Pakistan Under Siege

Pakistan Under Siege PDF Author: Madiha Afzal
Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
ISBN: 0815729464
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 174

Get Book Here

Book Description
Over the last fifteen years, Pakistan has come to be defined exclusively in terms of its struggle with terror. But are ordinary Pakistanis extremists? And what explains how Pakistanis think? Much of the current work on extremism in Pakistan tends to study extremist trends in the country from a detached position—a top-down security perspective, that renders a one-dimensional picture of what is at its heart a complex, richly textured country of 200 million people. In this book, using rigorous analysis of survey data, in-depth interviews in schools and universities in Pakistan, historical narrative reporting, and her own intuitive understanding of the country, Madiha Afzal gives the full picture of Pakistan’s relationship with extremism. The author lays out Pakistanis’ own views on terrorist groups, on jihad, on religious minorities and non-Muslims, on America, and on their place in the world. The views are not radical at first glance, but are riddled with conspiracy theories. Afzal explains how the two pillars that define the Pakistani state—Islam and a paranoia about India—have led to a regressive form of Islamization in Pakistan’s narratives, laws, and curricula. These, in turn, have shaped its citizens’ attitudes. Afzal traces this outlook to Pakistan’s unique and tortured birth. She examines the rhetoric and the strategic actions of three actors in Pakistani politics—the military, the civilian governments, and the Islamist parties—and their relationships with militant groups. She shows how regressive Pakistani laws instituted in the 1980s worsened citizen attitudes and led to vigilante and mob violence. The author also explains that the educational regime has become a vital element in shaping citizens’ thinking. How many years one attends school, whether the school is public, private, or a madrassa, and what curricula is followed all affect Pakistanis’ attitudes about terrorism and the rest of the world. In the end, Afzal suggests how this beleaguered nation—one with seemingly insurmountable problems in governance and education—can change course.

Pakistan Under Siege

Pakistan Under Siege PDF Author: Madiha Afzal
Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
ISBN: 0815729464
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 174

Get Book Here

Book Description
Over the last fifteen years, Pakistan has come to be defined exclusively in terms of its struggle with terror. But are ordinary Pakistanis extremists? And what explains how Pakistanis think? Much of the current work on extremism in Pakistan tends to study extremist trends in the country from a detached position—a top-down security perspective, that renders a one-dimensional picture of what is at its heart a complex, richly textured country of 200 million people. In this book, using rigorous analysis of survey data, in-depth interviews in schools and universities in Pakistan, historical narrative reporting, and her own intuitive understanding of the country, Madiha Afzal gives the full picture of Pakistan’s relationship with extremism. The author lays out Pakistanis’ own views on terrorist groups, on jihad, on religious minorities and non-Muslims, on America, and on their place in the world. The views are not radical at first glance, but are riddled with conspiracy theories. Afzal explains how the two pillars that define the Pakistani state—Islam and a paranoia about India—have led to a regressive form of Islamization in Pakistan’s narratives, laws, and curricula. These, in turn, have shaped its citizens’ attitudes. Afzal traces this outlook to Pakistan’s unique and tortured birth. She examines the rhetoric and the strategic actions of three actors in Pakistani politics—the military, the civilian governments, and the Islamist parties—and their relationships with militant groups. She shows how regressive Pakistani laws instituted in the 1980s worsened citizen attitudes and led to vigilante and mob violence. The author also explains that the educational regime has become a vital element in shaping citizens’ thinking. How many years one attends school, whether the school is public, private, or a madrassa, and what curricula is followed all affect Pakistanis’ attitudes about terrorism and the rest of the world. In the end, Afzal suggests how this beleaguered nation—one with seemingly insurmountable problems in governance and education—can change course.

Military, State and Society in Pakistan

Military, State and Society in Pakistan PDF Author: H. Rizvi
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 0230599044
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 327

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book offers a comprehensive study of the dynamics of civil-military relations in Pakistan. It asks how and why the Pakistan military has acquired such a salience in the polity and how it continues to influence decision-making on foreign and security policies and key domestic political, social and economic issues. It also examines the changes within the military, the impact of these changes on its disposition towards the state and society, and the implications for peace and security in nuclearized South Asia.

The Politics of Common Sense

The Politics of Common Sense PDF Author: Aasim Sajjad Akhtar
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108226078
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 216

Get Book Here

Book Description
This work offers a refreshingly different perspective on Pakistan - it documents the evolution of Pakistan's structure of power over the past four decades. In particular, how the military dictatorship headed by General Zia ul Haq (1977–1988) - whose rule has been almost exclusively associated with a narrow agenda of Islamisation - transformed the political field through a combination of coercion and consent-production. The Zia regime inculcated within the society at large a 'common sense' privileging the cultivation of patronage ties and the concurrent demeaning of counter-hegemonic political practices which had threatened the structure of power in the decade before the military coup in 1977. The book meticulously demonstrates how the politics of common sense has been consolidated in the past three decades through the agency of emergent social forces such as traders and merchants as well as the religio-political organisations that gained in influence during the 1980s.

