Political Competition and Social Organization: Explaining the Effect of Ethnicity on Public Service Delivery in Pakistan

Home , Abdul Qayyum Khan, Baradari (brotherhood), Bugti, Buzdar (tribe), Chhibber, Gwadar District

Dissertation

Presented in partial fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University

Aisha Shafique, B.A., M.Sc., M.A.

Department of Political Science

The Ohio State University

2013

Dissertation Committee:

Sarah M. Brooks, Advisor

Marcus Kurtz

Irfan Nooruddin

Aisha Shafique 2013

Abstract

In the study of ethnicity on public goods provision, the concept of ethnicity has largely been under specified, resulting in ambiguity in what specific attributes of ethnicity can prove to be deleterious to public goods provision. This dissertation focuses on how two specific aspects of ethnicity, rigidity of ethnic boundaries and internal ethnic social organization, affect preferences for public goods provision. Fearon (1999) argues that nonporous ethnic boundaries facilitate forming minimum winning coalitions based on ethnic identity as they more easily exclude others from sharing benefits. Hence, I argue that this lowers trust between ethnic groups as they fear that whoever comes into power will hoard government resources. It is thus not inherent antipathy as posited in many works on ethnic politics but political competition that drives preferences for private over public goods in diverse polities. Using Pakistan’s recent devolution as a natural experiment, I show using in-depth surveys that introducing political competition at the union council level of local government led to a perceived increase in political significance of local kinship identities. Comparing a homogeneous union council in southern Punjab with an ethnically diverse union council I find that the homogeneous polity is more likely to vote by ethnicity, prefer private goods over public goods, and prefer public goods provision in the regime before the local government system. Yet, when asked who should benefit from a hypothetical public goods project, they were as

likely to stipulate the entire community irrespective of identity as was the homogeneous polity, illustrating that it is not inherent antipathy that leads to politicization of ethnicity, but the fear of being locked out of politics.

While studying the effect of social organization of ethnic groups on public goods outcomes, I compare districts that vary in tribalism, and hence internal hierarchy, in

Balochistan. I find that though public goods such as health are not strongly correlated with tribalism, there is emerging evidence that education outcomes are better in less tribal districts. This is consistent with theories that suggest that education politicizes individuals and is more threatening to asymmetric power structures. Using in-depth surveys in three districts in Balochistan that vary by internal hierarchy, I find that though preferences for public goods did not vary by tribalism among respondents, the most tribal district was also the most vulnerable to elite capture by the tribal leaders. Moreover, the disparity in education outcomes between rural areas in tribal and non-tribal polities is greater than the disparity in urban areas. This suggests that where internal ethnic structure is hierarchical and unchecked by competition, such as in rural areas, greater elite capture is more likely to result in under provision of public goods like education that can potentially disrupt extant power structures.

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Dedication

Dedicated to my father, Dr. M.S. Shafique.

Acknowledgements

This dissertation would not have been possible without the help of my advisor,

Sarah Brooks. Not only did she provide me with detailed comments to focus and direct my work, but through the long delays in the completion of this project, she has proven that patience can indeed be infinite. I am in turn infinitely grateful to her for providing the support that allowed me to persist until the end. I absolutely cannot imagine a better dissertation advisor.

For my field research, first I would like to thank Yousuf Esakhail Khan who opened the doors to Balochistan for me and went above and beyond to facilitate my gathering data and interviewing bureaucrats in the province, as well as providing an insider’s guide to the tribal systems there. I cannot express the depth of gratitude I have for his help. I am also very grateful to Abdul Waheed Baloch’s help in granting us access to the Gwadar district government. Though I cannot individually name everyone at the

Gwadar district government who helped me, I am very appreciative of how transparent and willing they were in providing access to their district accounts. I am also grateful to

Manzoor Ahmad Jatala for coordinating my trip in D.G. Khan and facilitating meeting and interviewing bureaucrats at the district offices there. The three NGOs responsible for conducting the surveys used extensively in this research are AwazCDS (AWAZ

Foundation Pakistan: Centre for Development Services), Mahec Trust, and RCDC (Rural v

Community Development Council) Gwadar. Though all three conducted the research in a professional manner and were supportive in getting it done within the limited resources available, I would like to extend a more personal thank you to Dr. Rashida Panezai of

Mahec Trust for helping me choose the most appropriate survey method, Nasir Sohrabi from RCDC Gwadar for promptly responding to all queries before, during, and much after the surveys were conducted and to Surayya Faiz from AwazCDS, for her invaluable aid in translating the surveys and guiding me through my first session training surveyors.

I owe Haider Zaidi for providing me direction in both designing surveys and recommending NGOs to conduct them in Quetta.

I am also grateful to Q.M. Ahmed and A. Lodhi for so willingly sharing their data on the Provincial Finanace Commission Awards.

My father I would like to thank for his help in research for this dissertation, the logistical support required in conducting this research and of course for his unfailing optimism on my being able to complete this project despite all the obstacles involved in conducting research in a third world country with limited data and limited access. My husband, Ahmed, I would like to thank for giving me the support to complete this without undue pressure and doing anything necessary to help me complete the project. Finally, I would like to thank my little daughter Amaya who let me know that it was time to overcome the research obstacles and tie up the loose ends.

Vita

May 1998………………………Lahore American School

1998-2001……………………...Faculty Scholarship Recipient, Ohio Wesleyan

University

2001…………………………….B.A., University Honors, Magna Cum Laude,

Ohio Wesleyan University

2002…………………………….Phi Beta Kappa

2002-2003………………………Teacher’s Assistant, Department of Economics, Lahore University of Management and Sciences 2003…………………………….M.Sc. Economics, Lahore University of

Management and Sciences

2004…………………………….Teacher’s Associate, Professor Anjum Nasim,

Department of Economics, Lahore University of

Management and Sciences

2004……………………………..Ohio State University Graduate Fellowship

2005-2007……………………….Graduate Research

Assistant, Ohio State University

2006……………………………..M.A. Political Science, Ohio State University

2007-2008……………………….Student Instructor, Department of Political Science,

Ohio State University

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2008……………………………..James C. Cotting Grant, Ohio State University

2009…………………………… Mershon Grant, Ohio State University

Fields of Study

Major Field: Political Science

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Table of Contents

Abstract ...... ii Dedication ...... iv Acknowledgements ...... v Vita ...... vii List of Tables ...... x List of Figures ...... xii Chapter 1: Introduction ...... 1 Chapter 2: Research Design and Methodology ...... 30 Chapter 3: Public Goods Provision Before Devolution ...... 59 Chapter 4: Ethnic Politics and Public Goods ...... 97 Chapter 5: Ethnic Diversity in the District Council ...... 170 Chapter 6: Social Organization and Public Goods ...... 200 Chapter 7: Conclusion...... 265 References ...... 278 Appendix A: Glossary of Terms and Acronyms...... 299 Appendix B: Chapter 3 Variables ...... 300 Appendix C: Sample D.G. Khan Survey ...... 302

List of Tables

Table 2.1: Provincial Finance Commission (PFC) Awards Distribution Criteria (2002-3) ...... 38 Table 2.2: Union Council Population as Compared to Sample Surveyed ...... 48 Table 3.1: Explaining Variation in the 2003 Human Development Index ...... 81 Table 3.2: Explaining the Variation in the Education Index from HDI 2003 ...... 82 Table 3.3: Explaining the Variation in the Health Index from HDI 2003 ...... 83 Table 3.4: Explaining the Variation in Literacy Levels ...... 85 Table 3.5: The Effect of the 2002-3 Provincial Finance Commission Award on the Education Index ...... 93 Table 3.6: The Effect of the 2002-3 Provincial Finance Commission Award on the Human Development Index ...... 94 Table 3.7: Comparison of the Effect of the 2002-3 Provincial Finance Commission Award between Different Health Indicators ...... 95 Table 3.8: Comparison of the Effect of the 2002-3 Provincial Finance Commission Award between Different Education Indicators ...... 96 Table 4.1: Change in Public Goods Provision Post-Devolution ...... 102 Table 4.2: District Case Comparison ...... 116 Table 4.3: Mother Tongue ...... 116 Table 4.4: Wealth Indicators for Case Villages within Districts ...... 120 Table 4.5: Comparing Health Consultations ...... 122 Table 4.6: Preference for Health System Before or After Devolution ...... 124 Table 4.7: Percentage of Children with Schooling ...... 125 Table 4.8: Type of School Attended ...... 127 Table 4.9: Voter Turnout in Pakistan Elections ...... 129 Table 4.10: Political Candidates from D.G. Khan and Muzaffargarh ...... 130 Table 4.11: Voting Basis...... 135 Table 4.12: Voting in Muzaffargarh Villages by Ethnic Identity ...... 136 Table 4.13: Is Quality of Life Better Under a Co-ethnic Candidate? ...... 142 Table 4.14: Do You Gain More Goods when the District Nazim is from the Same Ethnic Group? ...... 143 Table 4.15: Preferences for Public/Private Goods ...... 145 Table 4.16: Preferences for Goods by Ethnicity in Aduwala and Nehal Wala ...... 146 Table 4.17: Security and Justice System ...... 151 Table 4.18: Use of Union Council to Lodge Complaints...... 154 Table 4.19: Union Council Responsiveness ...... 156 Table 4.20: Influencing Union Council Nazim's Public Goods Provision ...... 160 Table 4.21: Which Roads Are Prioritized? ...... 160 Table 4.22: Was Public Goods Provision Better Under the Local Government (LG) System? .. 162 x

Table 4.23: Preferred Target for Infrastructure Project ...... 167 Table 5.1: Dera Ghazi Khan Budget 2007-8 ...... 180 Table 5.2: Muzaffargarh Budget 2007-8...... 181 Table 5.3: Financing of Elementary Schools in 2004/5 in D.G. Khan and Muzaffargarh (in Rs million) ...... 183 Table 5.4: Total Education Budget for D.G. Khan and Muzaffargarh (in Rs million) ...... 183 Table 5.5: Perception of Welfare and Services ...... 185 Table 5.6: Public Goods Indicators: Education, Health, and Infrastructure (Water and Sewerage) ...... 196 Table 6.1: Balochistan Districts by Tribalism and Linguistics ...... 207 Table 6.2: Balochistan Provincial Statistics Compared to Dera Bugti and Kohlu Districts ...... 216 Table 6.3: Balochistan Provincial Statistics on Public Goods Indicators as Compared to Dera Bugti and Kohlu ...... 217 Table 6.4: Income Proxies Using Assets for Balochistan Districts ...... 218 Table 6.5: Education and Health by Ethno-Linguistic Identity ...... 221 Table 6.6: Area, Population Density, and Income Proxies ...... 222 Table 6.7: Public Goods Provision Indicators for Education, Health, and Infrastructure ...... 224 Table 6.8: Area and Population of Case Districts ...... 230 Table 6.9: Income Proxies for Gwadar, Nushki and Zhob Districts ...... 231 Table 6.10: Education, Health and Infrastructure Indicators ...... 233 Table 6.11: Communication Infrastructure ...... 236 Table 6.12: Development Statistics for Gwadar: Surbandar Union Council, Nushki: Baghak Mal Union Council, and Zhob: Shahbazai Union Council ...... 239 Table 6.13: Development Indicators for Surveyed Households by Union Council ...... 240 Table 6.14: Education for Surveyed Households by Union Council ...... 242 Table 6.15: Percentage of Households by Health Indicators ...... 244 Table 6.16: Percentage Net Primary Enrollment (Ages 4-9) by Urban/Rural ...... 246 Table 6.17: Voting and Politicization ...... 251 Table 6.18: Top Preferences for Goods ...... 252 Table 6.19: Identity Facilitates Government Job Access ...... 253 Table 6.20: Top 3 Preferences for Goods ...... 255 Table 6.21: Tribal Elite Influence over Union Council Nazim ...... 258

List of Figures

Figure 2.1: District Chain of Command...... 36 Figure 3.1: Pakistan's Human Development Index (HDI) Ranking Over Time ...... 61 Figure 3.2: Human Development Index Comparisons ...... 62 Figure 3.3: Ethno-Linguistic Map of Pakistan ...... 77 Figure 4.1: Perceived Support of Union Council Nazim in Muzaffargarh Sample ...... 159 Figure 5.1: Net Enrollment in Primary School ...... 188 Figure 5.2: Primary Level Enrollment in Government Schools ...... 189 Figure 5.3: Net Enrollment in Government Primary Schools ...... 189 Figure 5.4: Development Funds Trends 2002-2008 ...... 190 Figure 5.5: Child Immunizations ...... 191 Figure 5.6: Prenatal Consultation in Government Facilities ...... 191 Figure 5.7: Prenatal Consultation in Hospital ...... 192 Figure 5.8: Basic Health Unit Satisfaction Rates ...... 193 Figure 5.9: School Satisfaction Rates ...... 193 Figure 5.10: Public Services Satisfaction, D.G. Khan ...... 194 Figure 5.11: Public Services Satisfaction, Muzaffargarh...... 194

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Chapter 1 : Introduction

Public goods have been found to be underprovided in ethnically divided societies ranging from the cities in United States (Alesina, Baqir, and Easterly 1999) to the conflict ridden states of Africa (Easterly and Levine 1997); yet, ambiguity remains in identifying the causal mechanisms of this relationship. Much of the difficulty in pinning down the links in the chain rests in the dynamic and complex nature of ethnic identity. Most countries in the world have some form of ethnic diversity; however, not all identities are politicized (Fearon 2004, Choudhry 2008). Furthermore, there is no guarantee that politicized identities will remain so in the future, nor that other identities will not come to supersede them in significance. When then will ethnic identity significantly impact government function in providing public goods to its population?

This dissertation assesses both how ethnic diversity and ethnic social organization affects political incentives for public goods provision. In the wake of Pakistan’s 2001

Local Government Ordinance that devolved power to lower tiers of government, this study addresses the effects of this new level of competition on local identities that were not politically active in the higher tiers of government. In light of the debate on the fixed or fluid nature of ethnic identity (Chandra 2006), this natural experiment allows us to look both at the power of political competition to strengthen political salience of ethnic

identity as well as assess the ramifications of ethnic voting on preferences and outcomes of public goods in the newly decentralized regime. Moreover, as worries of increased elite capture are voiced in this new political context, we can observe how the social organization of ethnic groups affects the import of the common voter’s preferences in relation to the elite that rest at the top of the internal ethnic hierarchy, and its implications for public goods provision.

Public goods provision is important not only for theoretical reasons, it is also crucial for economic development. A nonexcludable and nonrivalrous nature is what defines a public good. That is, no one can be excluded from usage of a perfectly public good, nor does its use reduce its function for anyone else. The classic example of a public good is air, where one person’s breathing does not take away from another, nor can we feasibly exclude someone else from using air. Of course, just as polluting air can bring into question the nonrivalrous aspect of its definition and hence its public nature, government services meant to be nonexcludable and jointly consumed allow for partial subtractability (Ostrom and Ostrom 1999). For instance, a public school may be open to all but too many students can reduce the quality of the education, just as locating the school in proximity to one particular constituency can facilitate access for some over others. However, government provided health, education, and infrastructure for the general population are considered to be social services that are loosely construed as public goods as they are theoretically accessible by all and improvements in these lead to increase in productivity for the greater whole. Education and infrastructure are significantly related to economic growth (Easterly and Levine 1997), as is health

(Bhargava et al. 2001). Thus, where such public goods are underprovided, economic underdevelopment is among the many pernicious consequences.

The task of understanding when and how public goods are (under) provided is fraught with difficulty. For one thing, assessing whether public goods provision is

“sufficient” can be subjective. Preferences over which public goods should be provided vary across polities and even within. Assessing optimal levels of provision matching exact preferences of constituents is therefore a difficult exercise (Ostrom and Ostrom

1999). One method could be to use yardstick competition, where similar polities can be compared to see which ones are doing better in overall public goods provision and which ones are doing less well (Bardhan 2002). The human development index uses health, knowledge, and income (where per capita income is a proxy for other public goods not directly observed) to provide an approximate indicator of common interest public goods that can be used cross nationally to rank human development. However, it too is not completely objective as it uses realistic upper limits derived from the developed world such as 85 years of life expectancy and $40,000 income (Human Development Report).

Funding for public goods is associated with the collective action problem.

Because many benefit from a good whose individual usage leads to no perceptible decline and from which none can be excluded, there is little incentive for any individual to pay for it. Public goods benefit such a large populace that one renegade will go unnoticed. The problem is that each individual faces this temptation to free ride, and since it is difficult to monitor compliance in such a large group, the good goes unfunded, and thus underprovided. Individuals cannot voluntarily collectively pay the cost of a good

from which free riders cannot be feasibly excluded and for which their own compliance is unmonitored. This problem is mostly circumvented1 through forced taxation by the government to fund for its services (Ostrom and Ostrom 1999). However, controlling for tax revenues, the government still has to make allocative decisions on how to spend its funds.

The provision of public goods and services is determined not only by a state’s capacity to deliver (Besley and Persson 2007), but also the willingness of politicians to focus their funds on public goods for the many rather than on private goods (i.e. goods that are both exclusive and rivalrous) for the few in their constituency. Though the correlation between Gross National Income per capita and the human development index is 70% (UNDP HDR 2011), there is still a large space in variation where public policy choices determine whether funds are allocated toward development for the larger population. In fact, Easterly and Levine (1997) find that 44% of the growth variation between East Asia and Africa is explained by public policy choices that reflect on trade, free market, corruption, government budget, education, infrastructure and political stability; these in turn are strongly affected by the ethnic diversity of a state. Their ethnicity variable is significantly negatively correlated with education and infrastructure measures. They provide a robust analysis illustrating that ethnicity has a major role to play in its effect on growth enhancing public policies, but it does not go so far as to test how this diversity impacts public policy choices.

1 Tax compliance can still be an issue, particularly in countries with weaker institutions. Some evidence suggests that ethnically diverse states have weaker compliance as well (Xin Li 2010). 4

Pakistan presents an important empirical puzzle that makes it a propitious case in which to explore how social construction of groups can have effect on the provision of public goods. With a federal parliamentary government divided into provinces, it has been riddled with ethno-linguistic conflict and provincial/regional secessionist movements that have contributed to its political instability. Described as having growth without development (Easterly 2003), it has had consistently low improvement in human development in the last few decades—amongst the lowest in the South Asia (HDR 2011,

Keefer et al. 2005, Cheema and Mohmand 2007). Moreover, the districts within Pakistan have high variation in human development: whereas the human development index scores range from 0.499 to 0.541 between provinces, the district HDI scores in its province Balochistan range from 0.285 to 0.697 (UNDP NHDR Pakistan 2003). Though

Balochistan has historically pointed at lack of funding distribution from the federal government at the center to explain its undeveloped state, this variation between its districts suggests that at least part of the explanation lies at the local level. Indeed, the center’s response to Balochistan’s accusations has been to point back at the tribal system prevalent across the region as responsible for the stunted development.

