, it is highly required that social and economic grievances of the region should be addressed and effective legislation should be done to monitor and administer the madrasahs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper narrates the history of authoritarianism in the post-independence Pakistan and its effect on the process and prospects of democratisation and the possibilities of institutionalisation of local government reforms. The political history of Pakistan after the independence and other associated contextual factors highly differentiate her contemporary political organisation from other comparable countries in South Asia. For instance, India and Pakistan emerged as independent states from the colonial rule on the same day and both states inherited the almost similar administrative setups from the British rule nonetheless, the subsequent development of democratic credentials and the establishment of local governments as a regular third tier of government in India unequivocally distinguishes her case from that of Pakistan's. Pakistan's six decades of chaotic history has seen frequent changes in government including three major military regimes. The politically centralising factors have led Pakistan to become a security state where the apex twin institution i.e. the civil-military bureaucracy takes the lead in running the government and state's affairs at all levels. In such a context, the process of democratisation has remained precarious at large. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Individual basic security is limited in Pakistan as the state is institutionally weak. One way to attain basic security is by joining groups who provide security and services. Consequently, groups not part of the political mainstream, to attract a following, must therefore show that they are sufficiently powerful to obtain concessions from established actors. Thus, by engaging in violence primarily of a sectarian nature, the Pakistani Taliban sustains itself as a unified force while also highlighting that it is a powerful group, which in turn it hopes would enable it to curve a political space and win concessions from the established elite. Using social group identity theory, club goods, and the economics of extremism, the article highlights why the Pakistani Taliban has increasingly attacked minorities and why more must be done to address sectarian violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Independent judiciary is much needed for true rule of law; safeguarding of fundamental rights and checking of misuse of government powers. At the same time judicial accountability is a vital component of judicial independence. This paper studies the historical background, theoretical and factual position of judicial independence and judicial accountability in Pakistan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT In May 2007, in the aftermath of city-wide urban unrest mediated by live news television, Karachi residents clamored noisily, using rumors, blogs, and SMS texting to overtly denounce the violence and intimidation ploys of political parties. Their discourse took a particular form: It described the violent tactics of organized politics as repulsive, suggested the moral respectability of avoiding such party politics, and, most important, articulated the impetus to domestic confinement-being compelled to stay at home-as a shared experience. Rather than conflate the discursive content of non-participation with depoliticization, it is important to acknowledge the contingent sociality of recognizing and articulating domestic confinement as a shared experience through the indignant denunciation of political institutions. Such tactics invoke an emergent public that recuperates and politicizes the ordinary in an explicitly moral register. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The management and incorporation of ethnic identities in Pakistan has historically been far more problematic in Balochistan than other provinces and regions. With the killing in 2006 of Akbar Bugti, a leading political figure who was the head of the Bugti tribe and served as federal minister, chief minister and Governor of Balochistan, the province became politically polarised and has descended into a new cycle of bombings, abductions and murders. The rebellion has resulted in a major security operation pitting the security forces against the Baloch people, attacks against Punjabi settlers and sectarian violence against Hazara Shias that collectively threaten to derail major development projects and increase instability in Pakistan as a whole at a critical juncture. This article examines the insurgency in Balochistan and evaluates various perspectives that have been used to explain the present crisis: external intervention, resistance to social change, resource driven conflict theory, transnationalism and diaspora, and failure to manage difference. After examining the evidence it concludes by arguing that the primary cause for the insurgency in Pakistan is due to poor management of difference. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]