The changing nature of Pakistan’s Establishment

When the political repression gets to a point where even the economic publications cannot ignore it, you know things are getting bad.

At Profit, we like to leave the political analysis to other publications and stick to our lane of business and economics, but given the state of Pakistan’s polity and the rank uncertainty prevailing even as the macroeconomy stabilizes, we must return for a second time to finish off an analysis we started two weeks ago: what is the core structure of Pakistan’s political economy, how has it changed over the past few decades, and what direction is it taking?

In the last piece, we argued that a core feature of Pakistan’s political economy from the 1880s through 2008 was feudalism, and that its time has essentially passed. We alluded to what changes would result from that transition. In this piece, we will delve into those changes in more detail and examine the possibilities of what could come next and explain, to some extent, why political repression in Pakistan getting worse may well be a sign that things are about to turn a corner.

We will also state our conclusion up front: we believe the current iteration of hybrid regime – however long it lasts – is the last time non-democratic government in Pakistan will work. Democracy is the only form of government that will deliver political stability to the country from here on out.

Yes, we are aware of who is in control of the country right now, and how absolute their control is for the moment. We still say this is the last time they will be able to make it work.

To understand why we say that, let us start with a discussion of patronage networks, and the legitimacy that they deliver to any governing regime that relies on them.