An attempt to tackle the weak governance issues in Pakistan (World Bank:

Worldwide Governance Indicators 2011) led to the Local Government Ordinance 2001.

Governance and state capacity reflect the process of decision making and implementation in regards to public policy, and good governance is often associated with checks and balances in government, an independent judiciary, an open media, rule of law, and decentralization, amongst other attributes (Grindle 2004, Kurtz 2013). Decentralization

was a popular method in the international development community to improve governance (Manor 1999), and in Pakistan this was espoused through the implementation of the devolution plan, which devolved administrative and limited revenue collecting power from the provinces to the districts. Though reversal of this plan officially began in

2010, this period of decentralization provides a natural experiment in which to test how ethnicity affected the provision of public goods in a shifting political environment and allows us a means to better isolate the causal mechanisms involved. Here, at the local level, we can control for national and provincial electoral and party institutions to observe how politicization of a lower tier of government affected the provision of public goods in environments of variable identity cleavages.

Existing approaches to the problem of public goods provision have emerged along three analytical dimensions: (1) electoral institutions and rules, (2) information asymmetry and patronage and (3) ethnic voting. Each dimension shapes incentives for politicians to provide public versus private goods, but sociopolitical factors are often necessary for explaining variation in goods provision within intra state polities. It is here that I focus on ethnic group politics to inform the literature on public goods.

I. ETHNIC POLITICS AND PUBLIC GOODS

Ethnicity can have an effect on provision of public goods in multiple ways. It can affect the nature of political processes that govern accountability and competition, the patron client relationships that can form in an environment of information asymmetry, and formation of voting blocs by identity. The two questions being addressed are (1) why 6

politicians in ethnic societies under provide public services and (2) why voters persist in voting by ethnicity when it results in under provision.

A. Electoral Institutions

One of the major debates regarding ethnicity and electoral institutions is between

Lijphart’s advocacy of consociational democracy in ethnically divided societies and

Horowitz’s counter argument for simple majority rule democracies (Choudhry 2008).

Though the accommodation framework that Lijphart suggests is meant to address the immediacy of ethnic concerns by constitutionally providing minorities with representation in the government, Horowitz contends that this form of government encourages parties to make ethnic appeals and when in power, target government benefits to their narrowly defined constituency (Horowitz 1985).

Alternatively, a simple majority rule would force competitors to appeal to a broader range of constituents and hence identities outside of their own, not only deemphasizing identity lines over time, but also providing incentives to back goods and service provision benefiting a larger cross section of society. More specifically, two party systems are expected to provide more public goods and multi-party systems more private, as with lower party fragmentation, each party appeals to a broader constituency

(Nooruddin and Chhibber 2004, Hasnain 2008a). When a winning coalition is larger, then providing public goods is less expensive than providing private goods to each member

(De Mesquita et al. 2002). However, this would only be successful in a polity with minority identity groups where alliances would change over time and not in one where one ethnic group could maintain power on its own and forever exclude certain minorities

from representation (Pildes 2008). If group preferences always lose out procedurally, political institutions by that identity will not be considered legitimate (Rabushka and

Shepsle 1972). Moreover, this political isolation could lead to parties representing the interests of the unrepresented minority outbidding one another with promises of ethnically exclusive goods (Ibid.).

One of the cornerstones of provincial conflict in Pakistan is over the fact that the

Punjab province makes up 57.4% of its population (USAID 2006), gets the lion’s share of the budget, has the most control over the central government and is also the most developed of the provinces. Since the major linguistic cleavages are mostly synonymous with provincial cleavages, this has led to much ethno-linguistic unrest. Though People’s

Party of Pakistan (PPP), a coalition of minority groups, forms a counterweight to its more

Punjab centric rival the Muslim League as we would theoretically expect, other provinces

(most notably Balochistan) find their representation in PPP still to be too marginal. In fact, PPP’s power base is minorities in Punjab and Sindh. Pakistan’s other two provinces

Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (KP) and more particularly Balochistan have found themselves to be marginalized in the electoral process, as evidenced by their struggle for greater autonomy and a history of more secessionist parties2. Hence, even in a simple majority rule, it is possible that in a heterogeneous society, certain interests and identities will continually be sidelined if they are two small to form either the core of a political party or a strategic swing vote. When these identities vary geographically, it can help explain the

2 Khyber-Pukhtunkhwa has still had more empowerment in the government as evidenced by a stronger presence of Pukhtun’s in the military and past alliances between the provinces regional ANP (Awami National Party) and Muslim League, as well as a strong representation in the 2002 national elections through the MMA (a united group of Islamist parties). 8

disparate development between ethnically divided regions as is the case between

Pakistani provinces, with Punjab faring the best in education, health and infrastructure indicators and Balochistan faring the worst in all three.

However, as indicated by the HDI scores for Pakistan’s provinces and districts, since disparity within province is greater than across provinces, control of the central federal government by the provinces is not sufficient in explaining the variation in public goods. More specifically, we can look at institutional rules that govern incentives to curry personal votes, which are more susceptible to identity politics, amongst the directly voted members of the provincial and national assemblies (MPAs and MNAs respectively).

Rules conducive to obtaining party votes generate greater incentives for providing public goods whereas rules encouraging personal appeals engender more private goods (Cox and McCubbins 2001). In proportional representation systems, closed list systems, where the party controls the candidate list rankings, tend to address broader, more public interests, whereas open lists, where voters have more control over candidate selection, can be more particularistic (Keefer 2004)3. Lower district magnitude within electoral systems encourages lower party fragmentation (Keefer 2004), which also leads candidates to make promises better reflecting majority preferences within the district as each seat represents a greater cross-section of the total population (Portmann et al. 2010).

3 Proportional representation systems also focus more on transfers spending on social groups that are regionally dispersed, whereas majoritarian systems emphasize public good spending on geographically designated regions (Milesi-Ferretti et al. 2002, Keefer 2004). This would suggest a possibility of greater geographical variation in development in majoritarian systems, and more disparity in public benefits between social groups in PR systems. 9

Pakistan has single member legislative districts where candidates are voted in with a plurality vote. This should theoretically encourage providing services to a larger audience across identity cleavages, yet personal appeals are rampant, leading to more targeted spending. Hasnain (2008a) finds that with high party factionalism where parties are not unified but have sub-sects that may defect, members do not have stable career prospects and hence, have greater incentive to build personal reputation by providing targeted goods to a core constituency whose loyalty they are then assured and can carry over across party lines. With party factionalism, MNAs and MPAs in Pakistan use development funds to form personal reputations that they can use to campaign for reelection (Cheema and Mohmand 2007, Cheema et al. 2005). In fact, during devolution one of the major issues MNAs and MPAs had with the local government was that development projects were brought under the local government, crippling their campaign during reelection. With many parties contesting for the same seat in a plurality system in

Pakistan, candidates have won seats on as little as 25% of the vote (Pakistan Election

Commission 2008), leaving them responsive to a narrow constituency. Moreover, plurality rule systems such as in Pakistan are more vulnerable to lobbying by interest groups for private goods than proportional representation systems where providing targeted goods is more expensive (Rogowski 1999, Keefer 2004). Finally, personalistic voting increases rent seeking, so though there may not be a difference in levels of spending between polities providing more or less public goods, it does carry efficiency and corruption costs that affects actual provision (Hicken and Simmons 2008).

During devolution, this incentive to curry a personal vote was even further exacerbated as the first two elections were officially non-partisan. Strong party affiliation enables individual candidates to look at the broader provincial and national constituency rather than their own personal voters as well as increasing credibility of the candidates as the party has a longer history than the new candidate (Keefer and Khemani 2005).

Disallowing local candidates from aligning themselves with a party encouraged personalistic voting.

Since these institutional rules are ubiquitous across polities in Pakistan, they themselves cannot explain the variance in development within political boundaries.

However, they do illustrate that the political environment is conducive to personalistic voting and rent seeking. Without a strong party system (especially under devolution) or a durable democracy to lend credibility to politicians (Keefer 2007), this environment is conducive to the forming of patron client relationships. Here, local power structures and social identity construction of localities can be important determinants in what incentives a candidate has when choosing goods to provide.

B. Information Asymmetry and Patron Client Relationships

When politicians cannot make credible promises to their voters like in a young democracy, and personalistic voting limits the formation of party reputation there is a greater likelihood for the formation of patron client relationships (Keefer 2007, Keefer and Khemani 2005). This relationship could be directly between the candidate and the voter where the candidate promises private benefits in exchange for the vote. In Pakistan, 11

these benefits to the poor have been as small as bags of rice and flour in exchange for the vote of the poor. It can also take the form of ethnic appeals. In India, increasing competitiveness of elections has led to patronage being linked to ethnicity (Heller 2000).

Information asymmetry can render ethnic identities expedient groupings to activate by politicians as it provides voters a visible manner in which to assess whether the politician will represent their interest and provide their identity group with targeted goods (Chandra

2004).

A second patron client relationship includes an intermediary. Here, candidates are responsive to the needs of an intermediary who has economic and social power over voters, and the intermediary ensures that voters vote for her favored candidate (Powell

1970). In this case as well there is a correlation between patronage and ethnic politics because more rigid identities are conducive for forming patron client relationships as they ensure longevity of the contract between the different players (Fearon 1999). Voting blocs where kinship groups (called baraderi) collectively vote together are common in rural Punjab. Informal village heads as leaders of these blocs, due to their social and economic power, will generally dictate that the bloc vote for his preferred candidate

(Cheema 2008). Similarly, in many Balochi tribal areas, tribal leaders will strongly influence which candidate will be voted for by the tribe.

This capture of the government by the elite, where an economically, socially, and politically empowered minority diverts government resources and policy for its own benefit at the expense of the mass, can be exacerbated with decentralization. At the national and provincial level, an independent media can mitigate the information

asymmetry that stunts the voter’s ability to vote by policy issues. The last decade has seen a proliferation of news sources in Pakistan where issues and policies are hotly debated. With devolution however, on one hand there is more access to politicians as the polity is smaller and that should ensure better information and better accountability (Rolls

2008). On the other hand, there isn’t a major third party such as the media gathering information and providing a forum to discuss the policies and issues to partially overcome information gaps. In poor, high inequality localities where the poor cannot afford the cost of being fully informed and third party informants are less available, the elite can better exploit this information gap and hence, decentralization can increase the risk of elite capture (Bardhan 2000, Alesina and La Ferrara 2000, Labonne and Chase

2009, Platteau 2009). Moreover, elite are less apt to capture the central government because there is a greater chance that they are divided into multiple groups in direct competition with one another providing checks on any one group taking control of the government (Bardhan and Mookherjee 2002). In local governments, where one elite group has supremacy, they can take control by becoming the intermediaries between the candidate and the voter.

One of the concerns of devolution in Pakistan has been this same fear of elite capture of the local government (Khan, Khan and Akhtar 2008). Wood (2003) finds that high uncertainty amongst the impoverished population leads to discounting of the future in favor of averting risk in the present by supporting institutions that may be unfavorable to their well- being in the long run. Reliance on such elite that provide antiquated and exploitative “security” institutions is rampant. Many polities have hierarchical power

structures, such as the feudal landlords of southern Punjab and Sindh, and the tribal systems in Balochistan. In Balochistan, many MNAs and MPAs are themselves leaders in the tribes of their province. With the empowerment of local government, tribes whose individual influence would be diluted at the provincial and national level have greater control over this new political apparatus.

The relative newness of democracy does make credibility a central concern in

Pakistani politics. It is among the most highly corrupt nations in the world (Worldwide

Governance Indicators 2011). Clientelism is commonplace. Though this might explain the overall feedback loop of corruption in Pakistan where patronage perpetuates rent seeking politicians coming back into power, since patron client politics persist through out, how is it used to explain the regional variation in the public good outcome?

An important element in this analysis would be to look at regional variation by ethnic fragmentation and hierarchical power structures. Ethnic fragmentation is associated with low public goods provision (Alesina, Baqir and Easterly 1999, Easterly and Levine 1997), yet, where ethnic identity is politically salient, it can also segment the elite and hence, potentially reduce elite capture. Where power structures are more hierarchical, one would expect voters to be less empowered to demand more goods when the existing patronage system is persistently harmful. In a feudal system as an extreme example of hierarchical power structure, there are strong physical sanctioning mechanisms (such as jailing relatives, withholding funds) used to force compliance. In direct patron client relationships between politician/political party and voters, noncompliance by the voter can be met by withdrawal of patronage as punishment (Stokes

2005, Kitschelt and Wilkinson 2007). Tribal areas in Balochistan depend heavily on loyalty to uphold its power structure and honor is a revered virtue that is tied to tribal allegiance (Titus 1998). In this case, if politicians exploit this loyalty (either through direct patronage to co-ethnic voters or through an intermediary ethnically linked to the vote base) to overcome credibility issues that they face, yet low development and public goods provision persist, voters know that ethnic voting hasn’t taken them far. An essential purpose of the vote is to take out non-performers. What explains the persistence of ethnic political loyalties in such underdeveloped regions?

C. Ethnic Voting “Affinities can offset a leader’s failure to provide public and private benefits while still leaving the incumbent in office” (De Mesquita et al. 2008, 583). Thus, ethnic identity is an appealing choice for leaders when forming their winning coalition. Though politicians may under provide public goods because they are held less accountable due to loyalty and information constraints, it does not explain why voters will consistently allow their well-being to be undermined for the sake of ethnic loyalty. Even if politicians promise targeted goods to voters, highly fractionalized societies have higher corruption

(Mauro 1995). This rent seeking reduces the overall welfare of voters, and becomes evident where development is slow. Why not choose an alternative to ensure that their public needs are fulfilled? To address this question, it is essential to discuss the instrumental benefits of ethnicity in political decision making.

i. Utility of Ethnic Identity

That ethnic fragmentation is negatively associated with public goods provision is established by the broad ranging study by Easterly and Levine (1997). They find in their cross national analysis in Africa that ethnic fragmentation negatively affects the growth differentials between the states and explains disparities in their public policies. Though this work identifies the empirical importance of ethnic fragmentation, it does not delve too deeply in explaining why this is the case.

Studies that attempt to identify and explore the link between ethnicity and public goods find that the primary reasons for low provision of services in ethnically fragmented societies are the better ability to coordinate and overcome collective action problems within ethnicities (or alternatively, more difficulty in overcoming collective action problems within fragmented societies), preference differences across ethnicities, and negative utility from sharing public goods (Kimenyi 2006, Posner et al. 2007).

Social sanctions and strong community ties are considered significant in deterring free riding and hence facilitating collective action. Areas that are fragmented do not have dense enough networks to allow for viable sanctions from reneging on contributing to collective goods (Miguel and Gugerty, 2005). In a study on the success of nation building to overcome latent identity differences and improve social networks, Miguel (2004) conducts a comparative analysis between two villages in Kenya and Tanzania that share a similar economic layout but differ in salient ethnicities. Because of Tanzanian efforts at nation building ethnic cleavages in the Tanzanian village were less significant than in

Kenya. In both villages, funds are collected to provide for their education program. True to theory, the Tanzanian village has a higher provision of education than the village in

Kenya.

Though this study is insightful in expounding upon how salient ethnic fragmentation hinders overcoming collective action problems, it looks only at two villages and at a situation where the villagers directly contribute to funding the school on a voluntary basis. It is less amenable for explaining why in cases where the local government is allocating the funds, we still find disparity in provision of public goods, such as education. After all, tax collection is obligatory, not voluntary, and the question then becomes less about how to overcome the collective action problem (which the

Miguel study seems to indicate can be overcome in areas of homogenous ethnicity), but more about why politicians will under provide public goods, and, implicitly in an electoral system, not be punished for doing so. Specifically in Pakistan, districts had very marginal control of revenue under devolution; rather, their main purpose was to determine the allocation of the budget provided from the higher tiers of government.

Hence, the issue is more concerned with why funds are inadequately distributed toward public goods.

Public policy studies in cities in the United states find that greater diversity is associated with lower provision of ethnic goods (Alesina et al., 1999): they mainly attribute this to differing preferences across different ethnic groups regarding which public goods they find most desirable, thus leading to an under provision of any one good

(Alesina and Spolaore 1997), or negative utility for sharing a public good across ethnic 17

groups constraining voters from choosing to favor its funding (Alesina and La Ferrara

2000, Gleaser 2004).

Though these studies have found a strong resonance in the literature, it is still unclear whether the different preferences explanation is adequate for explaining why certain ubiquitously desired goods, such as education and health, would find lack of consensus in a community. Fearon (2004) suggests that preferences between ethnicities might be more polarized, and within ethnicities be more unimodal. In Balochistan it does appear that certain tribal areas with rigid hierarchy do less well in public good provision, such as education, than areas that are less militantly tribal. However, saying that preferences are shared within an ethnicity does not explain why this is the case.

One possibility is that omitted variables being shaded behind ethnic identity could account for observed differences in preferences. For example, income disparity between groups would better explain why preferences over such basic public goods would be disparate, rather than simply because ethnicities have inherently different preferences. In this case, it would be conducive to keep in mind Horowitz’s (1985) distinction between ranked and unranked ethnic groups, which if dissected can be used to ascertain whether the results are simply because of ethnic identity (unranked), or a combination of ethnic and class identity (ranked). This accounts for why caste politics in India, where caste has historically often been associated with economic status, has led to greater provision of public goods once a party representing the lower castes gained prominence (Min 2009,

Teitelbaum and Thachil 2010).

Considering the difficulty of controlling for variables in a natural setting, Posner et al.’s (2007) experimental study is informative in identifying how strongly ethnic identity plays in sharing resources. They categorize explanations in the following manner: preference based (as represented by Alesina et al. 1999), where preferences are shared within ethnicity but differ across or individuals simply do not wish to share the public good with cross-ethnics due to negative utility; fear of sanctioning from one’s shared ethnicity for sharing resources with other groups; or technology based, where there is an advantage of better communication between a shared identity because of social networks. They find that only two explanations find support from their experiments: fear of sanction from one’s ethnic group pushes individuals to show ethnic preference, and the advantage of shared social networks within one’s own ethnicity provides an advantage in communication, and hence more productivity, as opposed to working together across ethnicities. Preference based explanations as posited by works by

Alesina do not find support here.