Pakistan Society

Pakistan Society PDF Author: Akbar Salahudin Ahmed
Publisher:
ISBN: 9789699988400
Category : Ethnicity
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book Here

Book Description


Islam and Society in Pakistan

Islam and Society in Pakistan PDF Author: Magnus Marsden
Publisher: OUP Pakistan
ISBN: 9780195479577
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book aims to bring together some of the most sophisticated recent anthropological work on the ways in which Pakistan's citizens from diverse social and regional backgrounds set to the task of being Muslim, and contribute to the dynamic role played by Islam in the country's political and social life.

State and Civil Society in Pakistan

State and Civil Society in Pakistan PDF Author: I. Malik
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 0230376290
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 366

Get Book Here

Book Description
Problems of governance in Pakistan are rooted in a persistently unclear and antagonistic relationship among the forces of authority, ideology and ethnicity. Based on theoretical and empirical research this book focuses on significant themes such as the oligarchic state structure dominated by the military and bureaucracy, civil society, Islam and the formation of Muslim identity in British India, constitutional traditions and their subversion by coercive policies, politics of gender, ethnicity, and Muslim nationalism versus regional nationalisms as espoused by Sindhi nationalists and the Karachi-based Muhajir Qaumi Movement (MQM).

Pakistan in National and Regional Change

Pakistan in National and Regional Change PDF Author: C. Christine Fair
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134924720
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 135

Get Book Here

Book Description
Pakistan is one of the most important states in the international system and a key concern of western security. This collection identifies a set of national and regional/international trends which will be critical in determining the medium to long-term stability and cohesion of Pakistan, yet which have received relatively little attention elsewhere. Experts on different aspects of Pakistan explore issues of political Islam, minorities, wider political trends, and the economic impacts of the recent floods to seek to explain some of the key drivers of change within Pakistan, and to reflect on the dynamics of US-Pakistan relationships and Pakistan’s rethinking of its regional relationships to understand key regional and international dynamics shaping Pakistan’s future. This book will be of interest to scholars in south asian political studies, ethnic studies and international relations. This book was published as a special issue of Contemporary South Asia.

Governing Thirdness

Governing Thirdness PDF Author: Muhammad Azfar Nisar
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1009082019
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 242

Get Book Here

Book Description
Khawaja Sira of Pakistan are a heterogeneous group of marginalized gender nonconforming individuals who defy traditional notions of gender and sexuality. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in Lahore, Pakistan, Governing Thirdness provides important insights about the identity, marginalization and governance of the Khawaja Sira as they try to live an unliveable life. Taking a broad view of governance, this book includes a comprehensive analysis of governance of the Khawaja Sira across legal, social and administrative institutions. It also argues that labels like third gender and transgender fails to account for the gender fluid lives and multiple types of individuals who identify as Khawaja Sira, yet these categories, largely imported from the west, are used without much thought to govern this heterogeneous group.

Religion and Politics in Muslim Society

Religion and Politics in Muslim Society PDF Author: Akbar S. Ahmed
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521246354
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 234

Get Book Here

Book Description
This analysis of Muslim unrest is based on an extended case study of northwestern Pakistan. Professor Ahmed examines power, authority, and religious status as the critical intermediary level of society: that of the district or Agency, which was the key unit of administration in British India. Amhed has joined his insights as anthropologist with his experience as a political agent in Waziristan to produce an innovative and detailed work. The book focuses on the emergence of a mullah in Waziristan who challenges the state. A religious leader's challenge of the state is not new; but contemporary Muslim society's widespread concern over these conflicts reveals that the influence of religion in a traditional society undergoing modernization is greater than many scholars have assumed. The author identifies three types of leaders: traditional leaders, usually elders; representatives of the established state authority; and religious functionaries. From this analysis he constructs an 'Islamic district paradigm,' which he uses not only in making sense of contemporary Muslim society, but also in understanding some aspects of the legacy of the colonial encounter.

The Nine Lives of Pakistan: Dispatches from a Precarious State

The Nine Lives of Pakistan: Dispatches from a Precarious State PDF Author: Declan Walsh
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393249921
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 301

Get Book Here

Book Description
Winner of the 2021 Overseas Press Club of America Cornelius Ryan Award The former New York Times Pakistan bureau chief paints an arresting, up-close portrait of a fractured country. Declan Walsh is one of the New York Times’s most distinguished international correspondents. His electrifying portrait of Pakistan over a tumultuous decade captures the sweep of this strange, wondrous, and benighted country through the dramatic lives of nine fascinating individuals. On assignment as the country careened between crises, Walsh traveled from the raucous port of Karachi to the salons of Lahore, and from Baluchistan to the mountains of Waziristan. He met a diverse cast of extraordinary Pakistanis—a chieftain readying for war at his desert fort, a retired spy skulking through the borderlands, and a crusading lawyer risking death for her beliefs, among others. Through these “nine lives” he describes a country on the brink—a place of creeping extremism and political chaos, but also personal bravery and dogged idealism that defy easy stereotypes. Unbeknownst to Walsh, however, an intelligence agent was tracking him. Written in the aftermath of Walsh’s abrupt deportation, The Nine Lives of Pakistan concludes with an astonishing encounter with that agent, and his revelations about Pakistan’s powerful security state. Intimate and complex, attuned to the centrifugal forces of history, identity, and faith, The Nine Lives of Pakistan offers an unflinching account of life in a precarious, vital country.