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Politics in the Post-Military State: Some Reflections on the Pakistani Experience

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2011

Gerald A. Heeger
Gerald A. Heeger
Affiliation:
Adelphi University
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Abstract

The possibilities of an end to military rule in developing states and of a postmilitary era in these states have only recently started to receive some consideration. In general, movement away from military control of politics is perceived as a matter of choice on the part of military elites and as a question of gradually expanding participation so as not to outstrip the slow accrual of extrabureaucratic power. Pakistan's experiences since 1971 suggest another pattern of transition from military-dominated to civiliandominated politics. Pakistan has been characterized by suddenly expanded participation and by the new civilian leadership's use of demobilization and patrimonial strategies to curtail this participation. Such strategies, patrimonialism in particular, have “dedevelopmental” consequences for the political system.

Type
Research Note
Information
World Politics , Volume 29 , Issue 2 , January 1977 , pp. 242 - 262
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1977

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References

1 See, for example, Nordlinger, Eric, “Soldiers in Mufti: The Impact of Military Rule Upon Economic and Social Change in Non-Western States,” American Political Science Review, Vol. 64 (December 1970), 1131–48CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Willner, Ann Ruth, “Perspectives on Military Elites as Rulers and Wielders of Power,” Journal of Comparative Administration, 11 (November 1970), 261–76CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Welch, Claude Jr., “The African Military and Political Development,” in Bienen, Henry, ed., The Military and Modernization (Chicago: Aldine Press 1971)Google Scholar; and Heeger, Gerald A., The Politics of Underdevelopment (New York: St. Martin's Press 1974), 107–32Google Scholar.

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32 Bhutto stressed the need for civilian control over the military repeatedly during this period. See in particular Dilip Mukherjee's interview with Bhutto, March 1972, reprinted in Institute of Defense Studies and Analyses, News Review on South Asia, 59, 64–66.

33 In press interviews, Khurshid Hasan Meer (formerly Minister Without Portfolio, Government of Pakistan, and charged with supervision of bureaucracy reforms between December 1973 and February 1974), and Bhutto repeatedly stressed the need for “reorienting” the bureaucracy to “fit” the government's political objectives. See, for example, Meer's, Hasan interview in Pakistan Times (Lahore), September 18, 1973Google Scholar.

34 After the first wave of ousters, a sizable number of those who had been removed were restored to their positions. Although the government needed these men, this sequence very effectively communicated to the bureaucrats the desirability of following the regime's dictates if they wished to remain secure.

35 This section is based upon data collected in interviews with PPP figures, conducted by the author at the national, provincial, and local levels between August 1973 and June 1974.

36 Burki (fn. 21), 1139–40.

37 See Hopkins, Raymond F., Political Roles in a New State: Tanzania's First Decade (New Haven: Yale University Press 1971), 43Google Scholar.

38 On the concept of role expansion, see Lissak, Moshe, “Modernization and Role Expansion of the Military in Developing Countries,” Comparative Studies in Society and History, IX (April 1967), 233–55CrossRefGoogle Scholar.