In line with other studies that highlight how ethnic groups can more easily overcome collective action problems (Kimenyi 2006, Miguel and Gugerty 2005), this piece elucidates how the ease of communication and knowledge would facilitate this process. However, as mentioned above, the issue of voting out politicians misappropriating funds away from public goods is less a matter of overcoming collective action problems as is the issue of voluntary provision of funds or even tax compliance.

Therefore, though this is an important advantage that shared ethnicity has, it does not

explain variation of public goods provision due to allocation decisions as opposed to issues regarding collecting funds.

Though the experiment by Posner et al. (2007) would indicate that ethnic groups have neither a negative utility associated with sharing or significantly different preferences of which public good should be provided, they do not explain that if there is no inherent preference against sharing, why a goods provider need fear sanction for sharing resources with a cross ethnicity? After all, if an individual has no preference, why would a community, which is after all, only a composite of individuals. Moreover, if voting is anonymous and hence voters can vote without fear of individual reprisal from the community, why does each individual then not vote for a candidate that is even handed as opposed to ethnically motivated? Even within their experimental study, anonymity lead to no significant preferences of provision for co-ethnics over cross- ethnics, and so it would follow that that anonymous voting should not favor ethnically targeted policies over those for the public good.

An important constraint in this experimental design is that it does not sufficiently frame the issue of scarcity, a central concern in social behavior. Without being faced with scarcity, it might be easier for individuals participating in the experiment to be even handed, but when forced to face a scarce resource, as is the case in real life, there may be more reason to show favoritism to one’s own identity. More resources would increase the power of a group, which in turn increases its capability to assure future representation.

Where a lone individual would have limited power to ensure protection of his/her interests, a composite of individuals can be politicized for such a purpose. The question 20

then becomes which identity of individuals to ascribe to for group formation and why so often ethnic identity is the winner.

ii. Politicization of Ethnic Groups

Primordialist views claim that ethnic groupings are difficult, if not impossible, to alter, making them readily available to form into political groups at low cost (Van Evera

2001). However, the waxing and waning of salient ethnic identities over time has given rise to an increasingly popular perception that ethnic groups are socially constructed, as are the ethnic cleavages deemed to be of superior political importance (Chandra 2001).

Within this latter category, Posner (2005) argues that the political context will determine which identity becomes the most politically salient as people regroup to attain a minimum winning coalition within existing institutional rules. Hence, if the prevalent politically relevant ethnic identity is either too large or too small to form a minimum winning coalition, politicians will alter their appeals and voters will regroup to an alternative identity to optimize their chances of finding political representation.

Yet this still begs the question of why ethnic appeals are so prevalent in the face of alternatives such as class-based identities. A common marker for defining ethnic identity is that it consists of “descent-based attributes” (Chandra 2006). Since these attributes already exist (irrespective of whether they are politicized), it makes ethnicity less costly to use as a form of political cleavage (Bates 1983, Rabushka and Shepsle

1972). Moreover, ethnic boundaries are relatively nonporous, optimizing the definition

and exclusivity of this grouping (Fearon 1999). Their non-traversable boundaries facilitate excluding others from enjoying the political benefits provided by co-ethnics in power.

Loyalty to a government is dependent upon the belief that citizens will not be systematically excluded (Rabushka and Shepsle 1972). In the same vein, individuals will not support candidates who they believe can always exclude them via such relatively thick boundaries of political cleavage. Even if a politician of another ethnic group promises even-handedness, this is a non-credible commitment, especially in a young democracy where politicians are already considered to be non-credible (Keefer 2007).

Though the residents of a political unit would benefit most by rewarding candidates who ensure higher levels of public goods provision, the fear of being blocked from the political process by cross-ethnics pushes them to vote for co-ethnics. It is not necessary for them to believe that their co-ethnics will well-represent them. It is only necessary for them to believe that cross-ethnics will give them even less. Essentially, this prisoner’s dilemma scenario is analogous to the security dilemma seen in cases of ethnic violence

(Kauffman 1996). Only now, cooperating to demand public goods is not achieved in equilibrium as each is concerned with the other reneging and trying to hoard resources for its own group to enhance political power and increase exclusive benefits.

Utility of ethnic identity is evident then for political purposes. Since ethnic identities change over time in degree of salience, there is need to explain why at certain points or in certain areas it is the most significant cleavage, while not so in others.

Rabushka and Shepsle claim that security concerns solidify ethnic ties. Furthermore, 22

when resources are scarce, it behooves individuals to form together in an exclusive group, which would facilitate overcoming the collective action problem and be more conducive to ensuring a piece of the pie. Just as Fearon (1999) suggests that states organized with more availability of pork will encourage political coalitions along ethnic lines, even at a communal level, when faced with gaining a share of a scarce resource, individuals will tighten their ethnic bonds, as those are not easily alterable. Political representatives from within the community will also then need to cater to the community or risk sanction. Political outbidding (Rabushka and Shepsle 1972) will ensure that politicians will be caught up in gaining community support through offers of more private benefits exclusive to the ethnic community. Where a district is fairly homogenous in ethnic composition, there is little resource competition amongst communities, and provision of public goods would be more likely.

Low public provision in Pakistan can to a large part be attributed to the personalistic politics that abound in the system. Weak and shallow political institutions in

Pakistan have been unable to replace antiquated social institutions around which now patron client relationships often form, further impeding incentives for development.

However, these variables alone cannot explain the wide internal variation we see in provision of goods and services between districts. Electoral institutions have ubiquitous rules within the state and without delving deeper into the social relationships prevalence of clientelist politics alone can also not explain this variation. The intermediaries who often form the patronage chain between politician and voter can have varying levels of control over the political machine. Understanding how ethnic loyalties and internal ethnic

structure can interact with formal and informal political institutions can provide important interacting variables that explain the observed variance in public goods across localities.

The next section elucidates how I test the political significance of ethnic identity in the case of Pakistan.

II. THE ARGUMENT

Under what circumstances does ethnic politics lead to the under-provision of public goods? My thesis concentrates on preference based arguments, which purport that either ethnic groups experience negative utility in sharing resources with other groups and hence would prefer private goods that they can enjoy exclusively or they do not share preferences for public goods across ethnicities and therefore, any one public good is under provided due to lack of consensus.

In order to unpack what characteristics of ethnicity would garner such preferences, this dissertation addresses both arguments for voter ethnic preferences. First, simply stating that voters experience negative utility from sharing in public goods does little to explicate the cause behind this antipathy. Considering that identity groups will coalesce with others and share resources when politically expedient (such as through coalitions) detracts from any assumption of inherent dislike of sharing. Rather, ethnic groups only experience disutility from sharing when directly competing politically with other ethnic groups for scarce public resources. 24

Just as in areas of ethnic conflict we see groups caught in a security dilemma, when identity groups are fighting over political economic resources, they become entangled in a prisoner’s dilemma where they cannot credibly commit to not excluding other groups over resources, and hence end up investing in private benefits for themselves in equilibrium. This is especially significant in descent-based identity politics as the boundaries do not allow individuals the choice to cross over to the winning political group to enjoy their benefits. I propose that direct political competition for resources stimulates the strength of ethnic ties leading into a PD situation where members experience disutility from sharing resources. I use Pakistan’s 2001 devolution to illustrate how decentralization galvanized local identity groups that were previously docile in sharing public resources. This follows from Posner et al. (2010) where they find that ethnic identity became more salient closer to election years in sub Saharan Africa. Since decentralization was considered most meaningful in Punjab, I focus on southern Punjab for this analysis.

Pakistan named its 2000 decentralization project as devolution, the most ambitious on the decentralization scale (Cheema et al. 2005). Devolution implies that financial, administrative, and policy decisions were brought under the local government

(Azfar et al. 2004). Though the name may be more ambitious than the actual extent of decentralization as no real powers were devolved from the federal government, only the provincial government, and tax collection was minimal at the district level, districts became responsible for both allocating funds passed down from the province and administrative functions (Cheema et al. 2005). The last few decades have seen popularity

with decentralization schemes (Manor 1999). The expectation is that local governments are more accessible by voters and have greater information on the preferences and needs of a locality. Closer to voters also implies more visibility and information on politicians and hence more accountability (Rolls 2008). Since Pakistan has had poor service delivery in health and education (Keefer et al. 2006), decentralization was ostensibly an attempt to improve democracy and delivery of services to the poor.

The effectiveness of decentralization in improving service delivery has gained mixed reviews (Bardhan 2002, Rolls 2008). Decentralization has a greater tendency for elite capture and can further strengthen local identity cleavages (Khan et al. 2008). Manor

(1999) finds that it has been difficult to make decentralization work where conflicts between social groups exist and there are wide disparities between the rich and the poor.

What is needed for decentralization to be successful is improvement in information, checks on politicians through social capital, and competition between elites for political patronage (Crook and Manor 1998). If local politicians are more accountable than central governments, then local governments will improve service delivery (Keefer et al. 2005).

Therefore, if decentralization politicizes identity cleavages and fragments society, the effect on service delivery would be expected to be deleterious.

This has important ramifications for all states attempting to deepen democracy through decentralization in the hopes of improving service delivery and/or appeasing regional ethnic unrest. More imminently, as Pakistan’s federal government hands over more autonomy to the provinces as part of the 18th amendment, the provinces must honor their part in the agreement by once more establishing some form of local government. 26

The hope is that now there is an opportunity for true decentralization, as power has been deconcentrated from the federal government to the provinces, and now the provinces will try and decentralize some power to the local governments. It is thus important to learn the lessons of older decentralization episodes to determine what pitfalls to look out for and try to mitigate before establishing the new institutions. A major concern is how decentralization affects the political dynamics of local identities and how that, in turn, affects government incentives for public goods provision.

Secondly, though it has been established that the descent based attributes that signify an ethnicity provide fairly nonporous boundaries, it does not follow why this should imply shared preferences within but different preferences without this demarcation. I posit that omitted socio-economic characteristics within these boundaries are what explain the differences in preferences. These could include hidden class interests when ethnic groups are generally stratified by economic well-being. For the purposes of this study, I propose that differences in social hierarchy of ethnic groups can be shown to shape ethnic preferences for public goods. The case of Baloch and Pathan tribal ethnic groups provides an example of a potential omitted variable subsumed under ethnic identification, i.e. hierarchy. In this instance, the differing social structure—Baloch tribes are more hierarchical in structure, and Pakhtun are more egalitarian (Barth 1969, Titus

1998)—can explain the apparent disparity in preferences for public goods. This suggests that the disparity in education is rather a reflection of the tribal chiefs trying to maintain their hierarchical stature as opposed to having some inherent identity preference against investing in education. Education is seen as a progressive mechanism in any society, but

it can increase meaningful political participation and lead individuals to question non- egalitarian structures and hence, beneficiaries of more vertical forms of social organization will be averse to its influence, despite its community benefits. Shifting from tribal to completely nontribal societies should illustrate an even stronger shift of preferences toward education.

I do this by comparing Balochistan’s Baloch tribal, Pakhtun tribal and Baloch non-tribal areas, which vary from more to least hierarchical respectively, to illustrate differences in public goods preferences. Considering the prevalence of patronage politics in Pakistan, it will be important to separate the preferences of voters for public goods against the preferences of leaders. Where the preferences of leaders reflect the package of services being delivered, this study will inform on how variation in hierarchical social relationships affects the deleterious effect of patron client relationships. Though this study will also focus on the time period of the recent devolution, this is mostly to more clearly observe elite capture through control of local government as testimony of political control of intermediaries that have powerful leverage over their ethnic groups. However, the ramifications of this analysis project beyond local government and continue to be perpetuated at higher tiers of government after the abandonment of the 2001 Local

Government Ordinance.

Posner et al. (2007) have illustrated the lack of support for preference based arguments in explaining lower public goods provision in their experimental settings.

Studies conducted in natural settings have formed different conclusions. This study attempts to bring the two together by suggesting that though there is no inherent 28

difference in preferences to explain public goods under-provision, the social and political context found in the real world interacts with strong ethnic group ties to explain variation in public service delivery. In depth surveys from villages in southern Punjab and

Balochistan provide the backbone of this analysis, delineating the political attitudes and preferences of residents from villages varying in ethnic diversity and internal ethnic structure. The next chapter will expound upon the hypotheses and methodology used to analyze these case studies. Chapter 3 provides necessary background to public goods provision in Pakistan prior to the implementation of former President Musharraf’s

Devolution Plan. In Chapters 4 and 5 of this dissertation, I analyze the effect of decentralization on local identities and public goods provision in cases from southern

Punjab that vary by ethnic heterogeneity. In Chapter 6, I illustrate how the variation in social organization (i.e. hierarchy) in Balochistan correlates with differences in public service delivery in a Baloch non-tribal, Pakhtun tribal, and Baloch tribal district. The last chapter concludes with an assessment of limitations and room for further study.

Chapter 2 : Research Design and Methodology

Electoral institutions explain how the breadth of the constituency politicians appeal to affects their incentive to provide nontargeted (more public) versus targeted

(more private) goods. Patron client relationships provide us with the institutional mechanism through which the significance of ethnic relations to voters translates into fewer nontargeted goods. They do not themselves explain why ethnic divisions are salient or, in the case of an unhealthy patron client relationship, why ethnic loyalty persists in perpetuating a negative outcome. In this dissertation, I use Pakistan’s decentralization to test whether political competition activates ethnic cleavages that were previously latent.

This follows from Posner et al. (2010), showing that voters identify more strongly with ethnicity close to election time. This timing supports the thesis that there is no inherent preference difference for public goods but the fear that the coming in power of another group will block them out that perpetuates ethnic politics.

Secondly, in Balochistan, tribal chiefs have had strong control over the administration of their locality. Here I look at the social system that maintains the significance of tribal identities and makes it difficult for political administrations to supplant that loyalty. Therefore, even though suboptimal, because of issue linkages in social relations, voters continue to vote by ethnic loyalty, perpetuating the patron client

system where there is a patron client relationship between the politician and the tribal leader and the tribal leader and the voters. Moreover, the social organization that the ethnicity engenders can affect preferences for public goods as hierarchical systems are less conducive to supporting education and empowering the masses.

This study takes advantage of the institutional variation provided by the implementation of Pakistan’s devolution with the passage of the 2001 Local Government

Ordinance. There are multiple benefits to studying the role of ethnicity in a newly decentralized system. The primary advantage is that it brings political candidates and voters closer together with fewer intermediary institutions diluting the effects of ethnic voting. Furthermore, the event of politicization of the local government allows a natural experiment where one can assess whether descent based identities that were previously latent are made politically salient through political competition. Lastly, the change in institutions inherent in decentralization provides an opportunity to assess whether the new system has altered the incentives and capacity to provide public services. Regardless of which direction public services go post devolution (whether they improve or become worse), we gain a better understanding of inherent problems as we analyze how service delivery did before and after devolution.

There are multiple limitations in this study. Decentralization in Pakistan, though ambitiously referred to as devolution, has been partial (Keefer et al. 2006). Due to the uncertainty involved in how accountable the new politicians would be to the voters and whether preferences translate into outcomes, I divide the analysis into two parts. One, I look at whether preferences for goods differed in fragmented versus more homogenous 31

districts in southern Punjab and more hierarchical versus less hierarchical districts in

Balochistan. These preferences include preferences for public services as well as preferences involving the identity of the political candidate. Secondly then, I look at whether these preferences translate into outcomes. It is important to separate the two because lower public service delivery could be due to the preferences, or it could be due to the problems with the institutions and the short duration since the event of implementation of devolution and its reversal. The latter may not have allowed enough time for preferences to translate into outcome.

We can map the causal mechanism of this study into two cause and effect relationships. For Southern Punjab, did decentralization increase political salience of ethnic identity? Did this affect preferences for public services and did this affect public service delivery in the two districts?

In the case with Balochistan, I look at the relationship in terms of both the patron client relationships between the politicians and the tribal leaders, and the tribal leaders and the voters. Do preferences of voters differ depending on the social organization of the identity group they hail from? Are local government polities with hierarchically inclined ethnic groups more likely to fall victim to elite capture? Ultimately, does a hierarchical system lead to fewer public goods?

I begin by laying out Pakistan’s political structure before I delve into the research design and methodology used to answer these questions.

I. PAKISTAN’S GOVERNMENT SYSTEM

Pakistan consists of four provinces, two federally administered areas, Azad

Kashmir and the Federal Capital Islamabad. It has a federal parliamentary system headed by the President, with the Senate and the National Assembly forming the two legislative houses. The national assembly members (MNAs) are elected directly via plurality vote in single member legislative districts and Senate members are voted through an electoral college composed of the provincial assembly, the national assembly and the federally administered areas (including the capital). The Senate, National Assembly and

Provincial Assembly jointly vote in the President, who then appoints the Prime Minister, a member of the National Assembly (Ministry of Information and Broadcasting Pakistan,

USAID 2006).

Each of the four provinces (Punjab, Sindh, Khyber-Pukhtunkhwa, Balochistan) has a governor, Council of Ministers, and a provincial assembly. Members of the provincial assembly (MPAs) are voted directly by plurality in single member legislative districts.

Pakistan’s 1973 Constitution allows only for a two tier government system: the federal and the provincial. Historically, a local government system has been imposed under military rule of two Presidents before President Musharraf, but as soon as a civilian government reestablished power, it would be retracted. However, the devolution plan instituted below President Musharraf, who also came into power under a military coup

(albeit a bloodless one) has gone the furthest in empowering the local level of

government. Previous systems allowed bureaucrats at either the district or provincial level the right to veto any legislation the local government attempted to pass. This time, the bureaucrats answered to the elected local government and the district nazim, i.e. the district mayor, who had final decision making powers. However, the local government again did not have a permanent provision in the constitution but rather a temporary provision for 2002-2009 (Cheema et al. 2005). Hence, unsurprisingly, the devolution plan was retracted once more at the end of this term as the parliament was empowered.

II. PAKISTAN’S DEVOLUTION: LOCAL GOVERNMENT ORDINANCE

2001

Before the devolution that occurred in 2001-2002, control of the district resided with the district commissioner, a bureaucrat who answered to the non-elected provincial secretariat. With devolution, the district commissioner position was eliminated to be replaced by the district coordination officer (DCO) who no longer acted as district magistrate or district collector and more importantly, reported to the elected district nazim. Executive district officers below the DCO headed the various departments devolved to the district administration such as health and education.

