SIYASAT ARCHIVES

Globalization of Capitalism and Its Impacts

Wednesday, April 27, 2005 | 1 comments

Ahmad Hasan

This article can be downloaded as a Word document from here.

In today’s world, we have global terrorism, global alliances, global technologies and global multinational giants whose commercial interests lie in producing more of the same for as many people as possible. But this globalization has its good as well as dire impacts on the world’s political system. The world we see today is anarchic in nature to say the least. We have conflicts and disharmony all around the globe. The disparities between developed and developing countries are ever-increasing. The question that arises then is: are we moving in a positive direction?

The first world countries that are developed, have a democratic political system, and are technologically advanced and wealthy are now called Global North. Global south consists of countries once described as the second world and the third world. The second world countries believed in the common economic reforms and were influenced by the communism. The third world countries are underdeveloped and mostly have a colonial background. They don’t have proper democratic governments, lack technological progress and are dependant on the wealthy global north.

The end of the Cold War brought a new era of economic globalization, the era in which free trade and force of freedom was to be promoted. It was hoped that capitalism will help the third world countries to improve their economic conditions. The proponents of capitalism argued that capitalism was based upon the human beings’ natural instinct of choice and freedom. According to them, the system that they were bringing into the world would not only benefit the rich countries but will also be a vital factor in improving the deteriorating economies of third world countries, because, according to capitalists, the system was based on justice. [Rand, Ayn] In many ways capitalism was beneficial in eliminating slavery, feudalism and racism among many other things.

However, the free trade system was imposed on the developing countries before they were ready to accept it. Organizations such as the W.T.O were formed under the rules formulated by rich countries. These developed countries wanted the South to fall in line. World Bank and IMF, which were also controlled by the First World, gave loans to the developing countries. These loans helped the First World to impose neo-imperialism on the Global South. Over the years, the level of debt service of many developing countries, particularly from Africa and Latin America, has become incompatible with sustainable development, which shows the shackles that neo-imperialism has imposed on these countries.

With the advent of globalization, it was hoped that it would bring peace, prosperity and improvement of the whole world due to the free movement of capital, goods and services. However, it has not been able to realize these high hopes and the growth has been uneven. Disparity in income and wealth between nations continues to be a major concern. Commenting on the globalization and its impacts on marginalization of Global South, the secretary general of United Nations Mr. Kofi Annan said:

“Despite its advantage of increasing wide choices and new opportunities for both individuals and nations worldwide due to rapid spread of technology and more advanced modern skills, globalization has its dark side which led to the marginalization of poor countries in particular.” [Annan Blames South Marginalization on Globalization, 2000]

It is a fact that globalization has so far not worked for the developing countries. It has rather made them susceptible to peripheral shocks and accentuated their economic problems. In fact, liberalization of economies and open markets has in many ways negatively affected the fragile economies of the world's poorest nations. The obvious outcome is persistent poverty and ever-widening income, social and technological gaps between the "haves" and the "have-nots".

The core reason for the underdevelopment of Global South is explained by dependency theorists. According to them, the cause of low levels of development among the Global South countries is their dependency on more developed countries. Theotonio Dos Santos defines dependency as:

“an historical condition which shapes a certain structure of the world economy such that it favors some countries to the detriment of others and limits the development possibilities of the subordinate economics” [Dos Santos, 1971]

The dependency of the Global South on the Global North can be attributed to the fact that these countries don’t have specialization of goods that developed countries possess due to their technologically sophisticated industries. It leads to the need for trade between developed and developing countries. The trade between the technologically superior countries and less developed countries gives the developing countries the hope that they can eventually catch up with the first world. The cause of such high hopes lies with the inflow of foreign direct investment coming from the developed world. The real picture is anything but like this in most cases. Multinational Companies (MNCs) set up their plants in developing countries in order to allure the host country’s people to believe that their country is getting much needed economic growth.

