Government of paper Hull, Matthew S
2012., 20120506, 2012, 2012-06-05, 20120101
eBook
In the electronic age, documents appear to have escaped their paper confinement. But we are still surrounded by flows of paper with enormous consequences. In the planned city of Islamabad, order and ...disorder are produced through the ceaseless inscription and circulation of millions of paper artifacts among bureaucrats, politicians, property owners, villagers, imams (prayer leaders), businessmen, and builders. What are the implications of such a thorough paper mediation of relationships among people, things, places, and purposes? Government of Paper explores this question in the routine yet unpredictable realm of the Pakistani urban bureaucracy, showing how the material forms of postcolonial bureaucratic documentation produce a distinctive political economy of paper that shapes how the city is constructed, regulated, and inhabited. Files, maps, petitions, and visiting cards constitute the enduring material infrastructure of more ephemeral classifications, laws, and institutional organizations. Matthew S. Hull develops a fresh approach to state governance as a material practice, explaining why writing practices designed during the colonial era to isolate the government from society have become a means of participation in it.
Being part of a violent community in revolt can be addictive--it can be fun. This book offers a fascinating inside look at present-day political violence in Pakistan through a historical ethnography ...of the Muhajir Qaumi Movement (MQM), one of the most remarkable and successful religious nationalist movements in postcolonial South Asia. The MQM has mobilized much of the "migrant" (Muhajir) population in Karachi and other urban centers in southern Pakistan and has fomented large-scale ethnic-religious violence. Oskar Verkaaik argues that urban youth see it as an irresistible opportunity for "fun." Drawing on both anthropological fieldwork, including participatory observation among political militants, and historical analyses of state formation, nation-building, and the ethnicization of Islam since 1947, he provides an absorbing and important contribution to theoretical debates about political--religious and nationalist--violence. Migrants and Militants brings together two perspectives on political violence. Recent studies on ethnic cleansing, genocide, terrorism, and religious violence have emphasized processes of identification and purification. Verkaaik combines these insights with a focus on urban youth culture, in which masculinity, physicality, and the performance of violence are key values. He shows that only through fun and absurdity can a nascent movement transgress the dominant discourse to come of its own. Using these observations, he considers violence as a ludic practice, violence as "martyrdom" and sacrifice, and violence as "terrorism" and resistance.
In order to understand the Pakistani state and government's treatment of non-dominant ethnic groups after the failure of the military operation in East Pakistan and the independence of Bangladesh, ...this book looks at the ethnic movements that were subject to a military operation after 1971: the Baloch in the 1970s, the Sindhis in the 1980s and Mohajirs in the 1990s.
The book critically evaluates the literature on ethnicity and nationalism by taking nationalist ideology and the political divisions which it generates within ethnic groups as essential in estimating ethnic movements. It goes on to challenge the modernist argument that nationalism is only relevant to modern-industrialised socio-economic settings. The available evidence from Pakistan makes clear that ethnic movements emanate from three distinct socio-economic realms: tribal (Baloch), rural (Sindh) and urban (Mohajir), and the book looks at the implications that this has, as well as how further arguments could be advanced about the relevance of ethnic movements and politics in the Third World.
It provides academics and researchers with background knowledge of how the Baloch, Sindhi and Mohajir ethnic conflict in Pakistan took shape in a historical context as well as probable future scenarios of the relationship between the Pakistani state and government, and ethnic groups and movements.
This book examines how the idea of Pakistan was articulated and debated in the public sphere and how popular enthusiasm was generated for its successful achievement, especially in the crucial ...province of UP (now Uttar Pradesh) in the last decade of British colonial rule in India. It argues that Pakistan was not a simply a vague idea that serendipitously emerged as a nation-state, but was popularly imagined as a sovereign Islamic State, a new Medina, as some called it. In this regard, it was envisaged as the harbinger of Islam's renewal and rise in the twentieth century, the new leader and protector of the global community of Muslims, and a worthy successor to the defunct Turkish Caliphate. The book also specifically foregrounds the critical role played by Deobandi ulama in articulating this imagined national community with an awareness of Pakistan's global historical significance.