A similar layout existed at the tehsil level where the tehsil nazim, i.e. the tehsil mayor, had oversight of the bureaucratic position of Tehsil Municipal Officer, who in turn oversaw the tehsil officers for the departments under the tehsil such as infrastructure

and services (including water supply and sewage drainage), planning, finance, and municipal regulations (USAID 2006).

A. Structure

The Local Government Ordinance 2001 empowered the three levels of government below the province: the district level, tehsil level, and the union council. The lowest tier, the union council is composed of a group of villages, and the union council members are directly voted by the people where the nazim and naib nazim (mayor and deputy mayor respectively) are elected on a joint ticket. The union council nazims form two third of the district council and the union council naib nazims form two thirds of the tehsil council. They vote in members for the remaining one-third reserved seats for women, peasants and minorities. The council members then vote in the nazim for both the tehsil council and the district council. Hence, though union council members are voted directly, the upper two tier nazims are indirectly elected (USAID 2006, Cheema et al.

2005).

B. Function

Besides the police, irrigation, and higher education services, most public services were devolved to the local government. The district government is responsible for elementary and secondary education, agriculture, primary and secondary health and roads

between districts (see Figure 1). The tehsil council is given administration of “municipal service responsibilities—including local roads and streets, water supply systems and sewers and sanitation” (Asian Development Bank et al. 2004a, 5). Union councils are responsible for service delivery, community building and small scale development projects that are funded through the district government.

Agriculture

Community Development

Education

Finance and Planning

Health District Nazim District Executive District (head of district Coordination Officers (EDO) council) Officer (DCO) Information and Technology

Law

Literacy

Revenue

Works and Services

Figure 2.1: District Chain of Command

Source: USAID 2006

C. Funds

Districts obtained their nondiscretionary transfers from the Provincial Finance

Commission based on a rule based formula. This formula varied by province. Provinces distributed the funds directly to the district level and the tehsil level, and these two levels filtered the funds down to the union council. Table 2.1 provides a breakdown of the formula for each province.

The districts were given some marginal revenue collecting power. However, because of the complexity of collecting taxes and distinguishing functions between the province and the district, as well as the weak tax base at the district level, these funds were minimal. In fact, in a study conducted by the Asian Development Bank, Department for International Development and the World Bank (ADW) in 2004, the districts that were studied had income from their own collection varying from 0-8% of their total revenue (Asian Development Bank et al. 2004a).

Development funds, separate from the salaries and fixed expenses incurred in running the local government, were allocated by the district nazim. In the same study done by ADW, anecdotal evidence exposited that most of the development budget was equivalently distributed amongst the union councilors. However, the protocol is for union council nazims to identify service needs in their polity and make appeals to the district for funds. The district council then determines whether to respond. The district council can only veto the budget proposed by the district nazim, it does not have amendment

authority. Hence, the power to determine funding distribution rests primarily with the district nazim.

Table 2.1: Provincial Finance Commission (PFC) Awards Distribution Criteria (2002-3)

NWFP Punjab Sindh (now Balochistan KP)

Population 75% 50% 50% 50%

Backwardness 10% 17.50% 25% -

Tax Effort 5% 7.50% - -

Fiscal Austerity 5% - - -

Area - - - 50%

Development Incentive/Infrastructure 5% - 25% - Deficiency

Transitional Assistance - 25% - -

Total 100% 100% 100% 100% Source: Cheema et al. 2005

One serious limitation in the district nazim’s power is his or her limited authority over the bureaucrats (the DCO’s and the Executive Officers of each department in Figure

2.1). The district nazim can only fill out a performance evaluation to the province for the officers. Only the province has the authority to fire the bureaucrat or to affect the bureaucrat’s salary (Cheema et al. 2005).

III. THESIS

Under what circumstances does ethnicity affect the provision of public goods?

There are two parts to this answer: (1) what process galvanizes ethnic identity to political salience and (2) how does ethnic voting affect public goods provision. In shallow democracies where well informed voters are not pervasive and politicians lack credibility, ethnic identities with their perceived history of interaction become more compelling groups for politicians to appeal to (Chandra 2004). This constituency base can either be solicited through direct promises of targeted goods by a co ethnic candidate, or through an intermediary with social and economic power who provides a political candidate with a vote base in exchange for targeted goods from the politician (Heller 2000, Rolls 2008).

However, given the myriad of identities an individual holds at any one time, of which multiple identities are descent based and hence ethnic in nature, only a select few are politicized (Fearon 2004, Dunning 2010). Primordialists believe that identities are fixed, but history has shown that previously salient identities have become latent over time (Horowitz 1985). Constructivism espouses the concept of fluid identities. However,

this does not sufficiently inform us as to when these identities will become politically salient. In his study of Zambia, Posner (2005) finds that during episodes when the government had multiparty elections, linguistic identities were politicized and politicians mobilized support on the basis of this identity. When Zambia had single party elections, however, then tribal identities were mobilized by politicians. The key element is that in order for an identity to be politicized, it has to be able to form a minimum winning coalition, where gains from access to government resources are shared amongst the smallest number that can plausibly gain political power (Bates 1983, Posner 2005,

Dunning 2010). Essentially, political competition deepens ethnic divide between those groups that can form a minimum winning coalition.

We can test this in Pakistan by observing what happens to local identities when political competition is introduced in a previously bureaucratic run polity—that is, at the district level and below (where direct elections, and hence the most competition, is at the union council level). This introduction of political competition provides a natural experiment where we can study the dynamic effect of changing political institutions on the shifting political salience of ethnic identity. Moreover, we can then test the effect of introducing political competition in an ethnically fragmented versus an ethnically homogeneous polity.

Historically, ethnicity in Pakistan has been synonymous with ethno-linguistic identity. At the national and provincial level, that is the identity that has been politicized.

Descent based identities such as tribe and clan have been denominated as “kinship” identities. However, anecdotal evidence suggests that even during the partial

decentralization under Ayub Khan and Zia-ul-Haq’s military governments, baraderi (i.e. clan) became more important during the nonparty elections in the local government

(Cheema et al. 2005). Even during this episode of devolution, “by purportedly depoliticizing governance…the military…reinforced loyalties along the lines of biraderi

(caste, tribe, sub-region), thus actually aggravating social and political divisions in society” (ICG 2004, 26).

As mentioned previously, the local government in the two previous episodes was not truly independent as the bureaucracy had veto power over any decision it made. With the onslaught of Musharraf’s devolution plan, though it too was motivated by the military’s desire to marginalize political parties, local government was much more empowered and competitive. The district nazim had more powers than ever before. In fact, voter turnout was high for local government elections (Pakistan Election

Commission) and competition for union council nazim even turned violent at times

(Mahmood 2007). This clearly indicates a high level of competition in the local government. I hypothesize that this increase in competition will increase the political salience of previously latent ethnic identities in union councils that are more ethnically heterogeneous.

Hypothesis 1a: Decentralization will increase the political salience of local ethnic identities in ethnically heterogeneous polities.

We would therefore expect that voters in ethnically fragmented regions are more likely to vote by ethnicity (that is, vote either in collusion with other co-ethnic voters or vote for a candidate of the same ethnicity). Moreover, they are more likely to feel that a 41

co-ethnic candidate would improve their chances of gaining government resources or that a cross ethnic candidate would decrease their chances of gaining government resources.

Political ethnic appeals are accompanied by targeted goods. Fearon (1999) describes ethnic groups as having nonporous boundaries, which is conducive for provision of targeted goods. Even if different identity groups live in geographically mixed areas, there are targeted goods such as government jobs that can be exclusively provided to those of the same ethnicity as the political candidate (Cheema and Mohmand

2007). Fearing that the empowerment of another ethnicity will bar them from enjoying political spoils reinforces voter desire to vote in co ethnics. This is the case even though there is no traditional antipathy between kinship groups. Posner et al. (2007) find that even though there was no inherent desire not to share with those of other ethnicities in their experiments, fear of sanction from one’s own group engendered favoritism for co ethnics. I go a step further by stipulating that the belief that a candidate from another ethnicity will lock out benefits for the group reinforces ethnic voting, reducing, if not eliminating, political space for a candidate promising public goods or making universal appeals. Essentially, this sets up a system of targeted goods provision.

Hypothesis 1b: Districts with ethnic divisions will have less preference for public goods and hence less of an improvement in public service delivery post devolution than districts with a more homogeneous population.

Since those living in ethnically homogeneous polities will have less trust issues

(Alesina and La Ferrara 2002), they will be less concerned with fighting over private

benefits and will be more willing to cooperate on pushing for public goods. Not only will they comparatively express stronger preferences for the community, they are more likely to take steps to stand up for those preferences. Whereas diverse societies are less likely to be communally involved and have weaker social networks (Putnam 2007), on the flip side, homogeneous societies are more likely to use their stronger social networks to ensure compliance in furthering community goods. Hence, we would expect that ethnically homogeneous polities have stronger preferences for public over private goods and are more likely to gather together to use the political process to push for provision of public goods. This should thus lead us to better outcomes in public service delivery in ethnically homogeneous polities over ethnically heterogeneous ones, ceteris paribus.

Alesina, Baqir and Easterly (1999) claim that ethnically fragmented cities have lower provision of public goods because different ethnicities have different preferences for goods and hence they cannot collectively agree on provision and total levels of public goods is less. Preferences for public goods are said to be unimodal within ethnic groups and more polarized between different groups (Fearon 1999). However, there is no intrinsic reason why preferences would differ between ethnic groups. A descent based identity in itself does not suggest differing preferences unless it is preference over such attributes as linguistic policy, which may be linked directly to ethnicity (Fearon 2004).

Where ethnicity is linked to other socioeconomic factors, variations in preferences of common interest public goods may be better explained. Horowitz categorizes ethnic groups as ranked and unranked, where ranked ethnic groups such as caste systems, may also be correlated to economic class. Given that economic needs of different classes

differ, it would be more possible to envision why preferences for goods may be shared between identity and vary across groups.

Similarly, social organization within ethnic groups can also account for why preferences for goods differ between different descent-based identities. Groups that have strict hierarchy ruled by a few will less likely push for education as powerful leaders make decisions for the group. According to Bourguignon and Verdier (2000), oligarchical societies will have elites that oppose mass education for fear it will increase pressure for democratization and will threaten their power structure. Similarly, tribal chiefs in hierarchical systems will not wish to educate their tribesmen and women to maintain their authority. They would oppose other measures as well that reduce dependency on them.

Hierarchical social organization reduces public goods provision when it interacts with clientelist politics. The tribal chief has a patron client relationship with the politician

(or is himself the politician) and the voter base has a patron client relationship with the tribal chief. In this model with an intermediary, the politician provides patronage to the elite who then passes on enough goods to the voter base to maintain compliance. The more inequality between the voter base and the tribal leader, the less the tribal chief needs to give in terms of goods to ensure compliance. Pakistani politics is rife with clientelist politics (Cheema and Mohmand 2008). However, even with this systematic trading of personal favors and targeted goods for political backing, there is variation in how much the voter base might expect to gain in exchange for their support: whether that gain is from an intermediary, or directly from the politician. 44

Hypothesis 2: More hierarchical tribal societies will have fewer public services than districts that are less hierarchical.

Public services, particularly education, can undermine tribal authority and hence, higher hierarchy reduces incentive for leaders to provide education. Moreover, a stronger hierarchy empowers the authority figures more asymmetrically vis a vis the tribe, indicating a greater probability of elite capture of the government, which increases the likelihood that those preferences of the upper echelon will be represented in the government responsible for public service delivery. Hence, hierarchical systems will see less provision of public goods.

It is important to note that social organization is not an inherent part of ethnicity. One can imagine that a feudal society would also be faced with similar pressures from elites to limit public goods that might disempower them. However, though a feudal society relies more heavily on threat of force to ensure compliance, ethnic groups have rich social networks that strengthen norms of compliance. Though a comparison of feudal systems and tribal systems is beyond the scope of this study, it would provide a good assessment of how ethnic loyalty can reduce the extent of coercion used to ensure compliance by autocratic leaders.

IV. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY

The heart of this study uses survey analysis in case studies in Pakistan’s provinces

Punjab and Balochistan. From all the provinces in Pakistan, devolution was the most 45

meaningful in Punjab, and it is here that I test Hypothesis 1a and 1b on the effect of introducing political competition in local government on political salience of local ethnic identities and in turn, the effect of ethnic politics on public goods distribution. Hypothesis

2, testing the effect of internal hierarchy within ethnicities on public goods provision, is tested through case study analysis surveying three districts in Balochistan that vary by level of ethnic hierarchy.

Respondents were given in-depth surveys that questioned them on demographics, wealth, education, health, infrastructure, and voting and politicization. This study focuses on voter responses to understand their attitudes, preferences and behavior to infer how ethnicity plays a role in shaping public goods provision.

The relevant tier of local government where direct elections are held is the union council level. District and tehsil council members are indirectly elected and therefore, the accountability to the voters is not as straightforward. Moreover, the union council is composed of a few villages and hence, it is possible to find union councils that vary significantly in the tested variables, i.e. ethnic diversity and ethnic social organization. At the district level, it is difficult to find controlled cases as the larger population within those boundaries will doubtless be quite varied and it is particularly difficult to find a homogeneous district. Hence, even though for identification I refer to districts, only one union council was selected in each district for the case study analysis.

District level analysis relies primarily on published data and other data provided by the government for comparative study. Due to the plethora of political forces shaping

the decision making process at the district level, this level of analysis is intended simply to provide a broader picture of the political process and extrapolation of the survey analysis on the larger district must be done with care.

A. Case Selection

In October 2010 I conducted surveys in two villages in each of the five districts studied. These districts were Dera Ghazi Khan and Muzaffargarh in Punjab, where the

NGO AwazCDS completed the surveys, Gwadar, Zhob and Noushki in Balochistan, where the NGOs Community Development Gwadar and Mahec Trust completed the surveys. Cluster sampling technique was used to choose households to be surveyed. First one union council was chosen on the basis of the main tested variable, i.e. ethnic diversity in southern Punjab and social organization/internal ethnic hierarchy in Balochistan. Then, households were randomly chosen within two villages in each of the union councils for the surveys to optimize a representative set of responses for the union council in each studied district.

In southern Punjab, a primarily Saraiki speaking region, I selected an ethnically homogenous union council in district Dera Ghazi Khan and an ethnically heterogeneous union council in district Muzaffargarh. Homogenous villages were in Dera Ghazi Khan, where its tribal history led to tribes often living in geographically distinct locations in rural areas, allowing for a pattern of homogeneity in regional clusters. Since

Muzaffargarh has a larger mix of tribe and baraderi, villages in this district tend to be

more heterogeneous. After selecting on heterogeneity, households within the villages were selected randomly.

Table 2.2: Union Council Population as Compared to Sample Surveyed

Average Number Number of Average of Household Household Surveyed Population District Union Council Surveys Size Individuals 1998 Fateh Pur Muzaffargarh Janubi 71 6 426 36759 Dera Ghazi Khan Sokar 75 6.52 489 28915

Nushki Baghak Mal 70 5.6 392 9535 Gwadar Surbandar 81 7.49 606.69 13535 Zhob Shahabzai 70 5.51 385.7 13048 Source: Population Census Organization 1998, Basic Population and Housing Data by Union Councils and Author’s survey data.

Since the union council is where the directly elected members of the local government reside and this is the easiest to reach for the people, it makes more sense to compare the ethnic composition at this level. Furthermore, the district level has a high enough population that there will be some form of aggregate diversity in every district.

In Balochistan, I selected districts on the basis of hierarchy and followed Barth

(1969) and Titus (1998) in determining a priori that Balochi tribes are more hierarchical than Pukhtun’s, the latter being represented as having very egalitarian structures. Barth

(1969) does mention that Pukhtun’s living in proximity with the Baloch have tribal

systems that begin to resemble the Baloch, but the supposition is still there that on a spectrum of hierarchical to egalitarian, Pukhtun tribes are more towards the latter than

Baloch tribes. Ideally I would select the districts by tribal hierarchy and choose a representative case at high, low, and no hierarchy in tribally homogenous districts. This would suggest choosing the districts Dera Bugti or Kohlu for Baloch tribes. However, these highly hierarchical tribes are also very belligerent and unwelcoming to outsiders, especially researchers. After discussions with Mahec Trust, an NGO that delves in teaching villagers basics in good healthcare, we had to decide on a district where the people were more tolerant of outsiders. Of course, this suggests that their tribal system is looser and not as rigid. Hence, even though Barth (1969) characterizes the Baloch tribes as more hierarchical than the Pukhtun tribes, considering that my selection of district is affected by a variable that likely correlates with hierarchy, I cannot necessarily claim that the Baloch tribe I am studying is more hierarchical. However, the salient variable is hierarchy, so even if it no longer maps that the Baloch tribe I am studying is more or less hierarchical than the Pukhtun tribe, I can still map my results to that of hierarchy.

For non-tribal at least, Gwadar provides a clear choice as it is unanimously acknowledged as a non-tribal region, even by the Census 1998 reports (Population

Census Organization 1998). An advantage of this is that I can compare tribal Baloch with non tribal Baloch and hence control for the Baloch factor.

B. Alternative Data

i. Government Data, Published and Unpublished

I use a collection of published data sources that provide data on a much wider range of districts in Pakistan, though not necessarily as in depth as the surveys I conduct.

These sources are primarily the published material from the Population Census

Organization (PCO) from the 1998 census, which includes district reports for 19984 as well as Basic Population and Housing Data 1998 for the five case study districts, and surveys conducted by the Pakistan Federal Bureau of Statistics (FBS), which includes the

Pakistan Demographic Surveys and Pakistan Social and Living Standards Measurement

(PSLM) Surveys. Government of Balochistan’s Planning and Development Department’s collaborative “District-Based Multiple Indicators Cluster Survey 2004” provides information across districts in Balochistan on key public goods measurements.

I obtained data on districts’ current and developmental budget from Punjab’s provincial secretariat and Balochistan’s provincial secretariat for their respective districts.

Data for Dera Ghazi Khan was obtained from the Executive Finance Officer’s office for

2008 and earlier, and budget data for Muzaffargarh was obtained from a presentation conducted by Tariq Javeid Malik, the late District Coordinating Officer (DCO) for

Muzaffargarh. District data for Gwadar was also obtained in 2008 from the district office but due to the inability to gain budget data for Zhob or Nushki due to both access issues and the retrenchment of the local government by 2010 when the surveys were conducted, there is no comparison possible to enable its use.