The irony of this whole scenario is that the developed countries, having the upper hand, can impose their policies in return for these goods as well as the foreign direct investment that they provide. The investment coming from these developed countries is not primarily trying to sustain the growth of the economy of the host state; instead it is there because of low labor wages, cheap raw materials and convenient tax laws. The host country, being on the receiving end, can’t resist the policies implemented by the large multinational companies fearing that it would lead to drawing of investment. Thus, the profits of such organizations increase which they take back to their home country instead of investing it in the host country’s economy. Right from the beginning, third world countries were coercively incorporated into the European economic structure only as producers of raw materials or to serve as repositories of low-priced labor, and were deprived of the opportunity to market their resources in any way that competed with the core states. Muhammad Bennouna, the chairman of G-77 expressed his concerns over the issue saying:

"We do believe that most developing countries continue to face problems of access to markets, capital and technology and many grappled with the structural transformation necessary for their integration into the world economy". [G-77 Chairman Warns of Widening Gap Between Rich and Poor Nations, 2003]

This marginalization of economies of Global South by the Global North can be traced to globalization of capitalism. Capitalism's ideal is a borderless global economy in which money and goods can be moved freely in search of short-term maximum profits without regard to its consequence for people, communities and nature. The critics of capitalism continuously argue that the mass of people in Africa and Asia are literally starving to death on a daily basis, as a result of the globalization of capitalism and its exploitation of the working classes of these regions. When we speak of capitalism and its rise to prominence at the time of globalizations we are talking about big western corporations and their control of the world's markets and production as discussed above. Unprecedented wealth exists in this world alongside abject poverty, with massive disparities in levels of economic and social development. Statistics in this regard are staggering.

Global North has 23% of the world’s population, and 85% of the world’s income, while Global South has 77% of the world’s population, and 15% of the world’s income.
The world's poorest 50 countries are home to 20 per cent of the world's population, yet they account for less than 2 per cent of the world's income.
The 20 per cent of the world's population at the top of the income ladder receives 83 per cent of global income.
The 20 per cent of the world's population at the bottom of the income ladder receives only 1.5 per cent of global income.
In 1994, transnational corporations racked up sales of over $4.8 trillion, a volume larger than all of world trade put together.
The United States remains the world's "powerhouse of wealth", according to Forbes Magazine, which reported that, in 1994, 129 of the world's 388 billionaires lived there, the richest individual having a net worth of $13.4 billion. [UN, 1996]

Factors other than globalization, which contributed to the slow economic growth or in some cases no growth at all in the developing countries, are numerous. Although not a single one of them stands out to be as imperative and gloomy as globalization. The colonial past of many developing states left them with a conflict regarding their identity.Many colonizers intentionally created differences among their colonies, which lead to a continuous arms race. This arms race crippled the economies of developing countries like India and Pakistan. The present state of poor economic conditions in the Global South, the low quality of life and the lack of development in developing countries lead to greater frustration among their people. Due to this frustration, some countries suffered military rule, while others suffered from ethnic and sectarian conflicts. Lack of employment, sectarian and ethnic conflicts, high rates of illiteracy and disregard for law and order were some of the factors that hindered the economic progress.

Although there are exceptional cases in which countries like Asian Tigers have used the globalization of capitalism to their advantage to catch up with the developed world. But generally capitalism has lead to the exploitation of the poorest countries of the world. The statistics mentioned above portray the real picture that capitalists try to hide. Though in some cases capitalism has succeeded to fulfill the expectations of some developing countries, but more often than not it has allowed for the marginalization of Global South by Global North, making the developed countries more rich and developing countries poorer.

Criticism of globalization of capitalism doesn’t necessarily imply that communism is its only alternative. Communism has its dark sides as well, which, in my view, are even darker than capitalism. We have tried Communism and globalization of capitalism, and both of them have failed miserably in lessening the income, social and technological disparities between countries. May be its about time we try to find a new economic model for the betterment of the whole world that will decrease if not eliminate this division between Global South and Global North.

Bibliography:

Rand, Ayn. Capitalism. 2003. Accessed 02 November 2004
Theotonio Dos Santos, "The Structure of Dependence," in K.T. Fann and Donald C. Hodges, eds., Readings in U.S. Imperialism. Boston: Porter Sargent, 1971, p.226.
"Annan Blames South Marginalization on Globalization" People, 13 April 2000. Accessed 06 November 2004
"G-77 Chairman Warns of Widening Gap Between Rich and Poor Nations" Journal of Group 77 16/2 (2003). Accessed 02 November 2004
UN. 1996. United Nations Development Program. Accessed 03 November 2004.