The question of why some countries have democratic regimes and others do not is a significant issue in comparative politics. This book looks at India and Pakistan, two countries with clearly ...contrasting political regime histories, and presents an argument on why India is a democracy and Pakistan is not. Focusing on the specificities and the nuances of each state system, the author examines in detail the balance of authority and power between popular or elected politicians and the state apparatus through substantial historical analysis.
India and Pakistan are both large, multi-religious and multi-lingual countries sharing a geographic and historical space that in 1947, when they became independent from British rule, gave them a virtually indistinguishable level of both extreme poverty and inequality. All of those factors militate against democracy, according to most theories, and in Pakistan democracy did indeed fail very quickly after Independence. It has only been restored as a façade for military-bureaucratic rule for brief periods since then. In comparison, after almost thirty years of democracy, India had a brush with authoritarian rule, in the 1975-76 Emergency, and some analysts were perversely reassured that the India exception had been erased. But instead, after a momentous election in 1977, democracy has become stronger over the last thirty years.
Providing a comparative analysis of the political systems of India and Pakistan as well as a historical overview of the two countries, this textbook constitutes essential reading for students of South Asian History and Politics. It is a useful and balanced introduction to the politics of India and Pakistan.
1. Introduction: Why India is a Democracy and Pakistan is not (yet?) a Democracy Part 1 : The First Thirty Years of Independence 2. Inheritances of Colonial rule 3. Constitutional & Political Choices, in the initial years 4. Institutionalizing Democracy 5. Who (Really) Governs? Part 2: From 1977 to the present 6. 1977 as a Turning Point? 7. Religion as an Explanation 8. External Influences 9. Clearly Diverging Paths 10. Prospects for Path Convergence in the Next Decades 11. Conclusion
Philip Oldenburg is a Research Scholar at the South Asia Institute of Columbia University, where he has taught political science since 1977. He has done field research in India on local self-government, and on national elections and has been editor or co-editor of ten books in the India Briefing series.
'This book deals with a most interesting and rather unexplored problem: why has India become a robust democracy and Pakistan ended up by being a military-ruled country while both of them share similar cultural features and emerged from the same history (including the colonial experience)?
Philip Oldenburg has not only chosen an excellent topic, he is also very well informed and gets his facts right. To present such an ambitious comparison in this format is a tour de force.' -- Christophe Jaffrelot, Senior Research Fellow CNRS, France
'This fine book, full of insight and wisdom, reflects Philip Oldenburg’s long scholarly engagement with the study of South Asian politics, and offers a magisterial synthesis of a wide literature in developing what will surely stand as the definitive comparative analysis of the political systems of India and Pakistan.' -- John Harriss, School for International Studies, Simon Fraser University, Canada
'This is the first major attempt to solve the puzzle of democratic divergence by looking at two countries with near-identical cultural, political, and social origins. Dr. Oldenburg's book is uniquely informed by deep familiarity with both India and Pakistan, and by a solid grasp of the relevant scholarly literature. It is a landmark in both regional studies and comparative political analysis, and will inform all future work on the democratization process.' -- Stephen P. Cohen, Brookings Institution, USA
"It's impossible for this review to do full justice to this richly-detailed, cool-headed, well-grounded must read for anyone interested in South Asia--or in the study of democracy." -- Patricia Lee Sharpe, Whirled View
"The book is carefully researched, well documented, and clearly argued...Policy analysts, journalists, and students interested in the contemporary politics of India and Pakistan will benefit considerably from a careful perusal of this book." -- Sumit Ganguly, H-Asia
"This book offers a nuanced assessment which shows that while India and Pakistan have not converged on an authoritarian model, they have much in common... Thoughtful questions are asked, difficult issues considered and a large amount of material is synthesised. Scholars, students and teachers alike will find this book very useful." - Andrew Wyatt, University of Bristol, UK; Pacific Affairs: Volume 85, No. 2 - June 2012
From the start of the U.S. war in Afghanistan in 2001 to the withdrawal of U.S. troops in 2014, Pakistan's military cooperation was critical to the United States. Yet Pakistani politics remain a ...source of anxiety for American policymakers. Despite some progress toward democratic consolidation over the last ten years, Pakistan's military still asserts power over the country's elected government. Pakistan's western regions remain largely ungoverned and home to the last remnants of al-Qaeda's original leadership as well as multiple militant groups that have declared war on the Pakistani state. The country's economy is in shambles, and continuing tensions with India endanger efforts to bring a durable peace to a region haunted by the distant threat of nuclear war.