4 The PCO is currently embarked on a much delayed and awaited census as this dissertation is being written and correspondence with them confirmed that it is not expected to be completed and distributed by any definitive timeline. 50

Finally, I obtained district profiles from the provincial secretariat in Balochistan for 2008 that are used to help assess the social organization of the various districts in the province.

ii. Data from Published Works

I use the Provincial Finance Commission’s (PFC) developmental award data for for all districts (including those not in Punjab and Balochistan) from Ahmed and Lodhi

(2008). Continuing with Cheema and Mohmand (2007) and Rolls (2008), I use Crockfort et al’s (2002, 2005) CIET reports to both compare my results with as well as to add to them for the southern Punjab districts.

iii. Interviews

In October 2008 I interviewed bureaucrats at various levels in both Punjab and

Balochistan, as well as employees of NGOs working with community development and health in Balochistan. In Punjab, I interviewed two union council nazims hailing form

Sahiwal and Dera Ghazi Khan districts to gain an inside understanding of the local government. In Balochistan, I interviewed a union council naib nazim (deputy mayor) and a district naib nazim in Gwadar. Bureaucrats in Dera Ghazi Khan were also interviewed that worked for the agricultural sector as well as those working in the

Executive Finance Officer’s office.

To gain a better idea of the political landscape in southern Punjab, I held a focus group of female sociology graduate students in Dera Ghazi Khan who represented both that district and Muzaffargarh. They had been involved in field work in the area 51

regarding voting behavior in tribal areas. In Quetta, Balochistan, I interviewed a Pakhtun bureaucrat and a Baloch medical doctor on the nuances of tribal hierarchy in their respective tribes. Both were intimately acquainted with tribal dynamics.

Interviews were used primarily for two purposes (1) the functioning of the local government and the political dynamics that were in play and (2) the demographic distinctions between the proposed regions of study to help narrow down cases to be used later for survey analysis.

iv. Newspapers

Pakistan’s newspapers Dawn, the Daily Times, and the Baloch Hal are the primary sources for information used to track the political process post devolution as well as relevant history in the politics of the studied regions.

C. Variable Measurement

i. Public Goods

To observe the variation in the dependent variable—outcomes in public service delivery—I use multiple measures to operationalize public goods. These include the human development index to provide a general category used to compare public goods between districts.

More specifically, I focus on education, health and infrastructure in constructing an image of the public goods landscape in Pakistan. For education, I look at both literacy and enrollment rates. I specifically use net enrollment in primary schools, as well as the

more generally used gross enrollment in schools to compare service delivery in education. Since only a few years had passed since the implementation of devolution at the time of study, it would be difficult to measure any real affect in outcome in education.

Primary school enrollment would be most likely to be affected if there was newly improved investment in education to promote enrollment as the time frame where children join school would coincide with the onslaught of devolution.

To operationalize health, I look at use of government health facilities, child mortality rates and/or child immunization rates. Cheema and Mohmand (2007) explicate how dysfunctional basic health units (BHUs) provided by the government lead people to seek private consultation or none at all. Usage of these facilities would allow a comparative assessment on the functionality of these services and whether their local governments were responsive to these needs.

Infrastructure includes electrification, running water, and sewer disposal system amongst others. The surveys conducted for this dissertation include questions on access to electricity, running water and sewer disposal that are used to provide information on infrastructure development across the studied districts. This information is supplemented by the PSLM survey responses on housing, water supply and sanitation, which look at percentage distribution of houses by fuel used (electricity and gas would require infrastructure, candles and peat imply lack of infrastructure), source of drinking water, and type of toilet. The Basic Housing data for 1998 published by the Population Census

Organization also provides key data on how villages vary by electricity and gas usage.

Following Rolls (2008), given that the recent advent of devolution allowed limited time for new policies to take effect, I also use the perception of improvement in welfare to gauge whether there is at least a perception that the government is being responsive to voter needs, even if not yet realized.

The data for public service delivery comes from Pakistan Bureau of Statistics’s

PSLM surveys for various years, CIET surveys for 2002 and 2005, and from my own surveys conducted in the case study districts.

Assessing the extent of public provision is difficult in that there is no perfect value against which to compare provision in the various districts. However, as mentioned in Bardhan (2002), yardstick competition can be used to judge the provision of public goods between districts. Since subnational political units share the same institutions, variation in change in public service delivery under decentralization can be more validly attributed to political incentives for provision. Hence, we can establish which districts have more or less provision or improvement in provision of public goods to discern where there is relative under-provision. I supplement this method by surveying voter preference rank over a list of goods ranging from private to public and assessing political response to these needs.

ii. Independent Variables

a. Controls

Population density is an important measure in explaining public goods provision.

Areas with denser population may allow for better goods distribution because of the

lower area that needs to be covered per capita (Banerjee and Somanathan 2007). In

Pakistan, one the main reasons attributed to Balochistan’s low development is the large area—it is the largest province in Pakistan and yet has the lowest population. I use

Pakistan’s various district reports from 1998, the last census, to compose this measure.

Geography can be another deterrent to public goods. Less rainfall implies need for greater investment in water access to satisfy that need. I use measures of rainfall per annum to control for geography in the region. I use the World Bank’s climate portal to obtain average annual rainfall measures from 1960-1990 for each district. I do not use a dummy for topography such as mountains as most of the mountainous areas are in KP, which is already covered in the dummy for provinces. Other mountainous and hilly areas in Pakistan include a few northern districts in Punjab that have done fairly well economically as they are close to the capital city and do well due to tourism. Though other districts include some mountains, they also have vast tracts of flat plains and hence are not encumbered by topography in a developmental sense. Those districts also have a low population density, further suggesting the existence of mountains within their boundaries as being incidental.

There are no district-wise income figures available (SDPC 2007). I use the surveys conducted by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics to compose a proxy for income measures. For the districts I study, I use a composite of questions to index a measure for income.

District budgets are obtained from Ahmed and Lodhi (2008) data on Provincial

Finance Commission Awards for all districts. I also obtained data from the Punjab provincial secretariat and the Balochistan provincial secretariat in October 2008 for the districts within the respective provinces.

b. Ethnicity

Ethnic identity in Pakistan has traditionally been defined using linguistic terms.

Provincially, language has played a major role in politics to establish identity. Punjab is divided into the northern region where Punjabi is the major language, and the southern region where Saraiki is the major language. Sindh has seen much violence and political competition between the Sindhi speakers and the Urdu speakers, particularly in Karachi. Balochistan has battled with Balochi and Pathan ethno-linguistic divisions, particularly playing out in the provincial capital of Quetta. In order to assess whether these identities have played out in public goods distribution, I formulate ethno linguistic fractionalization

(ELF) measures with the frequently used Herfindahl concentration formula (Posner 2004,

Fearon and Laitin 2003, Banerjee and Somanathan 2007) using data from Pakistan’s last census (1998) on population distribution by mother tongue by district:

∑

th where the share of the population of the i group is γi.

For local identities studied in the survey analysis, I simply rely on self- identification to determine category. This accomplishes two goals: one, it provides me 56

with a list of local identities, and two, it tells me which identity is most important to the individual. This approach partially follows the method used in the surveys analyzed by

Posner et al. (2010), except that rather than giving the individuals categories to choose from, I allow free flow answers. This is important because I am not only trying to establish whether they choose ethnic identity as the foremost identity, but rather which ethnic identity they choose. Hence, allowing them to self-identify without providing categories keeps from imposing identity onto them. Posner (2005) mentions that context can affect the response to simple self-identification. He uses a taped dialogue on politics to set the context before the respondents are asked to self-identify. Given the limits of the study, I rely on placing the question on self-identification right after questions regarding voting behavior. This serves the same purpose of providing political context.

Hierarchy was calculated using the responses of the surveys conducted in

Balochistan, which measured the existence of a tribal chief, whether the chief collected funds from the people, Jirga membership (Jirga is a traditional council with a judiciary function where members get together to bring forth problems between tribesmen), and the decision making process in a Jirga (whether the decision requires unanimous support, majority, or whether the tribal chief has final say).

V. DISSERTATION LAYOUT

To provide context to the study, the next chapter provides context for both Pakistan’s devolution as well as the landscape for public goods provision and the variation observed

between districts at the time decentralization was instituted by former President

Musharraf. This allows us to have a reference against which to compare subsequent chapters in this dissertation. Chapters 4 and 5 then shift to analyzing southern Punjab where I compare the homogenous union council of Dera Ghazi Khan with the heterogeneous union council in Muzaffargarh on public service delivery and voting patterns on ethnicity and preferences for goods. Chapter 6 turns to Balochistan and tests how varying levels of hierarchy affect preferences for public goods, the perception of elite capture and the observed outcomes. The last chapter concludes with an overall assessment of how the short episode of devolution fared and how this dissertation sheds light on subsequent changes being envisioned in Pakistan’s political scene.

Chapter 3 : Public Goods Provision Before Devolution

The expectation is that economic growth should be the most significant determinant of development in a country. Yet, often social and political forces play a significant role in determining the level of expenditure a state puts into developing public policy that will enhance the livelihood for the larger public as opposed to the privileged few. The purpose of this chapter is twofold: (1) to assess Pakistan’s development prior to decentralization compared to the region and (2) to assess what factors significantly explain the variation between districts within Pakistan and if ethnic-linguistic identity (the identity that is widely believed to be the politically salient identity in provincial and national politics) is one such factor.

Pakistan witnessed healthy growth rates from 1960 to 1990, but this growth was unaccompanied by commensurate development5 (UNDP 2003, Easterly 2003). The state’s resources and policies were used to enrich a targeted elite rather than providing public goods such as infrastructure, education and functional health care facilities for the masses (UNDP 2003). Without adequate public expenditure in developing these public goods and services, Pakistan’s economic growth lacked sustainability—in fact, whereas the period from 1960 to 1990 saw an average GDP growth rate above 6%, the 1990’s saw

5 Easterly (2003) measures development as performance in education, sanitation, health, gender equality, fertility, political instability and violence, democracy and corruption. 59

a decline in GDP growth, falling below 4% on average for the decade, as well as deepening poverty and unemployment (UNDP 2003, WDI 2012).

A comparison of Pakistan across other low income countries and the South Asian region illustrates a comparative deficiency in human development. Though Pakistan ranks as a lower middle income country (WDI 2012), indicators in health and education placed it generally below or sometimes at par with the average values for low income countries in 2003, and even as it made its way back to the medium development category, it has ranked at the border of medium/low development (UNDP 2003, UNDP 2012). In a comparison with its regional neighbors India and Sri Lanka, Pakistan lags behind in most health and education measures. In fact, from 1999 to 2011, Pakistan had the lowest average annual growth rate of the human development indicator (HDI) in South Asia

(UNDP HDR 2011).

Figure 3.1 illustrates Pakistan’s ranking in human development vis à vis other countries. A higher numerical ranking indicates less development. Though some of the change is affected by the addition of new countries in the UNDP data set, the number of countries remained the same from 2004 to 2008 and we can still distinguish certain trends. There were 162 countries in 2001, 173 in 2002, 175 in 2003, 177 from 2004-2008,

182 in 2009 and 187 in 2011. Since the National Human Development Report (NHDR) for Pakistan in 2003 was published, Pakistan had been slowly improving in its ranking until 2010. It is to be noted that the ranking takes data that is one to two years older.

Taking that into account, it would seem that improvement in Pakistan’s human development index was concomitant with the implementation of Musharraf’s Local 60

Government Ordinance. At this time we also have greater aid coming into Pakistan after

9/11/2001. A district level analysis is required to assess whether the change in governance structure had a substantive effect on human development. This will be explored further in this study.

Pakistan HDI Ranking 150 145

140 135 130

HDI HDI Ranking 125 120 115

Figure 3.1: Pakistan's Human Development Index (HDI) Ranking Over Time

Source: UNDP Human Development Reports (1995-2012)

A disaggregation of the human development indicator illustrates that from the health, income (as proxy for standard of living) and education portions of HDI, Pakistan does best in health (0.717), secondly in income(0.484), and last of all in education

(0.386) (UNDP 2012). This is unsurprising as a comparison in government expenditure in

education reveals that Pakistan spent only 2.7% of GNP on education in 1997, whereas

India was spending 3.2, Sri Lanka 3.3, and the average low income country public

HDI Comparison 0.800 0.700 0.600 0.500 0.400 0.300 0.200 0.100 0.000 1980 1990 2000 2005 2011

Pakistan South Asia Low Human Development World

Figure 3.2: Human Development Index Comparisons

Source: UNDP Indicators 2012

expenditure on education was 3.3; all of these are above Pakistan’s expenditure on education (UNDP 2003). More recent years have shown that Pakistan has remained close to the same expenditure on education (2.4% of GDP in 2010), while India (3.3% in

2010), Bhutan (4% in 2010), and Maldives (7.8% in 2009) continue to give greater import to education in the region (WDI 2012).

These indicators illustrate how the Pakistani central government has exhibited policy failures particularly in the area of delivery of social services. This has largely stemmed from political incentive to provide narrowly targeted goods rather than public 62

goods to a broader base. Keefer, Narayan and Vishwanath (2006) identify failures in health and education, legislator focus providing explicit developmental projects that were visible and publicized to garner reelection rather than dealing with larger policy issues, and evidence that political competition increased the school construction (a visible form of development) as opposed to school quality (not as visible) to illustrate incentives to provide targeted goods.

When analyzing Pakistan’s policy failures, India is often used as a comparative measure due to the shared history prior to independence in 1947. These two countries share many of the same electoral institutions as well sharing much of their history, yet

India has witnessed a comparatively healthier development while Pakistan’s has stagnated. One major area where they diverge is in the duration of their democratic history.

To gain an understanding of Pakistan’s country level low development, it is important to delve into its democratic history. As Keefer (2007) points out, one of the key factors that affect politicians’ incentive to provide public goods is their credibility in making these promises. New democracies have problems with politician credibility as they do not have a long enough time horizon to have built trust. Moreover, when significant information asymmetries exist, politicians use visible projects to display their effectiveness and to win reelection, rather than improving quality of health, infrastructure, and existing infrastructure (Mani and Mukand 2007).

Pakistan’s democratic episodes have been repeatedly truncated by military coups and military propped “democracies,” which has nurtured incentives to cultivate the personalistic vote. Though this does not explain variation in public goods provision within Pakistan, it provides a contextual baseline for the country, while validating theories that emphasize long duration of democracy as a requirement for reaping its benefits (Keefer 2007). Pakistan is hardly alone in having regimes staggering between military and democracy—the post-colonial world is rife with examples that can attest to the same story—and its story can be easily extrapolated to other states.

What incentives have led Pakistani politicians to provide targeted versus non targeted goods? To answer this question, one must look at Pakistani history and its periodic military rule. This foray into history also informs the expectations for the most recent devolution. The story of Pakistan’s episodes of decentralized regimes is not just about the benefits that bringing politics closer to the people brings, but also about how these episodes encouraged personalistic voting and carried those incentives to higher tiers of the government even in the absence of a local government.

After establishing how the historical context shaped political incentives for cultivating a personalistic vote and therefore providing targeted goods, I shift to trying to explain the variation in public services between districts through commonly cited variables. This analysis provides a preliminary look at the significant explanatory variables that will help guide the remainder of this study.

I. MILITARY RULE AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT

Pakistan’s erratic democratic history has seriously hindered its ability to promote credibility in its political system. Small episodes of democracy have been followed by episodes of military dictatorships since its incipiency. These dictatorships have upheld their legitimacy through a farcical representative local government that was controlled by a bureaucracy. This system established the major power group in Pakistan: a nexus of military and bureaucracy.

The first Martial Law under General Ayub Khan in 1958 dissolved provincial and national assemblies and the Basic Democracies Ordinance of 1959 for rural areas, followed by the Municipal Administration Ordinance of 1960 for urban areas replaced the higher tiers of national and provincial levels as the representative government. This local government installed by these ordinances became the Electoral College used to elect the President, Ayub Khan, and the national and provincial assemblies (Zaidi 2005).

The local government system itself was composed of four tiers: Division Council,

District Council, Municipal Committees /Cantonment Boards/Tehsil Councils, and Union

Councils/Town Committees/Union Committees (Cheema et al. 2005, Zaidi 2005). Direct elections were held at the lowest tier of union council/union committee/town committee.

The members of the higher tiers were a combination of members elected by the directly elected members of the lowest tier and members nominated by the government. The authority controlling this local government came from the bureaucracy, and hence, was unrepresented by the people. This authority could undo any action that the local

government attempted to make and essentially had the ultimate veto. Hence, politically, the local government had little if any independence (Zaidi 2005, Cheema et al. 2005).

Development was a focal point in the Ayub period, where both the military and bureaucracy focused on increasing capital and production in urban and rural areas. The land reform of 1959, which was partial in nature and was not enough to do more then dent the hold of large landowners that had traditionally been propped up and supported by British colonialists as a means of keeping control over rural areas, nevertheless played a significant role in diversifying the strata of society at the rural level. The Green

Revolution of this area ushered in agricultural technological advancements that helped galvanize growth and made this period one of the fastest economic growth periods in

Pakistan (Cheema et al. 2005, Zaidi 2005). It also turned the bureaucracy from simply maintaining law and order to having a central role in development.

The local level elections under Ayub Khan were the first elections ever held in

Pakistan (the parliamentary structure that preexisted Ayub Khan held politicians who were unelected after independence), and hence, was the first experience by the populace to begin to understand the power of the vote, stunted though the power may be. It is evident however, that the bureaucrats had the real power, even though it was considered a benign bureaucracy. However, without true representative government, the system of the

Basic Democrats that were the constituency of the military became rife with corruption and patronage. With economic growth, urban migration, and experience with even a marginalized elected government combined to give the emerging middle class a voice to oust Ayub Khan and usher in the first national and provincial level elections, the 66

beneficiary of this new democracy in 1971 President Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto suspended the local government saying it had bred “nepotism and corruption” (quoted in Zaidi 2005,

17).

There were ordinances put forward to reinstate an improved local government in both 1972 and 1975, but neither of these was implemented. The local government that remained was essentially the same as that under Ayub Khan minus any pretensions of representative government—one controlled by the bureaucracy. Despite the marginalization of elected officials, the process of local elections and economic growth had politicized the population. Cheema and Mohmand (2003) argue that Bhutto avoided implementing a local government system for fear of competition from mass based regional parties. Hence, when the Constitution of Pakistan of 1973 was passed, there was no place for local government as a formal tier (Zaidi 2005).