Investigating Abu Ghraib

Tuesday, April 26, 2005 | 0 comments

A book review by

Zainab Mahmood

This review can also be downloaded as a Word document from here.

The Abu Ghraib Investigations: The Official Reports of the Independent Panel and the Pentagon on the shocking prisoner Abuse in Iraq, edited by Steven Strasser with an introduction by Craig R Whitney.

In light of of recent court proceedings ruling that General Sanchez is cleared of any responsibility of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib, Iraq, it is essential for any informed reader to familiarise themselves with the contents of these reports.

The in-depth and at times non-committal account of Independent Panel and Pentagon investigations begins with the words, “the photographs did not lie”. We are then systematically led through the findings of investigations ordered by Lt. Gen Sanchez, the overall military commander in Iraq, once the stories of the abuse splashed across TV and print media across the world. General Taguba, the head of investigations, which were underway before the media got hold of prisoner abuse pictures, clearly found that the entire brigade deployed at Abu Ghraib, was inadequately trained for its mission. The report also discusses another investigation led by General Fay into the role of the intelligence personnel, which concluded that the root of the problem lay at the high-level misallocation of resources. Fay found that Secretary Rumsfeld overrode recommendations of advisers even before the war in Iraq started and thus mismanaged the allocation of soldiers and Military Police (MP’s) at prison sites and laid down ambiguous instructions as to permitted interrogation techniques and prison guard regulations. Both investigators concluded that had the Department of Defense adopted a more transparent and swift investigative process then possibly the ensuing catastrophe and maligning of the U.S reputation could have been avoided.

General Jones, who was part of the investigative team, claims that Secretary Rumsfeld himself had authorized the use of harsh interrogation techniques including dogs and removal of clothing to break down detainees while Sanchez who was responsible for revising the memos for MP’s in Iraq based on the techniques used at Guantanamo Bay, left the guidelines vague. Therefore techniques that had been approved for use only in Guantanamo under strict supervision and special permission were introduced at Abu Ghraib without authorization. Further mayhem was caused by presence of CIA and other secret agency personnel who were operating under their own rules, opening the door for certain soldiers to take advantage of Abu Ghraib’s isolation and indiscipline.

The reports emphatically state ‘there was a relationship between abstract political acts by high officials in Washington and illegal actions committed by simple soldiers in Iraq’, but fails to ascribe blame to any one party, shifting it from MP’s right up to the White House and Pentagon.

The Panel’s inference suggests that the new kind of ‘asymmetric warfare’ in Iraq brought with it a new set of problems that the American military was not prepared for. The flood of incoming detainees in the prisons far exceeded the number of released due to slow processing and interrogation (some prisoners were held 90 days before being interrogated for the first time). To deal with threats the American military relied mainly on intelligence received by capturing and interrogating potential threats or sources. Thus, allowing sadistic and perverted individuals to overstep the boundaries during interrogations, taking advantage of zero accountability.

The Panel’s report also found that Brigadier General Karpinski’s ‘ineffective leadership helped set the conditions leading to abuse at the prison’, which includes her failure to do the following: establish systematic operating procedures, ensure safeguard of the prisoners, take action against ineffective commanders and staff officers, not to mention lie about the frequency of her visits and extent of control over prison activities.

The investigations found that the once the Army Field Manual, which had been modified with respect to changing needs at Guantanamo Bay, was introduced in Iraq by MP’s who were called in to assist the under-staffed detention centres, they led to disastrous results. The policy memos issued for Iraq did not ‘adequately set forth the limits of interrogation techniques’. The unclear military intelligence chain of command as well as confusing assignments of untrained MP’s and MI’s as prison guards and more importantly the failure to act promptly in equipping Abu Ghraib security personnel to handle the growing problems, led to the prisoner abuse. Also the inability to react to Red Cross reports following its visit to Abu Ghraib regarding inhuman conditions and problem areas at the prison, were a grave error on the part of the leadership.

