Pakistan Security Research Unit (PSRU) Research Report 2 Civilian Control and Democratic Transition: Pakistan’s Unequal Equation Siegfried O. Wolf 1 April 2013 About the Pakistan Security Research Unit (PSRU) The Pakistan Security Research Unit (PSRU) was established in March 2007 and relocated to Durham University on 1st April 2013. It serves as an independent portal and neutral platform for interdisciplinary research on all aspects of Pakistani security, dealing with Pakistan's impact on regional and global security, internal security issues within Pakistan, and the interplay of the two. PSRU provides information about, and critical analysis of, Pakistani security with particular emphasis on extremism/terrorism, nuclear weapons issues, and the internal stability and cohesion of the state. PSRU is intended as a resource for anyone interested in the security of Pakistan and provides: Briefing papers; Reports; Datasets; Consultancy; Academic, institutional and media links; An open space for those working for positive change in Pakistan and for those currently without a voice. PSRU welcomes collaboration from individuals, groups and organisations, which share our broad objectives. Please contact us at [email protected] We encourage you to look at the website available through: www.durham.ac.uk/psru/ Other PSRU Publications The following papers are freely available through the Pakistan Security Research Unit (PSRU): Report Number 1. The Jihadi Terrain in Pakistan: An Introduction to the Sunni Jihadi Groups in Pakistan and Kashmir Briefings Numbers 1-64 including: Brief Number 57. Socio Economic Cost of Terrorism: A case study of Pakistan Brief Number 58. Islamic Militancy getting worse, not better: The recent attacks on the Ahmadi mosques in Lahore Brief Number 59. An Analysis of Obama’s Af-Pak Goal and First Objective: Setting the Baseline and Prospects for Success Brief Number 60. Domestic Politics and Systemic Constraints in Pakistan’s India Policy Brief Number 61. The Limited Military Utility of Pakistan’s Battlefield Use of Nuclear Weapons in Response to Large Scale Indian Conventional Attack Brief Number 62. Getting Afghanistan Right Brief Number 63. Why Karachi is a Major Source of Instability in Pakistan? Brief Number 64. The arrest of Brig. Gen. Ali Khan and the influence of Hizb-ut- Tahrir in Pakistan All these papers are freely available from: www.durham.ac.uk/psru/ 2 Table of Contents Executive Summary ................................................................................................................ 4 About the Author .................................................................................................................... 4 Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................ 4 1. Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 5 2. Analytical Framework ........................................................................................................ 6 3. Emergence of Military Dominance .................................................................................. 12 3.1 Civil-Military Relations after Democratization (1988-1997): Failed Civilian Control . 15 3.2. Civil-Military Relations between 1997-1999: Semblance of Civilian Control ............. 20 3.3 Restoration of Military Dominance under Pervez Musharraf (1999-2007) ................... 22 3.4 After Musharraf: Civilian Control at the Edge ............................................................... 23 4. Civil-Military Relations and Democracy ......................................................................... 25 5. Conclusion ........................................................................................................................ 27 Bibliography: ........................................................................................................................ 29 List of interviews .................................................................................................................. 35 3 Executive Summary Civilian control of the armed forces is a sine qua non for democratic consolidation. In Pakistan, since its existence, the military played an eminent role in all spheres of socio- economic and political life. In this context it is stated by several analysts that the soldiers are mainly responsible for the country’s setbacks on its path to democratic consolidation. The main argument made is that the military top brass, through either formal or informal interventions, were able to avoid the institutionalization of civilian control. Civilian control is understood as the distribution of decision-making power between civilians and the armed forces. This report sheds light on the successes and failures in the efforts of civilian governments to establish supremacy over the country’s armed forces in order to consolidate democratic rule. The analysis derives from a conceptualization of civilian control that distinguishes five areas of political decision-making: elite-recruitment, public policy, internal security, national defence, and internal security. In order to establish control in these various areas civilians have a choice between different strategies for which they need certain resources. In this context, the study shows that civil-military relations in Pakistan have tended to be affected by historical legacies, leading to the emergence of military dominance which undermined the civilian supremacy and affected the quality of democracy. About the Author Dr. Siegfried O. Wolf is lecturer at the South Asia Institute (SAI) and a former research fellow at the Institute of Political Science (IPW), both at Heidelberg University. His research interests focus on democratization, civil–military relations, political parties, social movements, identity constructions and conflicts in South Asia. He is co-author of A Political and Economic Dictionary of South Asia (London: Routledge, 2006), and Deputy Editor of the Heidelberg Papers in South Asian and Comparative Politics (HPSACP). Additionally, he is Director of Research, South Asia Democratic Forum (SADF), a Brussels based think tank. Acknowledgements This article contains results from the research project “Democratic Transformation and Civilian Control of the Military: Comparing New Democracies in Northeast, Southeast, and South Asia” conducted from 2008 to 2011 at Heidelberg University with funding by the German Research Foundation (DFG). The author wishes to thank Aurel Croissant, David Kuehn, Philip Voelkel and Paul Chambers as well as the editors for their helpful comments. 4 Civilian Control and Democratic Transition: Pakistan’s Unequal Equation Siegfried O. Wolf 1. Introduction Pakistan, as an example of the case of failed civilian control over the armed forces, does not fit into the story of global triumph of democratization. This is because the military was able to establish itself as the most dominant actor in politics and civilians have never succeeded in achieving any effective and sustainable amount of civilian supremacy. This limited not only the effective power to govern of (elected) civilian administrations, but also created deviancies regarding the electoral regime, political liberties, political participation and horizontal accountability. Therefore, Pakistan must be classified as a ‘defective democracy’, which is only partly free (Freedom House, 2011). These defects are deeply rooted in the history of civil-military relations in Pakistan and determined by two trends: First, as the army grew in strength and size over time, the development of the political system became characterised by a lack of institutionalization and chronic instability (Nawaz, 2008, xxviii). This created an imbalance of power, favoring the armed forces and, simultaneously, further weakened civilian power in the political decision-making process. Second, there has been a tendency for the military to institutionalize its political role (especially under Zia ul-Haq and Pervez Musharraf) featured by three criteria: (1) the abandonment of former personalized forms of exercising political influence (Ayub Khan and partly Yahya Khan); (2) the (informal) induction of broader sections of the armed forces into the political system to run the affairs of state; and (3) the constitutional entrenchment of a political role for the armed forces, e.g. the introduction of the 8th Amendment. These developments led to the emergence of a phenomenon in Pakistan’s political decision-making which is commonly described as the ‘rule of the Troika’ (Rizvi, 2003; Kukreja, 2003). Generally this term is supposed to illustrate the system of power-sharing between civilians and military, embodied through the three most significant agents in the political system of Pakistan: The chief of army staff (COAS), the president and the prime minister. Due to exogenous and endogenous factors producing a high degree of volatility in the balance of power between these three agents, the main feature of this sometimes constitutional, sometimes extra-constitutional arrangement has been a persistent struggle for power between civilians and the military. This clash limited the access to resources for civilians to establish civilian control over the military since Pakistan come into existence. From British colonial rule until 1971, Pakistan has witnessed the evolution of a strong military within an alliance with the country’s