A brief sojourn later, Pakistan had its second military coup in 1977 and its third military government (the first one came into power post-independence without toppling an existing regime). Here too the military leader General Zia-ul-Haq used the local government to legitimize his military rule in the guise of a democracy. The Local

Government Ordinace of 1979 reinstated a local government system that held elected members at the lowest three tiers of the local government and yet, once again, marginalized their power by giving away the controlling authority to provincial governments who could dismiss them at any time (Zaidi 2005, Cheema et al. 2005).

The local government system under Zia was again divided according to urban or rural areas, as it was under Ayub Khan. Urban areas, from lowest tier to highest, had town committees, municipal committees, municipal corporations and metropolitan corporations. Rural areas had Union Councils, Tehsil or Taluka Council, and District

Council, but provinces usually did away with the Tehsil level and hence, the Union

Council and District Council were the main operating tiers of the local rural government.

Members were elected directly at each level, and they then indirectly elected their chairmen.

There were three elections under this Local Government Ordinance: in 1979,

1983, and 1987. In 1985, provincial and national elections were held under Zia, albeit with limitations on who could run. The two previous local bodies elections had become a venue for new politicians to arise from the middle classes. These elections were held on a non-party basis, and even though many politicians had tacit party affiliations, the formal non-party nature allowed new political groups to arise to replace the traditional richer and more influential politicians. In fact, in 1993, approximately 70 percent of Punjab and

National assemblies came from local bodies (Zaidi 2005).

Since the local government had until 1985 been the only representative government, development funds had flowed through them and the councilors used these funds to gain support with their constituency. When many of these councilors stepped up to the higher tiers of provincial and national assemblies, they continued to use development funds targeted at their own discretion towards specific groups (which included party or kinship group factions) to gain reelection. Essentially, this set up a 68

major precedent for the use of state resources for personalized patronage. The ministers at the two higher tiers were basically taking on the function that was supposed to be under the purview of the local government. This made the local government largely redundant and a competitor in dispersal of patronage. Hence, it is unsurprising that with the death of

General Zia and the reassertion of democracy at the national level, the local government was again done away with between 1993 and 1998. The lower level functions were again in the hands of an unrepresentative bureaucracy (Zaidi 2005 and Cheema et al. 2005).

Ministers at the higher tiers eschewed their legislative responsibilities in favor of development work to bolster individual popularity (Keefer et al. 2005). Factionalism in

Pakistani politics from the start has prevented strong parties from emerging that would curb this incentive for currying personal votes and provide cause to appeal to the larger party base (and hence provide more untargeted goods) (Hasnain 2008a). “Allocation of party tickets and ministries is more an outcome of individual bargaining between powerful local brokers and party leaders rather than being based on collective decision making within the political party organizations as borne out by the extensive switching of candidates between political parties that has taken place since 1985” (Cheema et al. 2005,

13). When there is low credibility in the continuation of the democratic regime and political parties have not had time to build a strong party reputation, voters have little faith in party platforms and politicians will be opportunistic in switching between parties knowing that their currying a personalistic vote will be a better strategy than banking on party reputation. This in turn further weakens party reputation and perpetuates a vicious cycle that could only be mitigated through longevity of the democratic system so as to

allow for the expectation of its continuation and hence provide incentive to build party loyalty.

Pakistan has not only had a relatively short independent history (it gained independence in 1947), but the sporadic military rules have prevented democratic continuity that would engender trust in politicians. Moreover, the strong history of propped up local governments has been the venue from which most politicians have arisen, and these politicians have carried with them a culture of gaining support by delving in development programs rather than focusing on legislation. The lack of a strong party system has reinforced incentives for currying the personal vote through promises of targeted goods at the expense of more public goods-based legislation. Moreover, Zia introduced the 8th amendment which allowed a President to dissolve the national assembly and this power was used on several occasions between 1988 and 1998. (In fact, the current regime is the first elected democratic regime at the national level to have completed the full tenure of an election term.) Military coups and the incomplete election terms have provided a sense of further shortened time horizons for politicians. This has increased their incentive to focus on myopic policies—focusing on infrastructure that is visible and easily discerned such as new roads, rather than more long term, quality oriented development, such as maintenance of existing roads and improving quality in health and education.

Though this analysis does not explain variation in public goods between districts, it provides an important understanding of why Pakistan has overall such low provision of public goods. With this historical analysis to explain the context of Pakistan’s overall low 70

development, I continue on to try and explain the variation in public goods between districts within its borders.

II. IDENTIFYING CAUSES FOR PUBLIC GOODS VARIATION BETWEEN

DISTRICTS

Previous local governments still gave provincial authority, namely the provincial bureaucracy and the indirectly elected provincial Governor who controls it, the final say in district matters. The departure of this 2001 Local Government Ordinance that stemmed from the 2000 Devolution Plan from its predecessors came in that finally the bureaucracy was answerable to an elected representative, albeit an indirectly elected one. The district nazim (i.e. district mayor) had the greatest authority in the local government system.

Though the district nazim’s enforcement power was limited mostly to performance reports of government bureaucrats heading the various social service departments hence curtailing any kick behind the de jure power s/he held, overall the district nazim still had the most controlling power in the district. The tiers below the district were tehsil/taluks in rural areas (municipal authorities in large cities) and the lowest tier at which direct elections were held was the union council level, which was composed of a group of villages. Though the tehsil level had a certain level of independence from the district level when it received funding directly from the province for its services, these services were more limited compared to those in the district’s jurisdiction. The district level is where the development budget was determined. Elected union council nazims formed

most of the district council but they mainly just put forth propositions for development schemes in their polities. Even during budget proceedings, though the district council had a majority veto power, it had no amendment power, giving the district nazim considerable power in single handedly, albeit less democratically, determining the budget.

This new system had the advantage of bringing political power closer to the people and allowing them easier access to the politicians, particularly at the union council level where the members were directly elected, to voice their preferences, and more directly punish those for bad representation. Where the majority is poor, this should suggest that preferences would be for more public goods and implementation of these preferences should lead to an improvement in human development indicators (Teitelbaum et al. 2010). However, before assessing the change in public goods after this event, it is important to establish a baseline and identify factors that affected public goods variation between districts before devolution came into effect.

A. Testing Variation in Public Goods: Baseline

Before assessing whether Musharraf’s Devolution Plan bore fruit, we need to get an idea of what variables affected various public goods indicators a priori. Since the focus of this study is the role of ethnicity in explaining variation in public goods within

Pakistan, I conduct a district level analysis to test for the significance of ethnicity. Extant theories suggest that ethnically fragmented polities have lower provision due to lower

preference for public over private goods as well as collective action impediments in pushing for provision of such goods.

The predominant view of ethnicity in Pakistan is in terms of ethnolinguistic identity. Since each province is characterized by its own language and the influx of migrants from India at the time of independence lead to a new category of “Urdu speaking” immigrants, it is understandable why language has been the focus of ethnic study. However, the identities broadly termed as “kinship groups” also qualify in the definition of ethnicity as descent based groups yet they are treated as separate from ethnicity. Though this may be the prevalent trend, there is no academic reason for why ethnicity would exclude kinship groups, especially as analogous groups in India are often included in ethnic studies (e.g. Banerjee and Somanathan 2006, Dunning 2010).

However, it is true that at the provincial and national levels, kinship groups would not form minimum winning coalitions as at the higher tiers of government, no one would likely have enough influence to lead to a winning plurality. Hence for the pre devolution period, I use linguistic identity to operationalize my ethnicity variable.

The most politicized linguistic identities are the Urdu speaking mainly in Karachi city and Hyderabad city in Sindh and the Baloch in Balochistan (Rahman 1996). The political party Motahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) was formed to represent the interests of the Urdu speaking immigrants who felt they were sidelined in the Sindhi majority province of Sindh. More recently, as Pakhtun/Afghan refugees in Pakistan have been increasing over the past few decades, the Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party has gained significant number of seats in Balochistan’s provincial assembly. The Awami Nationalist 73

Party (ANP), also representing Pakhtun, had, until recent elections, had significant representation in both the provincial assembly in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and had gained almost one third of the general national assembly seats from the same province.

Meanwhile, there is greater tension between the Pakhtun and the Urdu Speaking in

Pakistan’s largest city and cosmopolitan center of Karachi, reflected in the gaining hostility between MQM and ANP politically over political dominance in that area.

Baloch feel threatened by two linguistic groups: on the one hand there are the

Punjabi in the urban areas of Balochistan who the Baloch feel are usurping their resources with their businesses and claiming valuable land and resources in the future promising harbor city of Gwadar in southern Balochistan. The antipathy toward the

Punjabi has a long history as the Punjab centric federal government has been gaining the revenues from natural gas from Balochistan after paying rent to the tribe owning the land and then redistributing the resources to the provinces on a predominantly population based formula. Considering that Balochistan has little over 5% of Pakistan’s population, it has the short end of the stick and Punjab, the most populous province, gains the most from the natural gas revenues.

Secondly, Balochistan has major Baloch, Brahvi, and Pakhtun populations (see

Figure 3.2 for map). The Brahvi have a conflicting history of origin, but they identify strongly with the Baloch (Shah 1992). In comparison, the Pakhtun are a minority in

Balochistan. However, the influx of Pakhtun migrants from Afghanistan has upset the balance of political power as the Pakhtun number increases and threatens Baloch control.

Considering that the military establishment already has a significant Pakhtun 74

representation6, and Pakhtun hold many of the government jobs, this has increased the tension between the Baloch and the Pakhtun. Moreover, Pakhtuns in Balochistan can relate to their co-ethno-linguists in the neighboring province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, whereas Balochis are a majority only in Balochistan. The tension has led to violence in

Quetta even on university campuses amongst students where both ethnic linguistic groups reside and the northern Pakhtun belt of Balochistan meets with the southern Balochi belt.

(Even during the course of fieldwork for this study the university was shut down and a curfew instilled due to recent violent clashes between students).

The politicization of linguistic identity here is evident through a history of ethnically-based political parties. Baloch Union Party was formed as far back as 1928, pre independence, to safeguard the interests of the Baloch (Kundi, 1994). Since then, post independence, there was a short period when the Pakhtun and the Baloch/Brahui unionized under the National Awami Party in 1955 to show solidarity against a centrist

Pakistan, particularly Punjabi control of the center. However, since the late 1970s, the emerging political scene once again depicts a province divided between the

Baloch/Brahui and the Pakhtun. The Pakhtoonkwa Milli Awami Party (PKMAP) gained favor with the ethnic Pakhtun it catered to, and a number of Baloch ethnic parties emerged such as the Balochistan National Movement (BNM), which was supported by the active Baloch Students Organization, and the Jamhoori Watan Party founded by the powerful Nawab Bugti (Kundi, 1994). Nawab Bugti, the tribal leader of the Bugti tribe

6 Almost 15% of the Pakistani military is Pakhtun compared to only 3-4% for Balochis; Punjabis make up 57% or less of the military, and Sindh makes up 17%; the remaining army personnel come from the non-provincial areas of Pakistan, including Azad Kashmir (Khan 2007) 75

after which the district Dera Bugti is named, became a martyr in the eyes of Baloch nationalists and secessionists when in August 2006, then President Pervez Musharraf ordered his assassination (Nawab Bugti was wresting control of the natural gas reserves in Balochistan away from the center and the military as well as promoting a secessionist agenda) (Baloch Hal News 2010).

Currently, the Balochistan National Party lead by Sardar Akhtar Mengal is a prominent ethniolinguistic based party demanding greater autonomy for the Baloch from the federal government (Baloch Hal News 2010). Besides political parties, the Baloch

National Front and Baloch Liberation Army are militant groups favoring the interests of the Baloch and fighting for a secessionist agenda. Much of the violence in the last decade has been attributed to their efforts to preserve Baloch control. Though the passage of the

18th Amendment in 2010 and its subsequent implementation has assuaged some of the more pressing concerns of Baloch politicians that demand autonomy but stop short of secessionism, ethnic linguistic strife remains a factor in Balochistan.

However, these linguistic cleavages are politically significant at the provincial and national levels but not at the district level. Before devolution, most of the administrative and development tasks fell to the unelected district bureaucracy that answered to the unelected provincial secretariat. Therefore, it is not straightforward that ethnic fragmentation at the district level would significantly impact public service provision within that polity. The major parties at the national front are non-ethnic as they would otherwise not be able to be competitive in national politics. Provincial politics are

sometimes ethnic in nature as described in the major ethnolinguistic cleavages above.

Nevertheless, given the prominence of ethnolinguistic politics in Pakistan (Rahman

Figure 3.3: Ethno-Linguistic Map of Pakistan

Source: http://pakistanatlas.blogspot.com/2011/02/ethno-linguistic-maps.html

1996), it is important to analyze whether ethnolinguistic identity was significant in explaining variation in public goods at the district level before devolution. Here, I use the

Population Census Organization’s data on mother tongue by district to compose the

Herfindahl index for ethnicity to operationalize ethno-linguistic identity.

Income is a common control used to explain discrepancy in public goods provision across polities. Unfortunately, district level data on average household income is unavailable. The methodology used in UNDP’s National Human Development Report

(NHDR) and Social Policy and Development Centre’s (SPDC) study use agriculture and manufacture output and value added to calculate the district level GDP to formulate the human development index (UNDP 2003, SDPI 2007). However, this does not take into account the service sector, including tourism, which is a significant source of income for some areas in northern Pakistan. This is evident in how low large city districts in Punjab such as Rawalpindi and Lahore are placed in the NHDR for the income index (0.133 and

0.172 respectively) when they are relatively well to do in Pakistan. Karachi, with its large manufacturing sector, scores better at 0.344 (UNDP 2003). Hence, I use both the income index provided by the NHDR Pakistan for 2003, but I also use a proxy using various measures of living standard. The one used in the following regressions is an index of percentage of households that have no toilets and the percentage of households with only one room, each weighted equally. These variables provide a “negative” income, in that they are indicators of poverty and should be negatively correlated with public goods indicators. With the toilet component, there might be potential endogeneity if it was dependent upon public sewer facilities provided by the government. However, surveys

conducted during the course of this dissertation suggest that in rural areas, of which

Pakistan is primarily composed, toilets are not necessarily accompanied by a sewer system. More often, waste is disposed of in adjacent fields.

An important caveat needs to be brought forward for the income proxy. The earliest data available for the Pakistan Social and Living Standards Measurement (PSLM) survey by the Pakistan Federal Bureau of Statistics online is for 2004-5 when the project for said surveys was initiated. The devolution plan was formulated in 2000, the local government ordinance passed in 2001, elections were completed by the end of 2001, amendments were further instituted in 2002, and the first provincial transfers for the running of district governments were disseminated first for fiscal year 2002- 2003. Given that the proxy for income relies on fixed construction, though the 2004 conduction of survey data on households is not ideal, it is close to the initiation of the function of the local government to provide a proxy for “negative” wealth. It is unlikely that within that span of little more than a year, income fluctuations would be significant enough to significantly alter the variation of home construction between districts. This time discrepancy is also only of potential concern for the dependent variables from before

2004 (mainly the human development index and its subcomponents) but not as relevant for Literacy 2004, Primary School Enrollment 2004, or Immunization 2004 as this data is also obtained from the PSLM surveys for the same year.

Other variables often referred to to explain development discrepancy are area, population density, and geography/climate. Data for area and population density is obtained from the Population Census Organization’s last census in 1998 (the results of 79

the present census have yet to be published). Rainfall data was obtained through the climate portal through the World Bank using the average annual rainfall from 1960-1990.

This data is used to provide a measure for regional climate. Lower rainfall levels would suggest more likelihood of water scarcity and a greater need for districts to divert budgets to secure this vital resource. Moreover, when residents have to expend more energy to gain water from more difficult to access sources, they have less time to invest in public goods such as education. Hence, rainfall data gives us a proxy for ease of access to water.

Mountaineous regions are not controlled for as the districts that are primarily mountaineous are for the most part in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (formerly North West

Frontier Province aka NWFP), and I already include a dummy for that province.

Provincial dummies are used to test whether there are unexplained governance issues and other factors idiosyncratic to provinces that can be used to explain public goods variation.

For my dependent variable, I use various measures for public services. For health,

I use the health index value from the human development index from the 2003 National

Human Development Report (NHDR) for Pakistan as an indicator of provision of health services. This is composed using the immunization ratio and the infant survival ratio. For education, I use multiple variables: I use the education index value component from the

HDI 2003 from 2003 NHDR Pakistan (which is composed using the literacy ratio and primary school enrollment ratio), and the 2004 literacy rate from the Pakistan Bureau of

Statistics. I also use the HDI 2003 calculated in the NHDR Pakistan 2003. This is a general proxy for human development, but as mentioned before, the income component

of the human development index calculated here is problematic as it limits income to agricultural and manufacturing output, excluding values for service.

Due to the existence of heteroskedasticity in the regression models, I use OLS regressions with robust standard errors to conduct tests on the various public goods indicators.