It seems the priority at Abu Ghraib was to extract useful information from detainees and pressure was elicited on interrogators to produce “actionable” intelligence. In light of this situation, the investigators found that untrained soldiers, some of them hired on contract, proceeded to implement unapproved techniques. Removal of clothing, isolating detainees for a long time, withholding food, stress positions, use of dogs to intimidate and light and sleep deprivation were some of the techniques which were used incorrectly at detention centres in Iraq.

The panel after reviewing all the reports and conducting interviews with soldiers and commanders involved in Iraq, directly or indirectly, presented a list of recommendations to prevent the re-occurrence of conditions that led to the prisoner abuse in Iraq. It suggested that the U.S must redefine its policy regarding categorization of the detainees so that the Geneva Convention applies to them. Also it stated that improved coordination between Military Intelligence and Military Police at detention facilities was needed while the introduction of trained interpreters, interrogators, detention specialists, linguists and behavioural scientists would also prove effective. Thorough appraisals of changing situations and timely implementation of military regulations and tactics were suggested, not to mention better training methods and improved conditions at prisons, as well as compulsory participation in professional ethics programs for all prison officers.

Also the most crucial recommendation was a clear and well-defined policy on approved interrogation techniques leaving no room for confusion or misuse. Clearer guidelines for CIA operatives in detention centres were also recommended, ending with a broad assessment that the U.S must redefine its ‘approach to international humanitarian laws, which must be adapted to realities of conflict in the 21st century’.

Furthermore 24 accounts of serious incidents of abuse (until September 2003), accompanied by explicit photographs, are included in the report, describing how certain detainees were stripped of clothing, left with only a blanket in the cold, beaten with a chair, kicked and choked, made to lie face down while MP’s jumped on him and even breaking of chemical lights on detainees’ bodies. Upon questioning the soldiers and MP’s who were involved, it seemed they were under the impression that they had to “soften-up” the detainees however they could. At the same time, none of the soldiers admit to never reporting the abuse and no official records of these abusive interrogations exist, while the MI claim that they had no knowledge of the incidences of abuse in the mentioned cases.

This is just the tip of the iceberg and one gets the feeling that the military as well as the so called independent investigations are merely cover-up operations. It also seems evident that incidents of abuse in Iraq as well as previously in Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay are indicative of a deeper problem than is being discussed, and could not have been possible without the go-ahead of officials at Pentagon and the White House. At best, the report candidly describes prisoner abuse accounts and at worst reveals only a part of the reality behind the photographs. Whatever the truth may be it seems there is a systematic need to elude responsibility regarding the prisoner abuse and to only scrape at the volatile surface. Many other reported incidents of abuse have been undermined or dismissed as exaggeration by the investigators, such as the use of detainees as target practice in shooting, while most accounts of detainee abuse included in the report, are followed by vague explanations of conditions which may have led to the abuse. The adopted strategy seems to imply that the abuse was inflicted by only specific misguided elements and was not as rampant and uncontrolled as the media let the world to believe. How far this is true, we can only judge for ourselves, at the end of a very revealing but highly disturbing read.

Elections 2002: Factors Behind MMA's Success

Thursday, April 07, 2005 | 1 comments

Nabeel Khan

[This article can be downloaded as a Word document from here.]

The recent victory of the Muttahaida Majlis-e-Ammal (MMA) is being lauded as a watershed in history. It has been the first time ever that a religious party has been able to show a respectable result in the elections. Compared to their performance in the previous elections of 1993 and 1997 where the combined vote of the religious parties was between 2-4 percent, this time however they have had nearly 10 percent of the total vote cast (2.9 million out of 29.5 million) [Asdar Ali, Pg 1].

What have been the reasons that have led to the recent popularity of the MMA that has translated in their success in the elections? My main contention in this paper is that it has really not been the MMA’s ability to connect with the masses but rather the failure of the secular mainstream parties to do so which has been the deciding factor.

’Ideology refers to a set of ideas and beliefs which makes clear what is valued and what is not, what must be maintained and what must be changed, and what shapes the attitudes of those that share it’[Jackson & Jackson]

The defining characteristic of a political party has much to do with its ideology which puts it closer to the voters who share a similar vision of progress, change and ideological position. The much needed ideology which is so pivotal to politics and a political party was missing within the wings of both secular parties.