Pakistan's Enduring Challengessurveys the political and economic landscape of Pakistan in the wake of U.S. military withdrawal. Experts in the domestic and international affairs of the region consider the country's prospects from a variety of angles, including security issues and nuclear posture, relations with Afghanistan, India, and the United States, Pakistan's Islamist movements, and the CIA's use of drone warfare in Pakistan's tribal areas. This timely volume offers a concise, accessible, and expert guide to the currents that will shape the country's future.
Contributors: Christopher Clary, C. Christine Fair, Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, Karl Kaltenthaler, Feisal Khan, William J. Miller, Aparna Pande, Paul Staniland, Stephen Tankel, Tara Vassefi, Sarah J. Watson, Joshua T. White, Huma Yusef.
Under the Drones Bashir, Shahzad; Crews, Robert D; Tarzi, Amin ...
2012, 2012-08-31, 2012-05-28, 20120101
eBook
Western media coverage of Afghanistan and Pakistan paints a simplistic picture of ageless barbarity, terrorist safe havens, and peoples in need of either punishment or salvation. Under the Drones ...looks beyond this limiting view to investigate real people on the ground, and analyze the political, social, and economic forces that shape their lives.
The State of Islam tells the story of Pakistan through the lens of the Cold War, and more recently the War on Terror, to shed light on the domestic and international processes behind the global rise ...of militant Islam. Unlike existing scholarship on nationalism, Islam and the state in Pakistan, which tends to privilege events in a narrowly-defined ‘political’ realm, Saadia Toor highlights the significance of cultural politics in Pakistan from its origins to the contemporary period. This extra dimension allows Toor to explain how the struggle between Marxists and liberal nationalists was influenced and eventually engulfed by the agenda of the religious right. Timely and unique, this book is a must for anyone who wants to understand the roots of modern Pakistan and the likely outcome of current power struggles in the country.
This book explores the shift from colonial rule to independence in India and Pakistan, with the aim of unravelling the explicit meaning and relevance of 'independence' for the new citizens of India ...and Pakistan during the two decades post 1947. While the study of postcolonial South Asia has blossomed in recent years, this volume addresses a number of imbalances in this dynamic and highly popular field. Firstly, the histories of India and Pakistan after 1947 have been conceived separately, with many scholars assuming that the two states developed along divergent paths after independence. Thus, the dominant historical paradigm has been to examine either India or Pakistan in relative isolation from one another. Viewing the two states in the same frame not only allows the contributors of this volume to explore common themes, but also facilitates an exploration of the powerful continuities between the pre- and post-independence periods.
Popular representations of Pakistan's North West Frontier have long featured simplistic images of tribal blood feuds, fanatical religion, and the seclusion of women. The rise to power of the radical ...Taliban regime in neighbouring Afghanistan enhanced the region's reputation as a place of anti-Western militancy. Magnus Marsden is an anthropologist who has immersed himself in the lives of the Frontier's villagers for more than ten years. His evocative study of the Chitral region challenges all these stereotypes. Through an exploration of the everyday experiences of both men and women, he shows that the life of a good Muslim in Chitral is above all a mindful life, enhanced by the creative force of poetry, dancing and critical debate. Challenging much that has been assumed about the Muslim world, this 2005 study makes a powerful contribution to the understanding of religion and politics both within and beyond the Muslim societies of southern Asia.