Table 3.1: Explaining Variation in the 2003 Human Development Index

MODEL I: Human MODEL II: Human Development Index Development Index INCOME -0.0023 (0.0007)*** -0.0023 (0.0008)*** BALOCHISTAN -0.0508 (0.0228)** NATIVE BALOCHISTAN -0.0432 (0.0250)* BRITISH -0.0544 (0.0311)* BALOCHISTAN KHYBER -0.0957 (0.0198)*** -0.0958 (0.01996)*** PAKHTUNKHWA SINDH -0.0341 (0.0190)* -0.0332 (0.0197)* ETHNOLINGUISTIC 0.0345 (.0530) 0.0383 (0.0610) FRACTIONALIZATION CITY -0.0063 (0.0208) -0.0070 (0.022) RAINFALL 0.0000 (0.0000) 0.0000 (0.0000) POPULATION DENSITY 0.0000 (0.0000) 0.0000 (0.0000) AREA 0.0000 (0.0000) 0.0000 (0.0000) CONSTANT 0.5600 (0.0502)*** 0.5576 (0.0551)*** Number of observations (n) 80 80 R-Squared 0.4495 0.4506 *significant at 10%, ** significant at 5%, ***significant at 1%

Table 3.2: Explaining the Variation in the Education Index from HDI 2003

MODEL I: MODEL II: MODEL MODEL Education Education III: IV: Index Index Education Education Index Index INCOME -0.0046 -0.0041 -0.0044 (0.0009)*** (0.0007)*** (0.0008)*** HDI-INCOME 0.1522 INDEX (0.0666)** BALOCHISTAN -0.1203 -0.1173 -0.0995 (0.0227)*** (0.0222)*** (0.0237)*** NATIVE -0.0881 BALOCHISTAN (0.0301)*** BRITISH -0.1274 BALOCHISTAN (0.0240)*** KHYBER -0.1399 -0.1342 -0.1346 -0.0885 PAKHTUNKHW (0.0283)*** (0.0252)*** (0.0280)*** (0.02990)** A * SINDH -0.0261 -0.0256 -0.0301 -0.0035 (0.0240) (0.0224) (0.0240) (0.0245) ETHNOLINGUI 0.0486 0.0126 STIC (0.0475) (0.0504) FRACTIONALIZ ATION CITY 0.0771 0.0682 0.1017 (0.0185)*** (0.0225)*** (0.0307)*** RAINFALL 0.00015 0.00015 0.00015 0.00018 (0.00005)*** (0.00004)*** (0.00005)*** (0.00004)** * POPULATION 0.000055 0.00003 0.00003 0.00005 DENSITY (0.00002)*** (0.00002) (0.00002)* (0.00002)** AREA 0.00000 0.0000 0.0000 0.0000 (0.00000) (0.0000) (0.0000) (0.0000) CONSTANT 0.4131 0.4125 0.4192 0.2075 (0.0517)*** (0.0372)*** (0.0517)*** (0.0314)*** Number of 80 89 80 89 observations (n) R-Squared 0.72 0.71 0.74 0.64 *significant at 10%, ** significant at 5%, ***significant at 1%

Table 3.3: Explaining the Variation in the Health Index from HDI 2003

MODEL I: MODEL MODEL MODEL IV: Health II: Health III: Health Health Index Index Index Index INCOME -0.0010 -0.0010 -0.0011 (0.0003)*** (0.0003)*** (0.0003)*** HDI-INCOME 0.0412 INDEX (0.0192)** BALOCHISTAN -0.0580 -0.0569 -0.5240 -0.0535 (0.0086)*** (0.0084)*** (0.0091)*** (0.0078)*** KHYBER -0.0180 -0.0177 -0.0257 -0.0049 PAKHTUNKHW (0.0077)** (0.0080)** (0.0087)*** (0.0077) A SINDH -0.0441 -0.0456 -0.0378 -0.0401 (0.0082)*** (0.0084)*** (0.0074)*** (0.0084)*** ETHNOLINGUI -0.0364 -0.0463 -0.0554 STIC (0.0163)** (0.0190)** (0.0183)*** FRACTIONALIZ ATION CITY 0.0121 -0.0003 0.0210 (0.0096) (0.0068) (0.0088)** RAINFALL 0.0000 -0.0000 0.00002 0.0000 (0.0000) (0.0000) (0.00001)** (0.0000) POPULATION 0.0000 0.0000 0.0000 0.0000 DENSITY (0.0000) (0.0000) (0.0000) (0.0000) AREA -0.0000 -0.0000 (0.0000) (0.0000) CONSTANT 0.9240 0.9311 0.9087 0.8837 (0.0160)*** (0.0190)*** (0.0139) (0.0123) Number of 80 80 89 80 observations (n) R-Squared 0.69 0.70 0.58 0.67 *significant at 10%, ** significant at 5%, ***significant at 1%

B. Explaining Public Goods Variation

I first look at the significance of ethnic fragmentation in the various models. Except when explaining the health variable, ethnic fragmentation is an insignificant indicator for public

goods. Since large cities are expected to have greater ethnic fragmentation than rural localities, I control for cities using a dummy for the nine city districts mentioned by the

National Reconstruction Bureau, the author of the devolution plan. The ethnolinguistic fractionalization index is insignificant with or without the inclusion of this dummy.

It is interesting however that ethnic fragmentation significantly affects the health variable of public services. There is the expected negative correlation between the ethnolinguistic fractionalization index and the health index. The health index is a composite index of the immunization ratio and infant mortality7. Why would ethnic fragmentation be significant for this particular variable when it has no impact whatsoever on education indicators?

Before devolution, administration of districts was a bureaucratic matter. The district commissioner who was the main authority in the district, did not necessarily originate from the district and transfers were frequent. The provincial bureaucracy made budgetary decisions for the various public service departments. Even though MPAs use their development funds for their legislative districts, their purpose is to garner recognition to ensure reelection and hence, are spent for more visible projects. How then would ethnic fragmentation affect health?

Pakistan’s health sector suffers from many problems. Basic health units are often empty with little to no doctor attendance (Cheema and Mohmand 2007), government provided medicine for the public is sold by the staff for personal profit, and one estimate

7 See Appendix: Chapter 3 for how the 2003 National Human Development Report for Pakistan creates this index as well as variable source and definitions. 84

puts fraudulent medicine sold to 40-50% (Pappas et al. 2009). This has been a recipe for lack of trust in the health system. The health index indicator looks specifically at

Table 3.4: Explaining the Variation in Literacy Levels

MODEL I: MODEL II: MODEL III: Literacy 2004 Literacy 2004 Literacy 2004 INCOME -0.5712 -0.5250 -0.6088 (0.0782)*** (0.0712)*** (0.0819)*** BALOCHISTAN -11.045 -10.9627 -11.2347 (1.9803)*** (1.9553)*** (2.0173)*** KHYBER -16.451 -15.9610 -17.2726 PAKHTUNKHWA (2.0149)*** (1.8722)*** (1.9237)*** SINDH 2.7872 2.8036 3.0601 (2.2131) (2.2393) (2.2091) ETHNOLINGUISTIC 1.5674 5.2158 FRACTIONALIZATIO (4.0496) (4.1307) N CITY 5.8144 7.0667 (2.247)** (2.3040)*** RAINFALL 0.0175 0.0174 0.01837 (0.0034)*** (0.0028)*** (0.0033)*** POPULATION 0.002 0.0015 (0.0017) 0.0037 DENSITY (0.0016) (0.0014)*** AREA -0.0001 -0.00014 -0.0001 (0.00009) (0.00008)* (0.0001) CONSTANT 57.6195 56.6750 57.4536 (4.6538)*** (3.6122)*** (4.7087)*** Number of observations 89 98 89 (n) R-Squared 0.82 0.79 0.81 *significant at 10%, ** significant at 5%, ***significant at 1%

immunization and infant mortality rates, which are dependent on health care that is more discrete rather than continuous (set number of vaccines and infant mortality is related to

basic dissemination of knowledge on hygiene and care). Trusting the health system to deliver this limited information and care affects the use of health facilities. Studies have shown that ethnically fragmented areas are less likely to be entrusting than areas populated more homogenously (Putnam 2007). In a society where mass population has little faith in the health system, attitudes of overall trust can affect their willingness to utilize the system. Moreover, attitude of staff has been cited as a reason for not utilizing government health facilities (Pappas et al. 2009). Linguistic homogeneity would reduce the likelihood of negative attitudes and improve communication, as well as increase the overall trust level in a community. Considering that vaccination drives as well as informing mothers on basic health in rural areas often come in the form of door to door service, trust and attitudes towards others can make a significant difference in utilization of government services.

Province dummies show that consistently Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, then known as North West Frontier Province (NWFP), do worse than Punjab in all measures of public goods. Sindh does less well than Punjab in health though there is no significant difference in education. This result holds despite controlling for area, population density, income, climate, and ethnic fragmentation. A major contention by provinces has been that federal funds are unfairly distributed to the province. Since there are only four provinces, statistically this claim cannot be tested using pre devolution data.

However, assuming that the Provincial Finance Commission (PFC) awards for 2003 reflect the method in which funds were dispersed to districts prior to devolution, I test to see if the dispersal of the Provincial Finance Commission Award can act as a proxy for

previous funding and development policies and explain public service provision. The

Provincial Finance Commission Award data for 2003 is used from Ahmed and Lodhi

(2008).

This PFC award variable is significant for explaining the education index, the health index, and the human development index at or close to the one percent level of significance (See Tables 3.6, 3.7 and Model I in Table 3.8). It does not, however, significantly explain 2004 immunization for one year old infants, 2004 literacy levels or the 2004 primary school enrollment level (Table 3.8 Model II and Table 3.9). This could be because the effect of the funds for 2003 would have a considerably longer lag time before they would be expected to affect either of those two variables. Hence, this seems to be better at reflecting the disparity between districts in how funds have historically been spent on public services rather than in predicting near future health and education indicators. This suggests that once funds came under the control of the district government, allocation decisions altered the historical trends of public goods provision, indicating that decentralization indeed affected the public goods provision outcomes.

Subsequent chapters will explore if this new variation is potentially explained by the ethnic composition and ethnic organizational differences between local government polities.

Interestingly, even controlling for Provincial Finance Commission Awards does not take away the significance of provincial dummies for the education index. For the health index (Table 3.8, Model I) Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is no longer significant, though for the 2004 immunization records (Table 3.8, Model II), Khyber Pakthunkhwa is still 87

significantly less developed than Punjab and PFC awards for 2003 have no significant effect. Only for the human development index does the Balochistan variable lose significance when the Provincial Finance Commission Award variable is added (Table

3.7). However, since the human development index uses an income index that is somewhat problematic, that alone does not alter the overall picture illustrating that there are governance issues in Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa for almost all indicators, and for issues in governance in Sindh for the health index that explain why they do less well than Punjab in human development and public service delivery.

Though Pakistan was under colonial rule until its independence in 1947, a large part of Balchistan was called “native Balochistan” where there was marginal British control. That is, the British made agreements with the native leaders there regarding passage, etc., but otherwise did not involve themselves with administration of those localities (Shah 1992). I disaggregate the Balochistan dummy to native and British balochistan to see if the historical discrepancy affects development indicators. Though both areas are significantly less developed than Punjab, they are not significantly different from one another, as evident from overlapping confidence intervals. Though one might expect the British held region to have more educational infrastructure and perhaps a legacy leading to more education, in fact, native Balochistan does better but insignificantly so. Hence, disparity in colonial history does not significantly distinguish the education outcomes in the two regions.

Due to the small sample size of data (the number of districts before devolution during the 1998 census numbered 100 districts without including the capital district 88

Islamabad and missing data further reduces the sample size), efficiency is a larger concern. Running multiple models for each public goods variable (Tables 3.1-3.5) allows us to check the robustness of results. For the literacy variable in Table 3.5, AREA has a borderline significance a hair under 10% significance level for models I and III in Table

3.5, but in the model with a larger sample of 98, i.e. Model II, it is significant at the 10% level. The coefficient appears robust over multiple regressions and shows a negative correlation with literacy—larger areas have lower literacy levels. It is possible that a larger sample would lend more weight to this variable. However, AREA is insignificant for all other indicators of public goods (Table 3.1-3.4) and is even insignificant for literacy levels when the Provincial Finance Awards for 2003 are added (Table 3.9, Model

I). Given that it is often cited as a major reason for low development, it is important to find that when controlling for other variables, AREA has little significant explanatory power over the tested indicators of public goods.

Testing of other controls indicates that population density is sometimes significant for explaining education indicators (Table 3.2 and Table 3.5), but not for health or the general human development index (Table 3.3 and Table 3.1). For literacy levels, the increase in significance of population density when the city variable is omitted suggests multicollinearity. The coefficient for population density is robust across multiple regressions for both the education index and literacy, but the variation suggests that a greater sample size might strengthen the significant relationship between population density and the education indicators. This positive correlation is theoretically backed as more concentrated population allows for easier delivery of public services such as

education. Health might be less responsive to population density because where demand for education is more elastic, people will be more likely to travel large distances if necessary for health needs on a occasional basis as opposed to going to schools located at a distance on a daily basis. Moreover, door to door programs, such as immunization drives or Lady Health Worker programs (Jalal 2011), to improve immunizations do not rely as much on solid infrastructure and buildings and can reach less densely populated areas with greater flexibility.

Rain has been used as a proxy in these regressions. Results indicate that rain significantly impacts the education index and the literacy ratio, but not the health index.

The correlation is positive, illustrating that areas that receive greater rain do better in education indicators. This suggests that areas where water shortage is not as much of an issue are more likely to invest in education. Health is not strongly correlated with rain because health, especially as operationalized in this health index, may also be viewed as a necessity for survival like water attainment, whereas education may be viewed as more optional and more likely to be sacrificed to focus on immediate needs. Regions with more water supply have to spend less time trying to obtain water, and hence more time to invest or partake in education.

The picture that emerges is that provincial differences explain a significant portion of public goods distribution prior to devolution, as does income. Other controls are important though area is not as significant as one might be led to think as it has been traditionally quoted as a major reason for why Balochistan is backward compared to the rest of Pakistan. However, area is only marginally important in explaining this 90

discrepancy and does not take away from the Balochistan dummy indicating that other province-specific factors are affecting the governance and policy decisions in Balochistan that are leading to lower provision of public goods and services. Keeping this in mind, it is important to conduct case studies that focus on comparing districts within provinces, rather than across them.

Secondly, though ethnic fragmentation is insignificant in most equations and does not even contain the correct sign in those equations, it is consistently significant across models that explain the health index. The political system prior to devolution was not such that district level ethnic cleavages could have too strong an effect on distribution of provincial or national resources. However, the significance of linguistic cleavages does suggest that heterogeneous societies are deleterious to human development, tying in with the many previous studies in different regions also making that connection (Kimenyi

2006, Posner et al. 2007, Easterly and Levine 1997, Akin et al. 2005, Alesina and La

Ferrara 2005). Though in itself this finding is not conclusive, it does bring weight to the importance of identity politics in public goods provision and sets the stage for the remainder of this study. In the subsequent chapters, I use survey analysis to understand when and why ethnic identity affects public goods provision.

III. CONCLUSION

With devolution, voters have a more direct route to their political candidates and identity cleavages that are not politically salient at the upper levels of government,

become more politicized. Socially, kinship groupings have been important in forming networks, marriages, and nepotism in both public and private jobs (Gazdar 2007). These groups have become more significant during Zia-ul-Haq’s local government. Once again, devolution reduces the size of the polity, politicizing the extant social identities, particularly ethnic differences within the local population. With the next chapter I look at how the interaction of devolution and politicization of local identities affected public goods provision in two districts in southern Punjab. Survey analysis conducted in villages within these districts indicate diverse areas have greater preferences for private goods over public goods as compared to homogeneous villages, as well as having lower levels of political collective action, providing insight into how ethnic fragmentation can affect public good provision.

Table 3.5: The Effect of the 2002-3 Provincial Finance Commission Award on the Education Index

MODEL I: Education MODEL II: Education Index Index HDI-INCOME INDEX 0.1126 (0.0709) INCOME -0.0042 (0.0008)*** BALOCHISTAN -0.0520 (0.0283)* -0.0719 (0.0249)*** KHYBER -0.0544 (0.0344) -0.1023 (0.0312)*** PAKHTUNKHWA SINDH -0.0088 (0.0247) -.0313 (0.0218) ETHNOLINGUISTIC -0.0490 (0.0483) -.0170 (0.0490) FRACTIONALIZATION CITY 0.0878 (0.0314)*** .0558 (0.0234)** RAINFALL 0.00018 (0.00005)*** .00015 (0.00005)*** POPULATION -0.0000 (0.0000) -0.0000 (0.0000) DENSITY AREA -0.0000 (0.0000) -0.0000 (0.0000) PFC AWARD 0.00006 (0.00002)*** .00005 (0.00001)*** CONSTANT 0.1799 (0.0389)*** .3662 (0.0503)*** Number of observations 80 80 (n) R-Squared 0.69 0.77 *significant at 10%, ** significant at 5%, ***significant at 1%

Table 3.6: The Effect of the 2002-3 Provincial Finance Commission Award on the Human Development Index

MODEL I: Human Development Index INCOME -0.0022 (0.0007)*** BALOCHISTAN -0.0188 (0.0252) KHYBER PAKHTUNKHWA -0.0747 (0.0225)*** SINDH -0.0344 (0.0174)* ETHNOLINGUISTIC 0.0157 (0.0546) FRACTIONALIZATION CITY -0.0133 (0.0215) RAINFALL 0.00006 (0.00004) POPULATION DENSITY -0.0000 (0.0000) AREA -0.0000 (0.0000) PFC AWARD 0.00003 (0.00001)*** CONSTANT 0.5235 (0.0480)*** Number of observations (n) 79 R-Squared 0.46 *significant at 10%, ** significant at 5%, ***significant at 1%

Table 3.7: Comparison of the Effect of the 2002-3 Provincial Finance Commission Award between Different Health Indicators

MODEL I: Health MODEL II: CHILD Index IMMUNIZATION RATES INCOME -0.0010 (0.0003)*** -0.1767 (0.2102) BALOCHISTAN -0.0480 (0.0089)*** -12.798 (7.3575)* KHYBER PAKHTUNKHWA -0.0114 (0.0081) -16.6968 (6.3819)** SINDH -0.0459 (0.0082)*** -7.1652 (5.9908) ETHNOLINGUISTIC -0.0521 (0.0194)*** -6.5843 (10.0460) FRACTIONALIZATION CITY 0.0097 (0.0097) -9.8629 (5.8510)* RAINFALL 0.0000 (0.0000) 0.0278 (0.0087)*** POPULATION DENSITY -0.0000 (0.0000) 0.0049 (0.0051) AREA -0.0000 (0.0000) 0.0002 (0.0002) PFC AWARD 0.00001 (0.000)** .0043 (0.0042) CONSTANT 0.9208 (0.0181)*** 41.7201 (12.5689)*** Number of observations (n) 80 89 R-Squared 0.71 0.48 *significant at 10%, ** significant at 5%, ***significant at 1%

Table 3.8: Comparison of the Effect of the 2002-3 Provincial Finance Commission Award between Different Education Indicators

MODEL I: Literacy Model II: Primary School 2004 Enrollment 2004 INCOME -0.5478 (0.0788)*** -0.2494 (0.1061)** BALOCHISTAN -9.7930 (2.6340)*** -11.4800 (3.3381)*** KHYBER -15.0577 (2.239)*** -19.3866 (3.0385)*** PAKHTUNKHWA SINDH 2.1903 (2.2189) -2.8402 (2.7030) ETHNOLINGUISTIC 1.7040 (4.2631) -1.4363 (5.6117) FRACTIONALIZATION CITY 4.4262 (2.5712)* -1.9597 (3.1756) RAINFALL 0.0171 (0.0036)*** 0.0260 (0.0049)*** POPULATION 0.0003 (0.0014) 0.0006 (0.0024) DENSITY AREA -0.0002 (0.00008) -0.0000 (0.0001) PFC AWARD 0.0023 (0.0014) 0.0021 (0.0021) CONSTANT 55.3701 (5.0928)*** 48.8863 (6.5968)*** Number of observations 89 89 (n) R-Squared 0.80 0.48 *significant at 10%, ** significant at 5%, ***significant at 1%

Chapter 4 : Ethnic Politics and Public Goods

“…The kinship group, known variously as ‘zaat’, ‘biraderi’ and ‘quom’ in different parts of the country, remains a key—perhaps the key—dimension of economic, social and political interaction” (Gazdar 2007, 87)

Ethnically fragmented societies have been associated with greater corruption, pernicious public policies, and overall under provision of public goods (Mauro 1995,

Easterly and Levine 1997, Kimenyi 2006, Kimenyi and Gugerty 2005, Posner et al.