’In the 2002 elections, they failed to take a stand on issues like Musharraf’s controversial referendum, US attack on Afghanistan, Legal Framework Order (LFO), restoration of democracy and one-man-one-post policy. Such lack of character undermined their credentials and strengthened the locus standi of the mullahs’ [Misra, 2005].

Another important factor in party politics and one that promotes progressive change is the role of internal elections within political parties. This is necessary in training of new leadership within the party ranks and ensures that a political vacuum isn’t created if the old leadership gets eliminated.

’In the case of Pakistan, of the major parties in the country, only the right wing, fundamentalist Jamaat-i-Islami (JI) has been able to conduct regular, internal elections. Within most of the other political parties, leadership has remained limited to a particular group, sometimes based on kinship networks, articulating only a narrow range of interests. Internal power struggles in the absence of party elections have led frequently to the fragmentation of political parties into factions or splinter groups, and this process has contributed in part to the steadily increasing number of political groupings present in the country.’[Human Rights Commission Of Pakistan - Electoral Watch]

This has resulted in the failing of the secular parties to effectively train its leadership to changing trends and demands within the political scenario. Furthermore, since the top heads of the two parties (PPP and PML) have never changed this has effectively led to the deceleration of the growth of democracy within the country since political parties have been unable to include more people within the political culture.

The main characteristics and functions of ’strong’ political parties (the features which ’weak’ undemocratic, elite-based political parties lack), are described by David Apter - that first of all, they organize as well as transmit public opinion and attitudes to the government; they take into account the entire socio-political framework of the society in which they function and draw their support from. Thus, political parties not only perform an important role in linking the needs and demands of the people to the policy making people within the state, they also need to provide transparency and accountability in a way that they have to maintain a respectable record of citizen responsiveness in order to get re-elected for another tenure. [Udofio, pg 436]. Responding to a question as to the reasons for MMA’s success, Pervez Hoodbhoy responded:

’The manifestos of the secular parties stopped at shallow rhetoric that nobody really believed. These parties said little that made any sense about how to approach Pakistan’s gigantic problems - the constant threat of war with India, a parasitic military establishment that has emaciated the country, growing poverty and mal-distribution of wealth, an education system that collapsed long ago, shrinking water supplies, environmental degradation and much more’ [Newsline,2005].

Failure for the political parties has not only been in their inability to meet the needs of the masses but also their involvement in misappropriation of resources and moral turpitude. Over the years, the disenchantment of the public with political parties, especially with PPPP and PML-N, increased because of widespread corruption, embezzlement, nepotism, and mis-governance [Misra, 2005].

The concept of the role political parties not only in government but also out of government as opposition parties to keep a check on the parties in power by educating and transmitting public opinion and acting like a ’loyal opposition’ [Harrison, pg 392, Udofio, pg 442, Jackson & Jackson] has failed to materialize in Pakistan and successive governments in power have had charges of corruption leveled against them by the same ’worthy opposition’. In 1990 and 1996, corruption and mismanagement were cited among the reasons for the Benazir government’s removal. This politics of ’mud slinging’ has only helped destabilize governments in power and brought opposition into the governments.

However, blaming just the mainstream parties of under-performance is missing a certain essence since Pakistan’s political failures cannot be understood fully without acknowledging the role of the establishment in preventing the emergence of genuinely popular and well-organized political parties [SA Tribune, 2005]. Thus a pertinent question which I shall address now is as to what role if any did the military establishment play in influencing the outcome of the October elections, and if it did, what was it to gain?

It would be naive to suggest that Pakistan which has had its share of both military as well as civilian governments with the former dominating the political scenario (for 31 years) [11, NLR], has had a change of heart and is really oriented towards democratic change. Akbar Zaidi contends that the elections of 2002 have been a sort of order continuing in the country where the supremacy of the army has always been dominant over the civilian public [Zaidi, 175].

The controversy all began when the military government in order to support a civilian facade decided of re-creating a political party which would be ’pro-Musharraf’.

