Impending crises
OPINION
September 2, 2025
DAWN
WE may be among the most crisis-prone nations globally. In this writer’s view, we have faced nearly 30 crises since 1990 or one every 14 months on average. This includes political crises when the ruling set-up or its head were removed in contentious circumstances (seven); economic crunches that led us to the IMF (eight); natural and health-related calamities like earthquakes, floods and Covid-19 (four); internal or external security challenges (five) and crises due to street unrest (five).
This sorry status arises from the state’s predatory, security and autocratic bent. The economic crises arise as our predatory rulers induce fickle growth via high twin deficits. The external security crises reflect the hold of hawks on both sides of our eastern border. The internal challenges come from the gripes of excluded ethnicities or our tolerance in the past of violent groups to gain a regional security edge. The political crises and street unrests relate mainly to establishment feuds with politicians. Natural crises cause excessive harm as our rulers eschew disaster management. Economic progress requires peace and economic stability, which need political stability, which, in turn, requires political legitimacy. So, a prolonged loss of political legitimacy lies at the root of all our crises.
The longest crisis-free phase after 1990 was 2001-2005 when a military-led set-up induced questionable stability via fickle US aid and repression. But it only delayed and magnified the inevitable crises that erupted during our first polycrisis from 2005-08. We witnessed the 2005 earthquake, the start of Baloch and TTP violence, Benazir Bhutto’s death and street unrest, and the 2007-08 economic crisis the set-up caused. They led to its fall despite its macho aura of invincibility and debatable claims of progress.
Flawed policies are fomenting future trouble.
The Baloch and TTP-linked crises have raged on since then. The frequency of crises has gone up. The PPP inherited the 2007-08 economic crisis that was boosted by the 2008 global recession. It witnessed the mega floods of 2010 and the removal of its prime minister in 2012. Its government caused an economic crisis in 2013. The PML-N inherited the economic crisis, faced the PTI dharna in 2014, lost its prime minister in 2017 to court decisions, and caused an economic crisis itself in 2018. The PTI inherited the problems, faced Covid-19 in 2020, caused an economic crisis in 2021 and saw its prime minister removed through a no-trust vote in 2022. This started our second polycrisis with floods in 2022, mismanaged economic crisis, PTI protests till 2024, spikes in militant violence and war with India in 2025.
Given the internal boost from the war, resurgent ties with the US and (fickle) economic stability, this hybrid set-up is claiming stability and invincibility. But Pakistan is the humbling ground of many a haughty regime that exuded sham invincibility. In trying to escape the strong pull of the root causes of crises, it faces the same insoluble puzzle as past set-ups — achieving elusive stability. Repression may only delay the inevitable and cause a bigger polycrisis.
Flawed policies are already fomenting future trouble. The failure to fix our perennial external deficits may cause an economic crisis as growth picks up. Given the government’s inability to fix the deeper causes of insecurity, our three external and local security foes may jointly try to inflict more violence. If civilians are supposed to forego democratic freedoms in order to fortify the ‘same page’, it may, instead, lead to cracks and divisions in the regime, ie, establishment-civilian, the PPP-PML-N, intra-PML-N, and cause a political crisis. Greater autocracy may spark national anger against oppressive policies, which may ignite Arab Spring-type protests. Natural crises remain a wildcard given the neglect of disaster control.
So, despite the rulers’ incumbency plans, based on dubious assumptions of durable stability, we may be an external shock away from an economic crisis, a terrorist attack away from war, a spark away from street unrest, a civilian refusal away from a political crisis and a big monsoon season away from a natural crisis. Such events may quickly negate the desperate attempts to exude an aura of invincibility that set-ups with low legitimacy need badly and that cause their fall.
A crisis-weary nation can see an end to the recurrent crises only through political legitimacy based on fair polls and civilian sway. Otherwise, with external, economic, demographic, security and natural threats set to increase in the coming decades, we may become even more crisis-prone.
The writer has a PhD from the University of California, Berkeley, in political economy and 25 years of grassroots to senior-level experiences across 50 countries.
murtazaniaz@yahoo.com
X: @NiazMurtaza2
Published in Dawn, September 2nd, 2025
What holds Pakistan back?
A narrow elite, resistant to reform, prioritises its own interests over that of the people.
September 1, 2025
DAWN
The writer is a former ambassador to the US, UK and UN.
PAKISTAN is one of the most over-diagnosed countries in the world. It has long been apparent what needs to be done for the country to achieve its promising potential. Its problems are well known. So are its solutions. But why have these solutions never been applied? Why has little been done to address the structural problems? Why have much-needed economic, educational and institutional reforms never been implemented? What is the impediment? What holds Pakistan back? What blocks meaningful progress?
