Fixing our public institutions
Pakistan has now undergone a third round of consecutive democratically held elections
The writer is a development anthropologist. He can be reached at ali@policy.hu
Claims of election manoeuvering, and the preceding political tumultuousness aside, Pakistan has now undergone a third round of consecutive democratically held elections. In his first national address, it was noteworthy to see Imran Khan signal his incoming government’s resolve to strengthen Pakistan’s institutions.
There is no doubt that an array of robust state institutions remains vital for delivering good governance. Unless we invest in our public institutions, democracy in Pakistan will remain tokenistic at best, and the needs of the ordinary citizen will continue to be unmet, no matter how many more general elections we have.
The present condition of our state’s institutions is indeed in a shambles. A recent report put out by the Woodrow Wilson Center sheds light on the various problems plaguing our institutions.
The legacy of direct military rule has done much damage to degrade civilian institutions. But politicians too have played a direct role in undermining our state institutions. Powerful political parties and their powerful leaders have preferred making most policy decisions themselves, and expecting parliamentarians to merely rubberstamp them. Consequently, most parliamentarians don’t have a major role in the policy process. Whether the incumbents will be able to change this basic reality remains to be seen.
For institutions to become more effective, it is vital that politicians no longer be allowed to use public institutions as the means to provide patronage to supporters, and to appropriate wealth instead of serving the public.
The politicisation of the bureaucracy has also led most public institutions, ranging from educational institutions to our national airlines, to have become burdened by unqualified and corrupt political appointees.
Achieving institutional reforms needed political commitment and resolve by our own policy-makers. Yet, broader factors are also responsible for undermining Pakistan’s public institutions. The Woodrow Wilson Center report has neglected to mention the fact that much of the institutional decay we see in countries like Pakistan today, can be blamed on decades of structural adjustment policies, pushed by the World Bank and endorsed by USAID, which are amongst our largest international donors. Such policies have been compelling cutting back public spending, and an insistence on privatisation, even of essential services.
Pakistan’s economy is once again struggling with a growing fiscal deficit and falling levels of foreign reserves. Whether the incoming government will be able to negotiate donor relief packages which can help bolster our public institutions instead of undermining them, by further accepting neoliberal conditionalities, remains to be seen.
Ineffective institutions complicate efforts to develop and implement effective policies to meet basic needs of the citizenry.
Pakistan’s lingering institutional shortcomings have created a vacuum which enables the military and even the problematic non-state actors to step in and offer to provide missing public services. Consider, for instance, how lack of access to justice provided a rationale for extremists to assert control over Swat. Most military coups in the past have also justified their interventions by claiming to rectify institutional failures. This derailing of the political process has of course only served to further marginalise and weaken public institutions.
It is about time that the politicians now in power were dissuaded from not only exercising political opportunism but also political vindictiveness. They must realise that institutional effectiveness is achieved by building on what is already in place than by repeatedly starting from scratch. Half-hearted attempts to implement meaningful institutional reform will make today’s challenges even more daunting down the road, besides making life even more difficult for the majority of Pakistan’s burgeoning populace.
Published in The Express Tribune, August 3rd, 2018.
There is no doubt that an array of robust state institutions remains vital for delivering good governance. Unless we invest in our public institutions, democracy in Pakistan will remain tokenistic at best, and the needs of the ordinary citizen will continue to be unmet, no matter how many more general elections we have.
The present condition of our state’s institutions is indeed in a shambles. A recent report put out by the Woodrow Wilson Center sheds light on the various problems plaguing our institutions.
The legacy of direct military rule has done much damage to degrade civilian institutions. But politicians too have played a direct role in undermining our state institutions. Powerful political parties and their powerful leaders have preferred making most policy decisions themselves, and expecting parliamentarians to merely rubberstamp them. Consequently, most parliamentarians don’t have a major role in the policy process. Whether the incumbents will be able to change this basic reality remains to be seen.
For institutions to become more effective, it is vital that politicians no longer be allowed to use public institutions as the means to provide patronage to supporters, and to appropriate wealth instead of serving the public.
The politicisation of the bureaucracy has also led most public institutions, ranging from educational institutions to our national airlines, to have become burdened by unqualified and corrupt political appointees.
Achieving institutional reforms needed political commitment and resolve by our own policy-makers. Yet, broader factors are also responsible for undermining Pakistan’s public institutions. The Woodrow Wilson Center report has neglected to mention the fact that much of the institutional decay we see in countries like Pakistan today, can be blamed on decades of structural adjustment policies, pushed by the World Bank and endorsed by USAID, which are amongst our largest international donors. Such policies have been compelling cutting back public spending, and an insistence on privatisation, even of essential services.
Pakistan’s economy is once again struggling with a growing fiscal deficit and falling levels of foreign reserves. Whether the incoming government will be able to negotiate donor relief packages which can help bolster our public institutions instead of undermining them, by further accepting neoliberal conditionalities, remains to be seen.
Ineffective institutions complicate efforts to develop and implement effective policies to meet basic needs of the citizenry.
Pakistan’s lingering institutional shortcomings have created a vacuum which enables the military and even the problematic non-state actors to step in and offer to provide missing public services. Consider, for instance, how lack of access to justice provided a rationale for extremists to assert control over Swat. Most military coups in the past have also justified their interventions by claiming to rectify institutional failures. This derailing of the political process has of course only served to further marginalise and weaken public institutions.
It is about time that the politicians now in power were dissuaded from not only exercising political opportunism but also political vindictiveness. They must realise that institutional effectiveness is achieved by building on what is already in place than by repeatedly starting from scratch. Half-hearted attempts to implement meaningful institutional reform will make today’s challenges even more daunting down the road, besides making life even more difficult for the majority of Pakistan’s burgeoning populace.
Published in The Express Tribune, August 3rd, 2018.