’Like an out-of-work courtesan, the Muslim League - the country’s foundational party - was given a shower, dusted with powder and provided with a new wig, before being displayed to the growing queue of potential suitors’[Ali]

Thus from the defected ranks of the People’s Party and the Muslim League, the PML (QA) was born. This sadly also represents the degree of opportunism within the mainstream political parties of supporting the ousting of the elected incumbent government so that they can have a chance to form their own government. However ’Lota-ism’ is not a new phenomenon.

The government after creating a ’King’s Party’ further announced the requirement of a Bachelor’s degree as a pre-requisite, creating yet another hurdle barring nearly 95-96% of the MNAs and MPAs from contesting elections. Even the Supreme Court upheld the decision siding with the establishment, showing its institutional integrity.

The voting process itself was rigged as the establishment tried to tamper with ’democratic forces’ to steer election to their choice of candidate. The EU evaluation committee (ECP) found misuse of state resources in favor of political parties, in particular, but not exclusively, for the PML (QA). The government’s late lift on the ban on political parties’ activities a few days before polling day, and the debarring of major political parties’ heads from contesting elections, resulted in delays which effectively reduced the campaign period to a mere twenty-three days. Public authorities and also the local administration (Nazims) up to senior levels of governance were actively involved in partisan electioneering which appeared to be a pattern throughout the country. On a number of occasions, state officials and Nazims made public statements in support of certain candidates or against other candidates.[Europa, 2005] However the PML (QA) still couldn’t gain a majority and hence had to form coalition with other political parties. The MMA emerged as a winner in NWFP and forged an alliance in Baluchistan. [Misra, 2005]

Although most governments that came into power remained covertly secular, time and again the religious nature of the state had to be re-affirmed and those that remained in power tried to expand on their Islamic credentials as a means to acquire legitimacy. We see this throughout history with Bhutto’s declaration of Ahmedis as non-Muslims, Zia’s Islamization in the 80’s and the Shariat Bill by Nawaz Sharif. [Gaborieau, pg 44-46] However surprisingly, Musharraf portrayed himself as a moderate and secular Muslim and vowed to rid Pakistan of extremist elements [Asdar Ali]. This may in fact have been attributable to the increased pressure that Pakistan has had from the US to crack down on terrorist and jehadist camps and reform of madarassas [Misra, 2005]. So in lieu of the changed objectives of the US as a ’benevolent leader’ [Akhtar, pg 5] Musharraf is now promoting the secular ideology.

With the victory of the MMA, an alliance of ’Islamic hardliners’ as viewed by the US, is wary of the consequences if power was ever to fall into the hands of these Islamists. Zaidi is of the view that Musharraf stands to benefit from this victory of the MMA, as he will be in a better position to negotiate with the US. He will be able to use this as a way of legitimizing and furthering his own rule by arguing that Pakistan will be in dangerous hands if left up to these ’fundamental’ groups. [ibid, 5] Ahmed Rashid, an eminent Pakistani journalist while writing for the Wall Street Journal commented that it appeared that the army and the ISI sponsored the religious leaders, or Mullahs, to ensure that the West does not question the need for continued military rule to contain the religious parties. [Daily Excelsior, 2005] With the changed perception of the West particularly the US after 9/11, it has sought to curb the growth of ’Islamic militancy’ in order to create a world based on ’peace’. Given the old role of ’Pakistan as a safe haven for terrorists’ and with a religious party in power, the Bush-Mush alliance was easily mandated within the Senate. This indicates that the elections might have been engineered to actually ’let the MMA win’ since Musharraf had much to gain from this outcome.

