Suchergebnisse

Political conflict is endemic to a postcolonial state such as Pakistan. Reformulation of the political system after independence draws on a gradual encroachment of tradition defined in terms of identity and ideology over modernity represented by institutional design and citizen orientations. Partition led to structural discontinuity in Pakistan as a seceding state as opposed to India which was a successor state. This book explores the way militarization and judicialization of politics centralized state authority and rendered the federalist arrangement into an empty shell.

The chapter explores the dialectical nature of domestic politics & foreign policy in Pakistan in terms of the colonial legacy, the divorce of public input from policy making, & regional instability. While it is not suggested that public opinion has no influence on Pakistani foreign policy (especially given the wide popular support for the state's nuclear, Kashmir, & pro-Islamist positions), smaller-level ethno-spatial & temporal elements problematize the assumption of popular unanimity. Moreover, Pakistan's foreign policy objectives & priorities have proven themselves susceptible to political change, the dynamics of which are delineated in this paper. K. Coddon