Two words may answer these questions. Elite capture. Elite control of state power and of much of the country’s resources which enable overlapping elites to influence governance, politics and the economy as well as receive unwarranted benefits from such control — all at the expense of the public and without its consent.
A narrow, oligarchic elite has dominated the country’s politics and protected its interests with scant regard for societal welfare. A few hundred families have dominated virtually all of Pakistan’s legislatures, including the present ones, maintaining their grip on power through generations. Dynastic politics is emblematic of this. Party and electoral politics continues to be dominated by wealthy families, clans and networks of regional and local ‘influentials’. Even those from non-elite backgrounds are co-opted into elite culture.
This has remained largely unchanged despite economic and social changes of recent decades that have gradually been transforming the national landscape. These changes include greater urbanisation, rise of a larger middle class, shift in the economic centre of gravity from the countryside to urban centres, emergence of a diverse civil society and a more ‘connected’ and informed citizenry, thanks to the spread of technology. But politics and the political system have yet to be aligned with such changes. Instead, the old mould of control by entrenched elites continues. Politics remains a competition and power struggle among the political elite. Because power not purpose drives such politics it is bereft of ideas or any vision for the future.
This power elite has resisted meaningful reform — whether land reform, tax reform or reforms in governance. It has ‘rentier’ characteristics: using access to public office as a means of leveraging state resources to transfer wealth and acquire unearned income.
Elite capture has meant governance challenges have multiplied over the years, leaving the country with daunting problems of state solvency, security and mounting energy and water shortages.
Elite dominance is obviously not unique to Pakistan. It is a phenomenon elsewhere too. Elites are found in all societies, and countries everywhere are run by them. But it depends on what kind of elites they are and the nature of elite capture — whether it helps or hinders societies and economies to grow and prosperity to be shared. The extent to which privileged elites control politics, governance and the economy in Pakistan makes it distinctive. So does the way this prevents mobility and perpetuates the relatively limited pool of decision-makers. Another distinct characteristic is the intersection and symbiotic relationship between political and military elites.
The military whose social background is increasingly middle or lower middle class often counterposes itself to the traditional political elite as a meritocratic institution that offers social mobility and functions on the basis of professionalism, which it does. But the alliances it forges are with the very political elite it criticises and sees as self-serving, venal and inept. The status quo interests of both are what bind them together. Both use patron-client relationships to reinforce their ascendancy and protect their privileged position.
There has been extensive discussion in the country about the politics and economics of elite capture and its consequences. UNDP’s National Human Development Report of 2021 found that economic privileges given to Pakistan’s elite groups, including the political class, corporate sector, feudal landlords and the military amounted to around $17. 4 billion or about six per cent of GDP. Among the stark, deep-rooted inequalities identified by the report are that the richest 20pc own almost 50pc of the country’s income while the landed elite which constitutes 1.1pc of the population owns 22pc of cultivable farmland. The report notes that both the urban and rural rich have strong representation in parliament. Powerful groups, it says, capture much more than their fair share through favourable policies and structural discrimination.
The Pakistan Institute of Development Economics has conducted extensive research on elite capture in different areas and its implications, while urging a nuanced debate on this. Its bimonthly publication of August/ September 2024 was dedicated entirely to this, with rich contributions from economists and other social scientists. Among PIDE’s research findings are that elite capture perpetuates/ widens inequality, constrains economic growth, limits the development of human capital, leads to lack of economic productivity and impedes social mobility. It produces substantial losses to the economy and results in stagnation. Poor governance is inescapable when policy decisions are made to further the interests of the elite rather than the public.
Rosita Armytage’s book, Big Capital in an Unequal World: The Micropolitics of Wealth in Pakistan (2020), alsogenerated much debate on elite capture.It profiled Pakistan’s business and industrial elite and offered insights into its ‘uppermost’ elite, and its networks and methods that help to maintain its position and reinforce inequality. The author finds Pakistan a compelling case of elite power, which, like many developing countries, is run by an oligarchy of economic and political interests and is afflicted by high levels of instability. This instability is encouraged by powerful families that benefit from it through the ‘culture of exemptions’, which enables members of the elite to buttress their positions and thwart competition. The book argues that major wealth in the country is concentrated among a limited number of families that dominate the principal political parties and leading firms and have family links with senior echelons of the military.
Amply clear from all of this is that unless public welfare, not the interests of a narrow, privileged elite, becomes central to the enterprise of governance, Pakistan cannot achieve its full potential. This choice, more than anything else, will determine the country’s fate and fortunes.
Published in Dawn, September 1st, 2025
The writer is a former ambassador to the US, UK and UN.