The MMA’s performance post election period has cast further doubts amongst the opposition and other observers. Initially the criticism that MMA members made of the military regime and the stand on the Legal Framework Order (LFO) made many believe that the MMA’s success lies in its willingness to challenge the military and the US. But recent developments whereby it is quite clear that the MMA is going to make a deal with the government on LFO prove that the MMA was never truly against the military intervention. It was just waiting to be offered the right incentives to join the ruling coalition. If the religious parties that together form the MMA had actually started believing in democracy against military rule then they could not have contemplated a settlement over LFO. This is the case right now and will remain so till General Musharraf is in power. All the criticism that MMA leaders made of military government in the past year becomes meaningless now; they will just become another PML(Q), a party which works to strengthen military in the country’s politics [Jang Group, 2005]. Furthermore, the recent developments mark that the Parliament has accepted to keep Musharraf in power. This only goes on to further the fact that there has effectively been an MMA alliance -- not Muttahida Majlis-e-Ammal, but rather a Mullah-Military-Alliance in which the religious parties have been co-opted, thus marring the politics of the country. Furthermore, the Supreme Court (SC) has given the military president a free hand to thwart the constitution and change it as he wishes. This speaks of the sad state of affairs in Pakistan.

Recommendations:

Some of the outcomes that have emerged from this paper are weak political parties, an authoritarian military establishment which seeks to entrench itself playing upon the opportunist elements in society and weak institutions. Because political parties were ’weak’ in the sense that they exerted no real mass popular support of the masses, they served only their own vested interests, and failed to keep themselves accountable to the public, which gave the military the power to intervene as a savior of the nation. Every time this has happened, the military has grown stronger and with the situation prevailing right now it is very evident that the military has, and will, go to large extents to retain its power and longevity within the Pakistani state. However the military is not the answer or a viable alternative to weak political parties and systems because as seen throughout history, the military in Pakistan has stunted the emergence of democratic political processes and parties in order to make its role in politics self-sustaining.

The problems of education, health, poverty, and injustice that affect the Pakistani public are rooted in the bigger governance problems. The military has used different tactics to legitimize itself and has been welcomed by the bureaucracy and self serving politicians.

The civil-military elite is the pre-eminent capital-owning class and has due to its advantageous position (both in terms of power and money), penetrated most of the institutions in Pakistan. It has used this position to its advantage, to further its interests, which have been detrimental to the country. As long as the military keeps intervening and controlling the state institutions, public institutions like the parliament and the judiciary will never develop. Without developing and strengthening these institutions it is very difficult to develop a just and equitable society

Bibliography

Akhtar, Asim Sajjad, ’The classic frontline state’ in Mohmand, Shandana, K(ed.) Development in Pakistan, Lahore.
Ali, Tariq, ’The Color Khaki’ 8 Feb. 2004.
Asdar Ali, Kamran, ’Islam, Politics and Change’ in Mohmand, Shandana, K(ed.) Development in Pakistan, Lahore, p.1.
Daily Excelsior, ’Rise of MMA to Power’’, Khan, Abdul Wadood Khan.
Europa, ’European Union’s Election Observation Mission to Pakistan 2002’, 10 Feb 2005.
Gaborieau, Marc, ’Religion in the Pakistani Polity’ in Mohmand, Shandana, K. (ed.), Development in Pakistan, Lahore, pp. 44-46.
Harrison, Paul, 1993, ’Chapter 20: Something is Rotten in the State - the Politics of Poverty’, Inside the Third World, p. 392.
Human Rights Commission of Pakistan -Electoral Watch, Political Parties in Pakistan, Feb 2005.
Jackson & Jackson, ’Modern Ideologies and Philosophies’ in Rais, Rasul Baksh (ed.) Introduction to Politics p. 151.
Jackson & Jackson, ’Political Parties and Interests Groups’ in Rais, Rasul Baksh (ed.) Introduction to Politics.
Jang Group, ’MMA and LFO ’, Bano Masooda.
Misra, Ashutosh, ’Rise of Religious Parties in Pakistan: Causes and Prospects’, 1 Feb 2005.
Newsline, ’When The Mullahs Come Marching In’, Shimaila Matri, 6 Feb 2005.
South Asian Tribune, ’How the Army Subverted Pakistan’s Political System, Again and Again’, 2 Feb 2005.
Udofio, O. E, 1981, Nigerian Political Parties: Their Role in Modernizing the Political System, 1920 -1966, Journal of Black Studies, Vol. 11 No. 4, p.435.
Zaidi, Akbar, S., ’Continuity Rather than Change: Elections 2002’ in Mohmand, Shandana, K. (ed.), Development in Pakistan, Lahore, pp 175-179.