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ABSTRACT
Pakistan has had a chequered democratic history but elections in 2013 marked a second turnover in power, and the first transition in Pakistan's history from one freely elected government to another. How do we best categorize (and therefore understand) political developments in Pakistan? Is it now safe to categorize it as an electoral democracy or is it still a hybrid case of democracy? Using the Pakistani case as an example, this article argues that hybrid regimes deserve consideration as a separate case (rather than as a diminished subtype of democracy or authoritarianism), but must be categorized along a multidimensional continuum to understand the dynamics of power within the political system.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank warmly the three anonymous referees, the editors of the journal, Jan Meyer-Sahling, Mohammad Waseem and Andrew Wyatt as well as the participants at the PSA Annual Conference (Manchester 2014) and the NTU seminar series for comments on earlier drafts of this article, which significantly improved it.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes on contributor
Professor Katharine Adeney is Director of the Institute of Asia and Pacific Studies at the University of Nottingham, UK, and based in the School of Politics and International Relations. Her research focuses on South Asia, particularly issues concerning democracy, nationalism, ethnic conflict and institutional design. She is author of (among others) Federalism and Ethnic Conflict Regulation in India and Pakistan (2007) and has published in various journals including Publius, Electoral Studies, Representation, Ethnopolitics and Political Studies.
Notes
1. Merkel, “Embedded and Defective Democracies,” 51; Ekman, “Political Participation and Regime Stability,” 10–11; Morlino, “Are There Hybrid Regimes?” 284.
2. The 1988–1998 period was classified as an electoral democracy by Freedom House, but only the 2013+ period has been categorized in the same manner. Freedom House, “List of Electoral Democracies.”
3. Carothers, “End of Transitiom Paradigm,” 9.
4. Levitsky and Way, Competitive Authoritarianism, 14 (original emphasis).
5. Denk and Silander, Regime Heterogeneity, 3.
6. Merkel, “Embedded and Defective Democracies,” 35.
7. Ibid.; Merkel and Croissant, “Good and Defective Democracies.”
8. O'Donnell, “Delegative Democracies”; Zakaria, “Rise of Illiberal Democracy.”
9. See the Table 1 (An overview of regime types) in Bogaards, “How to Classify Hybrid Regimes?” 411, as an example.
10. Cassani, “Hybrid What?” 544.
11. See Schedler, “The Menu of Manipulation”; Schedler, “Logic of Electoral Authoritarianism”; Levitsky and Way, Competitive Authoritarianism; Diamond, “Thinking about Hybrid Regimes.”
12. Bogaards, “How to Classify Hybrid Regimes?” 410; Wigell, “Mapping ‘Hybrid Regimes'”; Gilbert and Mohseni, “Beyond Authoritarianism.”
13. A multidimensional approach has also been advocated to understand democracy (see Merkel, “Embedded and Defective Democracies”; Coppedge et al., “Conceptualizing and Measuring Democracy,” 248; Hustinx and Denk, “The ‘Black Box’ Problem,” 212.
14. Previously, governments were dismissed either by the military or the president.
15. European Union Election Observation Mission, A Competitive and Improved Election Process; FAFEN, General Election 2013.
16. Freedom House, “Freedom in the World 2014.”
17. Schedler, “The Menu of Manipulation,” 39–41.
18. Even though Freedom House did so. Freedom House, “List of Electoral Democracies.”
19. Talbot, Pakistan: A Modern History.
20. Schedler, “The Menu of Manipulation,” 41.
21. Ibid., 37.
22. Przeworski, “Democracy as a Contingent Outcome,” 61.
23. LaPorte, “Pakistan,” 47; Waseem, “Functioning of Democracy,” 182; Levitsky and Way, Competitive Authoritarianism, 14.
24. Rabkin, “The Aylwin Government,” 173–4.
25. This is a dimension that is included in other classifications, such as Freedom House's element looking at the Functioning of Government (although this includes additional criteria such as the level of corruption) and Schedler's criteria of empowerment and irreversibility. Schedler, “The Menu of Manipulation,” 39–41.
