Articles for category: Pakistan

Against Abusive Essentialism

Dixon identifies two means of abusive feminism – formalism and descriptive representation – both of which have found currency in the South Asian context. The South Asian region has a long history of female leaders of states, but their rule demonstrates that no easy causations can be drawn between descriptive presence of women in positions of power and democracy. Women can be and are good and bad leaders just as men. The framework of abusive feminism can help us recognize the dynamic nature of authoritarian rule and take a contextual, multi-institutional, and intersectional approach in our responses.

18. August 2025

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Constitutionally Capturing Pakistan’s Constitutional Courts

In 2024, Pakistan’s parliament passed a constitutional amendment carrying out the most significant restructuring of Pakistan’s superior judiciary in its recent history. This judicial overhaul needs to be analyzed as part of a process of regime realignment. By regime realignment, I mean a ruling authoritarian elite radically altering its supportive political structure and popular bases to expand and extend its hold on power. Based on news sources and conversations with senior lawyers and judges, I will show that this plan for judicial overhaul developed iteratively through a process of intra- and inter-institutional dialogue and conflict that took place during regime realignment.

11. Februar 2025

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Courts, Constitutions and Authoritarian Consolidation in Pakistan

In 2024, Pakistan has moved in a decisively authoritarian direction. The civilian and military hybrid ruling coalition that came to power in 2022 is using electoral engineering and constitutional entrenchment to consolidate power in the face of popular discontent and resilient political opposition. This process of electoral and constitutional consolidation does not move forward unimpeded, without resistance, and requires capturing and coordinating state institutions. In this blogpost, I show that formal constitutional safeguards provided little protection against the hybrid regime’s capture and weaponization of electoral monitoring bodies.

31. Oktober 2024

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Fractured Foundations and Pakistan’s Kafkaesque Constitutional Amendment

Pakistan is in the throes of yet another constitutional crisis. The ruling coalition government, which is heavily criticized for coming to power through blatantly rigged elections in February 2024, launched a campaign to amend the 1973 Constitution in significant ways. After weeks of speculation, the federal cabinet approved a draft on Sunday afternoon, which was approved by the Senate later the same evening.  The National Assembly approved the draft today around 5 a.m., with the President assenting shortly thereafter.

21. Oktober 2024

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Pakistan’s Qazi Court and Who is Afraid of the Cricket Bat

In a fundamental misunderstanding of classical Islamic law, legendary sociologist Max Weber conceptualised it as ‘Qadi justice’ quintessentially characterized as an Islamic judge “sitting under a tree” handing out informal and irrational decisions. Weber may have been incorrect in his characterization of Islamic law, but the Qazi Court of Pakistan appears to fit that mould. In several decisions, the Qazi Court effectively condoned the unconstitutional delay in elections, suppression of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) of Imran Khan’s election campaign, and turned a blind eye towards a campaign of repression by the military-backed establishment. However, the unkindest cut of them all to Pakistan’s democracy and the legitimacy of the elections was the Qazi Court’s decision denying the PTI its electoral symbol: the cricket bat.

22. Februar 2024

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Pakistan’s Call for Climate Reparations

Torrential monsoon rains have triggered Pakistan’s worst floods this century. So far, at least 1,300 people have been killed and a third of the country is under flood waters. Entire villages have been washed away and an estimated three million children are in need of humanitarian assistance. Against this backdrop, Pakistan’s minister for climate change has called for rich nations to pay reparations to developing States suffering climate loss and damage. In this blog post, I will put the claims for climate reparations in an international law context.

8. September 2022

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An Uncounted Confidence Vote

On 22 July, the Provincial Assembly of the Punjab, Pakistan’s largest province, convened to elect a new Chief Minister. Punjab’s political turmoil is the first trial run of the Court’s drastic reconfiguration of Pakistan’s political regime with a judgement this May that completely eliminates legislators’ ability to vote against the party line in confidence matters. Departing from essential principles of parliamentarism, the Court has incorporated the notion of executives remaining in office without the confidence of the House into Pakistan’s constitutional framework. The difficulties that already have arisen from working this party-centric parliamentarism demonstrate its dangers for democratic consolidation and underline the need for the Court to reconsider its position.

5. August 2022

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A Bold Defence of Parliamentarism

At midnight on 10 April 2022, Pakistan’s National Assembly voted to pass a motion of no-confidence in Prime Minister Imran Khan, ousting his populist Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party from power three and a half years after its controversial election. The civilian government went to great lengths to stay in power, using allies in nominally impartial state offices to unconstitutionally dismiss the no-confidence motion and call snap elections. This attempt, however, failed - largely due to the country’s Supreme Court, which in a ruling on 7 April 2022 intervened decisively to protect the National Assembly from dissolution and order the vote to go ahead.

12. April 2022

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Global Inequities in Algorithms

Algorithms can seem like esoteric subjects, often relegated to the realm of engineers and technology companies, given the technical nature of algorithmic design. Algorithms, when applied, take on a social character that invites us into peer beneath the hood to understand both their function and application. Given the growing ubiquitousness of algorithms in our daily lives, policymakers are looking to capture algorithms within regulatory mechanisms. This article seeks to understand the inequalities that undergird algorithmic applications, in order to understand how to regulate these systems.

31. März 2022

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Democratic Deficits of COVID-19 Crisis in Pakistan

The ‘lives versus livelihood’ conundrum in Pakistan is emblematic of the difficulties that accompany the balancing of conflicting rights in transitioning democracies. From testing the ability of various tiers of the government machinery to work together to keeping the economy afloat as the country faced lockdowns, Pakistan deeply felt the onset of the burden of disease. The country’s journey through the pandemic was shrouded in deep political contestations over power struggle between the provinces and the centre. As the crisis deepened in mid-2020, the social policies for pandemic response became the site for centralising authority; where trade-offs were made between fundamental rights and well-being of citizens to draw political mileage and cementing the narrative of the centre.

9. April 2021