Introduction

The survival and flourishing of civilian rule in Pakistan, which is now and is likely to remain critically important for the foreseeable future, requires a fundamental reordering of the balance of power between state institutions, and between state and society. The military establishment has for the most part dominated a zero-sum game of accumulating power. Political elites have at times collaborated with the military for short-term advantages to the detriment of democracy. Over time more and more power – political but also economic – has been ceded to the military. This power has grown not only during military takeovers, that have given the military formal control of all organs of the state, but also via the pressure the military has exercised during the rule of civilian governments in the shaping of policy and influencing budget allocations. More broadly, military power has grown due to the military's increasing economic autonomy so that its dependence on elected government has lessened over time.

The source of this power has partially been based on allowing the various arms of the military to build business empires and ceding large tracts of real estate to their control. Our premise is that the more economic autonomy the military gains, the less answerable it is to civilian oversight, a key prerequisite to sustainable democracy in Pakistan. Furthermore, the more economic power it gains, the larger the threat democratic oversight represents since the stakes are higher.

This is an application of the theory of coups put forward by Acemoglu and Robinson (2006) where the dominant elite (the military) defends its privileges by co-opting other dominant groups, including feudal, industrial, bureaucratic and judicial elites, to periodically stage coups. Bhave and Kingston (2010) extend this game-theoretic model to cater specifically to Pakistan's unique history. Historical and institutional theories of coups, as summarized by Cohen (1994, 107–117), emphasize political vacuums, ambitious generals, foreign policy concerns, foreign interests and Punjabi domination. Aziz's (2008) thesis is that all the coups in Pakistan, including the first one in 1958, resulted from the military seeking to protect and extend its institutional interests, including the economic.