POLITICAL ECONOMY OF PAKISTAN

Associational Politics in Punjab

Umair Javed

ontemporary scholars of Pakistan

are in agreement about the defining characteristics marking the
changing nature of capital accumulation in
the country. Notable features include the
rise of the retail, wholesale and small-scale
manufacturing sector; a decline in the contribution of farm activity to both employment and national income; informalisation,
flexible accumulation and depeasantisation; and finally, rapid urbanisation,
especially in Punjab. Populating this changing landscape are emergent socio-economic
entrepreneurs often collectively grouped
as the intermediate classes and religious
groups of both statist and anti-state dispositions (cf Zaidi 1999).
While there is substantial agreement on
these broad trends in the nature of capital
accumulation, topics of debate remain.
The characterisation of the Pakistani state
along a strong-weak spectrum is one such
source of contention amongst scholars of
Pakistan. In the course of engaging this
very topic, Zaidi (2014) touches upon
several related and considerably understudied aspects of the Pakistani state.
These include institutional fluidity, its
relative autonomy compared to societal
groups (emergent and extant), and its
place in the structure of contemporary
political and economic power.
To redirect this debate from an overwhelming focus on the state, and to uncover the micro-foundational dynamics
of Pakistans new political economy, it

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may be useful to focus on the politics of

societal groups engaged in various kinds
of claim-making. As identified by both
Zaidi (2014) and Akhtar (2008), the
post-Bhutto period has allowed for some
form of participation from below not
only for the dominated classes, but also
for the aforementioned emergent actors.
The regular conduct of elections constrained as they may be and the gradual emergence of political parties further
complicates the sharp distinction historically drawn between state and society.
Civil Society
The domain of civil society, a space
where such interaction between state
actors and societal groups takes place on
a regular basis, remains under-analysed.
A false conflation of civil society with
non-governmental organisations, rightsbased organisations, and lately, the
media (Shah 2004) is one reason for this
neglect. An empirical analysis of formal
civic associations, run by emergent
societal actors to protect and further
specific group interests and privileges,
would be a first step towards a deeper
society-centred analysis of politics in
Pakistan. The interests pursued by these
associations may include the continued
exploitation of informal labour (through
wage-fixing by a traders association in
a marketplace), or, as in the case of religious groups, the assertion of a monopolising influence on cultural production.

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Punjab provides a useful space to study

organisational action and changing power
structures at the micro level. The urban
landscape in the province is now populated by a wide variety of business associations, professional forums, and religious
groups, all representing the interests of
emergent socio-economic actors. Such
effective forms of group action can be
witnessed in the way organised interests
from the retail and wholesale sector make
claims on the state. Over the past five
years, successful campaigns have been
waged against business documentation
(Ikram-ul-Haq 2013), value-added taxation (Ahmed 2010), consumption audits
(Express Tribune 2012), and the utilisation
of commercial real estate (Ezdi 2009).
Reflecting the dual nature of power, formal
collective action protests, petitions, and
in some cases, judicial action has almost
always been supplemented with the activation of informal networks of political
influence, with varying degrees of success
(Hasnain 2014).
The building of coalitions amongst various civil society actors further strengthens
this relatively new way of asserting group
interests. An important form of associational politics, also prominent in other
Muslim countries like Iran, is the bazaarmosque alliance (cf Keshavarzian 2007).
This relationship has been politically effective in Punjab, most notably in the case
of the 1976-77 Pakistan National Alliance
movement against Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto
(Sayeed 1995), and more recently, in the
mobilisation against an allegedly blasphemous video produced in the US (The
Nation 2012). In both instances, economic
actors that is, bazaar traders lent
financial and organisational support to
53

POLITICAL ECONOMY OF PAKISTAN

religious groups, allowing the latter to

engage in public protest and further a
particular cultural agenda. Benjamin
Smith (2003) suggests that the relationship between bazaar associations and
religious groups, while premised on some
shared cultural notions, remains largely
transactional. Traders stand to gain from
this relationship through enhanced reputations of piety and generosity amongst
customers, labourers, and other actors in
their economic networks, while religious
groups obtain monetary support and a
captive audience for their cultural agenda.
A Holistic Hegemony
Such alliances are important sites for the
production of what Akhtar refers to as a
holistic political, cultural and economic
hegemony, in which the subordinate classes
participate as clients from below. A focus
on the politics of formal associations
and their informal networks with state
actors and political parties highlights two
important aspects of Pakistans changing
political economy. First, it strongly
negates classical liberal assumptions
about voluntary associations acting as a
force for substantive democratisation or
the reduction of inequality (cf Mustafa
2005). The monopolisation of public political space through formal and informal

54

coalition-building by interest groups is

capable of transforming civil society into
a technology for perpetuating existing
social hierarchies.
Second, a focus on associational politics reveals the degree to which the state
is embedded in societal processes, and
engaged, like any other actor, in trying to
shape the social order with uneven success. Its autonomy, and hence its strength,
is negotiated through a multiplicity of
relations, thus rendering any accounts of
the state as an isolated actor redundant.
Akhtar is correct in asserting that the
hegemonic, state-directed project of quelling and dismantling a politics of resistance
has by and large succeeded. This particular
conclusion provides a holistic analysis of
Pakistans political economy, which lies
over and above Zaidis more Weberian
concern with state autonomy or state
coherence. The two can be merged at an
empirical level, though, by analysing how,
through societal change and the gradual
internalisation of a dialectic of patronage,
the state is now one of several actors, and
often not the most powerful one, engaged
in the reproduction of this hegemony.
Umair Javed (umairjaved87@gmail.com) is a PhD
candidate, Department of Sociology, School of
Oriental and African Studies, London, the UK.

june 28, 2014

References
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