PAKISTAN is one of the most over-diagnosed countries in the world. It has long been apparent what needs to be done for the country to achieve its promising potential. Its problems are well known. So are its solutions. But why have these solutions never been applied? Why has little been done to address the structural problems? Why have much-needed economic, educational and institutional reforms never been implemented? What is the impediment? What holds Pakistan back? What blocks meaningful progress?
Two words may answer these questions. Elite capture. Elite control of state power and of much of the country’s resources which enable overlapping elites to influence governance, politics and the economy as well as receive unwarranted benefits from such control — all at the expense of the public and without its consent.
A narrow, oligarchic elite has dominated the country’s politics and protected its interests with scant regard for societal welfare. A few hundred families have dominated virtually all of Pakistan’s legislatures, including the present ones, maintaining their grip on power through generations. Dynastic politics is emblematic of this. Party and electoral politics continues to be dominated by wealthy families, clans and networks of regional and local ‘influentials’. Even those from non-elite backgrounds are co-opted into elite culture.
This has remained largely unchanged despite economic and social changes of recent decades that have gradually been transforming the national landscape. These changes include greater urbanisation, rise of a larger middle class, shift in the economic centre of gravity from the countryside to urban centres, emergence of a diverse civil society and a more ‘connected’ and informed citizenry, thanks to the spread of technology. But politics and the political system have yet to be aligned with such changes. Instead, the old mould of control by entrenched elites continues. Politics remains a competition and power struggle among the political elite. Because power not purpose drives such politics it is bereft of ideas or any vision for the future.
This power elite has resisted meaningful reform — whether land reform, tax reform or reforms in governance. It has ‘rentier’ characteristics: using access to public office as a means of leveraging state resources to transfer wealth and acquire unearned income.
Elite capture has meant governance challenges have multiplied over the years, leaving the country with daunting problems of state solvency, security and mounting energy and water shortages.
Elite dominance is obviously not unique to Pakistan. It is a phenomenon elsewhere too. Elites are found in all societies, and countries everywhere are run by them. But it depends on what kind of elites they are and the nature of elite capture — whether it helps or hinders societies and economies to grow and prosperity to be shared. The extent to which privileged elites control politics, governance and the economy in Pakistan makes it distinctive. So does the way this prevents mobility and perpetuates the relatively limited pool of decision-makers. Another distinct characteristic is the intersection and symbiotic relationship between political and military elites.
The military whose social background is increasingly middle or lower middle class often counterposes itself to the traditional political elite as a meritocratic institution that offers social mobility and functions on the basis of professionalism, which it does. But the alliances it forges are with the very political elite it criticises and sees as self-serving, venal and inept. The status quo interests of both are what bind them together. Both use patron-client relationships to reinforce their ascendancy and protect their privileged position.
There has been extensive discussion in the country about the politics and economics of elite capture and its consequences. UNDP’s National Human Development Report of 2021 found that economic privileges given to Pakistan’s elite groups, including the political class, corporate sector, feudal landlords and the military amounted to around $17. 4 billion or about six per cent of GDP. Among the stark, deep-rooted inequalities identified by the report are that the richest 20pc own almost 50pc of the country’s income while the landed elite which constitutes 1.1pc of the population owns 22pc of cultivable farmland. The report notes that both the urban and rural rich have strong representation in parliament. Powerful groups, it says, capture much more than their fair share through favourable policies and structural discrimination.
The Pakistan Institute of Development Economics has conducted extensive research on elite capture in different areas and its implications, while urging a nuanced debate on this. Its bimonthly publication of August/ September 2024 was dedicated entirely to this, with rich contributions from economists and other social scientists. Among PIDE’s research findings are that elite capture perpetuates/ widens inequality, constrains economic growth, limits the development of human capital, leads to lack of economic productivity and impedes social mobility. It produces substantial losses to the economy and results in stagnation. Poor governance is inescapable when policy decisions are made to further the interests of the elite rather than the public.
Rosita Armytage’s book, Big Capital in an Unequal World: The Micropolitics of Wealth in Pakistan (2020), alsogenerated much debate on elite capture.It profiled Pakistan’s business and industrial elite and offered insights into its ‘uppermost’ elite, and its networks and methods that help to maintain its position and reinforce inequality. The author finds Pakistan a compelling case of elite power, which, like many developing countries, is run by an oligarchy of economic and political interests and is afflicted by high levels of instability. This instability is encouraged by powerful families that benefit from it through the ‘culture of exemptions’, which enables members of the elite to buttress their positions and thwart competition. The book argues that major wealth in the country is concentrated among a limited number of families that dominate the principal political parties and leading firms and have family links with senior echelons of the military.
Amply clear from all of this is that unless public welfare, not the interests of a narrow, privileged elite, becomes central to the enterprise of governance, Pakistan cannot achieve its full potential. This choice, more than anything else, will determine the country’s fate and fortunes.
Published in Dawn, September 1st, 2025
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