26. Gilbert and Mohseni, “Beyond Authoritarianism,” 287.
27. Ibid., 284.
28. Denk and Silander, Regime Heterogeneity, 21.
29. It is beyond the scope of this article to discuss the validity of their measurements for competitiveness and civil liberties. It must be noted that their definition of competitiveness in terms of one turnover in four electoral cycles (which Pakistan meets) is questionable, as turnover in power may be absent even in democratic regimes (such as India until the decline of Congress dominance).
30. Denk and Silander argue that Polity focuses too much on electoral institutions and recruitment and therefore risks overestimating the degree of democracy in “Problems in Paradise?” 28; Coppedge and Gerring have questioned whether a discussion of social and economic rights is appropriate for measuring Polyarchy in “Conceptualizing and Measuring Democracy”.
31. Denk, “How to Measure Polyarchy.”
32. Coppedge et al., “Conceptualizing and Measuring Democracy.”
33. Schneider and Schmitter, “Liberalization, Transition and Consolidation,” 69.
34. Bollen, “Political Democracy,” 17.
35. It would be possible to give more nuanced scores but for the cause of parsimony we confine ourselves to 3.
36. Merkel, “Embedded and Defective Democracies,” 49.
37. Gandhi and Lust-Okar, “Elections under Authoritarianism.”
38. Merkel, “Embedded and Defective Democracies,” 42. This corresponds somewhat to the components included within Freedom House's definition of “political rights” which include both elements of Electoral Process and Political Pluralism, although their additional criteria of Functioning of Government is not considered here, but under the separate third dimension of reserved domains. Merkel additionally includes press freedom and freedom of association within his dimension of Vertical Legitimacy but, as our dimension here is competitiveness, we move this discussion to the section on civil rights.
39. And an overall majority once 19 independents joined the PML-N – it is common in Pakistan elections for independent candidates to join the winning party after the election.
40. Siddiqa, “Naya Pakistan.”
41. Although members of the Ahmadiya community have been effectively excluded from casting their ballots; Tanveer, “Ahmadis still out of electoral process.”
42. Almeida, “Sharif and the Boys.”
43. Bollen, “Political Democracy,” 11.
44. Although Mehmood Achakzai of the Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party (PKMAP) a Pakhtun nationalist party based in Balochistan argues the ISI was responsible for the PKMAP doing badly in the 2002 election (Interview Islamabad May 2005).
45. Mohmand, “Losing the Connection.”
46. Times of India, “Will target Pakistan's secular parties.”
47. While in the past the TTP could have been viewed as state proxies, since the crackdown in 2007 on the Red Mosque in Islamabad, they have systematically targeted both political and military targets within Pakistan, and are hostile to the state. The December 2014 attack on an army run school in Peshawar was simply the latest demonstration of this.
48. Diamond, “Thinking about Hybrid Regimes,” 38.
49. Hadenius and Teorell, “Assessing Alternative Indices,” 20.
50. FAFEN, General Election 2013.
51. Gilbert and Mohseni, “Beyond Authoritarianism,” 278.
52. Schedler, “The Logic of Electoral Authoritarianism,” 1; Levitsky and Way, Competitive Authoritarianism, 6.
53. Ibid., 11.
54. Mohmand, “Losing the Connection,” 18.
55. Merkel, “Embedded and Defective Democracies,” 38.
56. Bolognani, “Virtual Protest,” 403.
57. Reporters Without Borders, “Clear Bias.”
58. Schedler, “The Menu of Manipulation,” 42.
59. Reporters Without Borders, “Historic Elections.”
60. The torture and murder of the journalist Saleem Shahzad in 2011 was widely believed to have been carried out by the ISI in retaliation for writing about links between the military and the Taliban. Sethi, “Hats Off.”
