Ayesha Jalal. The Struggle for Pakistan

There is a long tradition of telling Pakistan’s history as a tale of things going wrong. Once upon a time in the early 1960s, the country was the poster child of the Western-led global development effort. But ever since its eastern wing broke off in an exceptionally bloody conflict to become independent Bangladesh, a majority of writers both inside and outside of academia have pondered some version of the question “Can Pakistan survive?” as the veteran left-wing broadcaster and writer Tariq Ali entitled his own contribution to this genre (Can Pakistan Survive? The Death of a State [1983]). Pakistan has become an object of study because its political culture and institutional development have been compared unfavorably with those of its next-door neighbor, India, which is widely seen as the world’s largest democracy. Pakistan’s national identity seems to be an unresolved battleground between the pulls of ethnic nationalisms and Islamic extremism. In terms of international relations and security policy, the country has acquired a reputation as one of the world’s most dangerous.

Democracy · Ethnic group · Homeland · Islam · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · State (computer science) · Terrorism · Gender Studies · Historical and Contemporary Political Dynamics · History · Law · Peacebuilding and International Security · Politics and Conflicts in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Middle East

• Decolonization and South Asian Studies

  Neilesh Bose•South Asian Review•2017

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