61. Rumi and Mir survived the attacks but 29 other journalists in 2014 (and Rumi's driver) did not.
62. Boone, “Geo TV's Face-off.”
63. Zahra-Malik, “Pakistan TV Mogul.”
64. Reporters without Borders, “2015 World Press Freedom.”
65. Tudor, “Renewed Hope in Pakistan,” 117.
66. Ansari, “Not Fit To Print.”
67. Siddiqa, “The Pakistan Military.”
68. Ahmed, “Man of the Year.”
69. HRCP, State of Human Rights 2013, 5.
70. HRCP, “HRCP's Alarm over Sectarian.”
71. Freedom House, “Freedom in the World 2015.”
72. Ali, “Under US Pressure.”
73. Freedom House, “Freedom in the World 2015.”
74. Merkel, “Embedded and Defective Democracies,” 39.
75. Freedom House, “Freedom in the World 2015.”
76. Waseem, “Judging Democracy in Pakistan,” 29.
77. HRCP, State of Human Rights, 22–3.
78. Ibid., 3.
79. HRCP, “HRCP Alarmed.”
80. Hadenius and Teorell, “Assessing Alternative Indices,” 9.
81. Schedler, “The Menu of Manipulation,” 39.
82. Wigell, “Mapping 'Hybrid Regimes,’” 247.
83. Stepan's categorization of 11 institutionalized prerogatives of the military was the pioneering approach to assessing military power after a democratic transition. Stepan's criteria were applied to the 2008–2013 parliament by Aqil Shah, who identified that the military retained high prerogatives over nine out of the 11 areas during this period, in “Constraining Consolidation,” 1018; Stepan, Rethinking Military Politics.
84. Croissant et al., “Beyond the Fallacy,” 955–8.
85. Fair, “Pakistan on the Brink,” 131.
86. PML-N, “National Agenda,” 81–2.
87. Grare, “Pakistan's Foreign and Security Policies,” 999.
88. Although it also reflects the unwillingness of the new Modi regime to engage with this approach.
89. Zaidi, “The Old and the New.”
90. Hussain, “Pakistan may drop Pervez.”
91. Siddiqa, “The Musharraf Drama.”
92. Unless a vote of no confidence is passed in the National Assembly against the Prime Minister.
93. Government of Pakistan, The Constitution of Pakistan.
94. Adeney, “Step Towards Inclusive Federalism.”
95. Conversations with Pakistani politicians and civil society activists including Bushra Gohar of the ANP, June 2011, allege that the conflicts between the judiciary and the parliament that followed the introduction of the 18th Amendment were engineered by the army. These conflicts are discussed in detail by Waseem, “Judging Democracy in Pakistan.”
96. Stepan, Rethinking Military Politics.
97. Croissant et al, “Beyond the Fallacy,” 972.
98. Hoffman, “Military Extrication,” 89.
99. Imran Khan's PTI has been more willing to play the military's game as seen in his support for a ban on Geo TV; Shahid, “Tug of War.”
100. Wilkinson, “Democratic Consolidation and Failure,” 209.
101. Haqqani, “History Repeats Itself,” 111.
102. McLaren and Cop, “The Failure of Democracy,” 504–5.
103. Grare, “Pakistan's Foreign and Security Policies,” 991.
104. Adeney, “Shadow of Military Looms.”
105. This view is prevalent within many sections of society within Pakistan – expressed to the author during numerous trips to the region in the last 15 years.
106. Turkey has managed to curtail tutelary interference (to the extent of convicting hundreds of military officers for attempting a coup), but has become more authoritarian on other measures. Thanks to Natalie Martin for discussing this with me.
107. Bogaards,“How to Classify Hybrid Regimes?” 404.
108. Wigell, “Mapping 'Hybrid Regimes,'” 231, 233.
109. Although we accept Hadenius and Teorell's point that trichotomous indicators (although preferable to dichotomous ones) still lose much information and have issues of reliability, this article uses trichotomy to illustrate the argument and retain an element of parsimony. Hadenius and Teorell, “Assessing Alternative Indices,” 13–14.
110. Denk and Silander, Regime Heterogeneity, 3, 125.
111. Ibid.
112. McLaren and Cop, “The Failure of Democracy,” 514.
113. Denk and Silander, “Regime Heterogeneity,” 50.