2007). Alesina, Baqir and Easterly (1997) found that as ethnic diversity increased, public goods such as schools, libraries, trash pickup, and roads, received less funding in their sample of US cities. Commonly prescribed to theories to explain this correlation include

(1) better social networks amongst co ethnics to facilitate sanctioning of non-compliance and improving collective action in public goods provision (Kimenyi and Gugerty 2005), and (2) preference based arguments that stipulate that preferences for goods differ between different ethnic groups or that different ethnic groups experience negative utility from sharing communal goods (Posner et al. 2007, Alesina, Baqir, and Easterly 1999,

Alesina and La Ferrara 2000, Alesina and La Ferrara 2005).

While testing preference based theories Posner et al. (2007) find in their experiments that subjects only showed preference for co ethnics over cross ethnics when they were afraid of being sanctioned by their group. Otherwise, they seemed to have no

inherent preference for sharing with their own ethnicity over another. This leaves open the question of why the group would sanction sharing with cross ethnics when the individual (of which groups are composed after all) apparently does not.

Here, I propose that unlike in an experiment, in the real world, individuals face active competition over scarce resources. Posner et al. (2007)’s experiment indicates that inherent antipathy is not a significant source of preferring one’s own ethnicity. This lends credence to a more instrumental rationale for preferring resources targeted toward one’s own identity group. If individuals believe that the other group will consume resources and lock them out, they are more likely to indulge in ethnic voting. Ethnic boundaries, being descent based, are relatively nonporous, and hence, conversion to the party, ideology, or class cannot function as a means to share in the benefits from those in power.

It is hence not inherent negative utility, but competition over scarce resources that leads to preferential treatment of co ethnics and targeting resources to within community.

One way to test whether competition of resources is what encourages different identity groups to mobilize and display preferential in-group behavior is to study the effect of political competition on ethnic identity. In this chapter, I test whether areas of ethnic diversity show potential for lower provision of public goods in comparison to areas that are more homogeneous after political competition in introduced to a hitherto bureaucratically run level of government. To understand the causal mechanism, I parse the analysis into two stages. One, given that I am proposing that in ethnically heterogeneous societies individuals prefer targeting goods to their own identity group when faced with the possibility of being locked out from using scarce resource, I would 98

expect that with the advent of political competition over resources, previously latent ethnic identity will be politicized. This proposition is supported by Posner (2005) where he finds that the politicized ethnic identity realigned itself to form a minimum winning coalition from linguistic to tribal lines in Zambia according to whether the system was a multi-party or a one party system; it is also supported by Posner et al. (2010) where the authors find that in Africa, ethnic identity became more politically salient closer to elections, and by Dunning (2010) where the reservation of the president seat at a council for a caste category increased the political salience of the sub-caste cleavages within that caste. In this chapter I will test whether the political competition introduced by Pakistan’s

Local Government Ordinance 2001 increased the political salience of local identities based on local perception. Secondly, I test whether public goods provision in this new political environment increased more in conditions of ethnic homogeneity than ethnic heterogeneity.

If political competition galvanizes the politicization of previously latent identities, then we can argue that directly fighting over scarce resources is what solidifies ethnic loyalties, and this “negative utility” in sharing with other groups is less about inherent antipathy to another group (for previous to the politicization of local government, local identities were more moderate), but rather the fear that once another group takes power, they will be locked out. Ethnic identities being descent based by definition, are nonporous by nature, and hence, more rigid and exclusive than other ideology based political demarcations. On the other hand, ethnically homogeneous localities will not be so affected by the new political competition. Uniformity in ethnicity

reduces its ability to be politicized and voters will be unthreatened by being locked out for their identity. Hence, they can focus more on their needs and how the government can address them.

The 2001 Local Government Ordinance empowered the local government composed of the district, tehsil/taluk (municipal in cities), and union council, from higher to lower tier. Direct elections were held at the union council level, which encompassed a group of villages. The union council nazims (mayors) formed the majority of the district council, which then elected the district nazim (mayor). The union council naib nazims

(deputy mayors), formed the majority of the tehsil council and elected the tehsil nazim.

The only direct elections were at the union council level and these were competitive (in that there were multiple contestants as well as a healthy voter turnout) in Punjab during local government elections in 2001 and in 2005 (Hasnain 2008b). The union council nazims could identify development schemes and upon receiving the approved funds from the district, execute them. Though the decentralization had its limitations, it empowered the lower tier enough that it encouraged voters to come out in numbers that sometimes exceeded any before in general elections (that is, elections for parliament seats at the national or provincial levels) and sometimes even turned violent as contestants fought over the coveted nazim seats (Mahmood 2007). Cheema and Mohmand (2008) find in their case study of villages in Punjab that post devolution, the disparity in pipelines between the nazim’s constituents and the opposition was greater than before, indicating the increase in politicization of the lowest tier of government. Not only did the union council nazim seat come with power in distribution of infrastructure, it was also used by

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voters to gain access to government positions (Cheema and Mohmand 2008). In Punjab, at least, the 2001 Local Government Ordinance increased political competition at local levels of the government.

This increase in political competition can have different effects in areas that are ethnically diverse and ethnically homogeneous. After establishing the effect of political competition on ethnically diverse regions, one must address how that increased political salience translates to lower public goods provision. I look at the two main causal mechanisms identified by literature: (1) ethnic voters prefer private goods over public goods and (2) voters in diverse environments have weaker collective action required to keep the government accountable.

As discussed in earlier chapters, before devolution, linguistic identity was the key political identity which found voice in some provincial parties. In chapter 3 we found that the linguistic index we made using 1998 mother tongue figures for each district was not significant in explaining variation in most of the measurements of public goods. Table

4.1 provides a look at the change in HDI using Social Policy and Development Centre’s figures, as well as change in net primary school enrollment. Here again, the linguistic index referred to as the ethno-linguistic index is insignificant in explaining the disparity in public goods provision.

Kinship group data is unavailable by district. In fact, the last thorough catalogue of caste groups in Punjab was done under the British raj in 1931 and is still referred to for an idea of group composition (Gazdar 2012). Hence, to gather an understanding of how

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and if this identity became significant, I conduct surveys where individuals are asked questions regarding identity as well as demographic information, access to public goods, and preferences for goods and political candidates.

From the four provinces in Pakistan, devolution worked best in Punjab where local governments had the most fiscal space to use discretion for local government projects (Hasnain 2008b). For my analysis, I study two villages in each of two districts

Table 4.1: Change in Public Goods Provision Post-Devolution Model II: Change in Model I: Change Primary School in HDI (1998- Enrollment 2005) (2004-2010) Balochistan -1.27** (0.37) 3.33 (5.20) Khyber Pakhtunkhwa 1.53** (0.70) 4.33 (2.81) Sindh -0.24 (0.51) -1.75 (3.38) Income (2004) -0.02 (0.02) -0.04 (0.17) Rain -0.002** (0.000) -0.011** (0.005) City -0.70 (0.44) 2.60 (3.74) Ethnolinguistic Index -1.02 (0.81) -0.78 (8.2) Area (1998) 0.000 (0.000) 0.000 (0.000 Population Density (1998) 0.000 (0.000) -0.002 (0.002) Constant 4.59 (0.93) 11.80 (8.44) Number of Observations 89 90 R-squared 0.25 0.12 **significant at 5% level

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from southern Punjab: homogeneous villages in Dera Ghazi Khan and heterogeneous

villages in Muzaffargarh. At the district level, it becomes difficult to find ethnic

homogeneity in almost any district in Punjab. However, since direct elections in the local

government are held at the union council level, here we can find homogeneity. Though

this allows us a clean design in assessing the vote incentive for residents in homogeneous

union councils versus heterogeneous union councils, it is more problematic to assess the

incentives of district nazims as their electoral college of union council nazims is likely

diverse in both districts at the district level. Hence, any conclusions for the second part

when comparing districts must be made with caution. Are union council nazims from

more homogeneous union councils less likely to be ethnically conscious politically at the

district level than their counterparts in diverse union councils? The next chapter will

compare politics in Dera Ghazi Khan and Muzaffargarh at the district level to address this

question.

I. CASE DISTRICT BACKGROUND

A. Dera Ghazi Khan

Dera Ghazi Khan (D.G. Khan) is inhabited mostly by descendents of Baloch

tribes that are concentrated within the Suleman hills in the west and fanning outward,

with other biraderis settled alongside the shore of the Indus river in the east. Baloch

tribes migrated from Balochistan during the 16th century. Most initially settled in the

Suleman hills but then migrated to the plains and fanned outward (Population Census

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Bureau 1998). During British rule, the tribal chiefs, called Tumandars, were supported in their dictatorial powers over the tribe to facilitate British control. Tumandars would lead the jirgas, which are judicial assemblies, and have ultimate authority to rule on cases and disputes brought forward. In 1950, a few years after Pakistan’s partition from India and independence, this Tumandar system was abolished and political tehsildars (mayors at the tehsil level of government, which is a composite of a group of union councils) and naib (deputy) tehsildars replaced them in adjudicating disputes in jirgas. De facto the situation did not change very much in terms of empowering the common people until

1958, when the Basic Democracies local government system held the first local level elections and allowed some power to the mass (Population Census Bureau 1998).

However, the lack of options and independence meant that people often ended up voting for their Tumandars (AwazCDS 2005).

The heavily concentrated tribal area around the Suleman hills is geographically a part of Dera Ghazi Khan but is designated as a De Excluded Area and is essentially considered to be a Provincially Administered Tribal Area (PATA), following the legacy of the British Governor General who designated it as a tribal area in 1880 (AwazCDS

2005). Essentially, this means limited control of the central government in this area and more autonomy as compared to the provinces. Funding for this area is directly dispersed to this PATA area from the provincial government and is not controlled by the Dera

Ghazi Khan district. Of the 11922 square km that make up D.G. Khan, 5339 square kilometers are part of the de excluded area. Whereas the tribes that disseminated into the rest of the district came in contact with modernization and urbanization and their tribal

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structures and hierarchies are mainly defunct, the special designation of this de excluded area allows for the continuation of oppressive tribal politics. It is an area where researchers have to venture with care. One group of female sociologists I interviewed described how voting occurred in the locality they visited—essentially, representatives would come and take thumb prints of the villagers and fill out the preferred candidates themselves8. The picture painted is one of a politically disempowered group. Because this area has a separate designation from Dera Ghazi Khan and does not come under the administration of the district, I exclude this from this study.

Historically, when the British colonists provided Tumandars in the now PATA area of D.G. Khan with funds for building schools, not wanting to empower their own tribesmen, they would channel the funds for schools to the rest of Dera Ghazi Khan. The relative education of the D.G. Khan area compared to the tribal area is much higher.

Likely this education also helped marginalize the tribal hierarchies that may have existed during the initial migration of the Baloch tribes. Nevertheless, I only mention the De

Excluded Area to explain its absence when assessing the D.G. Khan case, due to its separate administrative and financial sphere. The district government of D.G. Khan did not have direct control over this area. This joint history of the De Excluded Area along with the rest of D.G. Khan is important because it helps explain why except for cities and the diverse areas near the banks of the Indus river at the east border, villages in Dera

Ghazi Khan tend to be more homogenous in ethnic identity. Defunct though much of the hierarchical structures of the tribal system may be, the tribal legacy originating in the

8 Focus group with graduate students in sociology, Dera Ghazi Khan, 10/23/2008. 105

PATA areas of the Suleman hills helps explain this homogeneity as sub-tribal clans that migrated away from the hills would establish territory and settle down with their clan members in villages.

Though inhabitants of D.G. Khan district (not the PATA) may theoretically have a tribal chief, there is limited power that the tumandar holds on the tribesmen outside of

PATA. In fact, when comparing D.G. Khan and Muzaffargarh rural areas, even though the latter has a biraderi system rather than remnants of a tribal system, the discrepancy in male and female education is greater in Muzaffargarh (Population Census Organization

1998). This is more striking when one considers how oppressed women in PATA are, where honor killings still occur, women are sold or killed in response to archaic justice systems, have no power and unsurprisingly, little education (AwazCDS 2005). In fact,

AwazCDS’s 2005 study there did not find a single woman who passed 10 grades.

However, this influence is constrained to this large region that has been designated as a tribal area since 1880 and the rest of D.G. Khan, though tracing roots to many of these same tribes, does not necessarily trace power from there9. Hence, the villages here are homogeneous without strong tribal hierarchy within the regions studied and hence, homogeneity is the main variable that differentiates the cases from D.G. Khan and

Muzaffargarh. However, since the Jirga system is still pursued in this region, I use the

9 Even though the tribal leaders have a lot of power in D.G. Khan PATA, the system still differs from many Balochistan tribes. In the latter, there is still a stronger sense of honor and responsibility on the part of a tribal chief toward his tribesmen. Here, the system has degenerated so that it is power and coercion maintaining the hierarchy rather than the true loyalty of the populace. (Interview of journalist from D.G. Khan, 10/24/2008) 106

surveys to ensure that the position a tribal leader has on a Jirga did not dictate how individuals cast their vote.

Though Balochi language is spoken only by a minority in D.G. Khan while

Saraiki is the most commonly spoken language, the residents are for the most part ethnically Baloch (D.G. Khan District Report 1998). The main tribal identities in tehsil

Taunsa are Mutkani, Buzdar, and Qaisrani. In tehsil D.G. Khan the main tribes are Sori

Lunk, Khosa and Leghari. In northwest Taunsa where a piece of D.G. Khan used to be a part of Dera Ismail Khan, a district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (a mostly Pathan province),

Khitran and Pathan reside. Near the Indus in the east there are scattering of minority migrants that are Syed, Pathan, Mughal, Jat, Arain, Rajput, etc. (D.G. Khan District

Report 1998).

B. Muzaffargarh

Muzaffargarh on the other hand, is a conglomeration of people from different biraderis and those that trace their antecedents to Baloch tribes (sans the traditional tribal structure). Here, the biraderi system dominates more and since that is linked historically more to occupation than any hierarchical power structure, villages are heterogeneous in their composition. The common identity groups are Khar, Gurmanies, Qureshi, Jatoi,

Dasti, Qalandrani, Hingra, Langrials, Sheikh, Tarragar, Pirhar, Gopang, Bukhari, Gillani,

Rajput, Jat, Arain, etc.

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Though the biraderi system is not definitely linked with any leadership position inherent in its structure, it still has political implications in how it affects voting behavior.

Biraderis in Punjab have been tied strongly to voting blocks (Cheema and Mohmand

2008). It is important to understand more about biraderi to track its effect on politics.

i. Biraderi

Alavi (1972) describes the biraderi (literally ‘brotherhood’) system of Punjab as one that is unranked within, where individuals have equal, horizontal relationships between one another. Male members of this kinship group have common antecedents— essentially, they trace membership through patrilineal ancestors. The biraderi system strongly encourages marriage within the group. Cousin marriage is very common, but even when not the case, marriage is usually within the same biraderi. However, as the biraderi of a family is determined by the father’s kinship group, it is easier for men to marry outside the biraderi than for a woman. Marrying a woman outside the biraderi is considered an act that lowers the status of the family and looked down upon.

Traditionally, biraderi panchayats have been used to uphold customary law. A panchayat, though literally meaning gathering of five, can include multiple village elders who will mitigate and adjudicate disputes and pass judgment based on customary law.

This included passage of property to male descendents. With the Shariat Act of 1948,

Islamic law on property came into conflict with customary law as it required females their share in property as well. Where biraderi systems are stronger and panchayats hold more sway over members, customary law is often still upheld over the constitution. In

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cases where the two come in conflict, either brothers will have their sisters sign property to them before marriage, or at times even violence is used to ensure that property stays with the male members of the family (Alavi 1972). As rule of law has spread across

Pakistan, areas with systematic panchayats holding customary law have become less common and exist in more remote, rural area. Unlike in India where the panchayat system has been brought under the country’s rule of law system and been formalized so that elected members are responsible for adjudication, in Pakistan this system remains informal and rulings can violate the Constitution (though usually the police in those areas might not step in to uphold law and order).

Though Alavi (1972)’s description of biraderi highlights the equality amongst members, Gazdar and Mallah (2012) highlight the extant hierarchy between biraderis.

Speaking of this hierarchy is considered stigmatic as with the ascendency of modernization as well as Islamic principles, there is a tendency to downplay the role of zaat (caste) in political discourse even though it plays a strong role in daily life such as in marriage alliances and nepotism in government jobs (Gazdar 2007). There is historically a connection between biraderi/caste and class/occupation. Hence, the agricultural castes are somewhat higher in occupational status, followed by more backward agricultural castes, then the artisans (potter, barber, carpenter, etc.), followed by menials (such as the sweepers), and then others (Gazdar and Mallah 2012). Though there is no clear delineation of caste and hierarchy that is recorded, the hierarchy exists and is perpetuated by daily life, particularly in rural areas. Urbanization and modernization has been chipping away at the system, but rural areas adhere more strongly to those demarcations.

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Politically, the biraderi system plays an important role in the way patron client relationships are formed and the method in which voting blocks (called dharay in Punjab) manifest (Cheema and Mohmand 2008). Cheema and Mohmand (2008) found an interesting phenomenon in their sample of villages during the union council elections regarding distribution of public service delivery in Punjab post devolution. They made two interesting discoveries: one, that the nazim provided services mainly to his own village even though the selected cases had the nazim winning the union council through a narrow margin and two, that counter intuitively, he helped opposition dominant voting blocks from the non-nazim village after election more than those in the non-nazim village that voted for him. An understanding of the biraderi system and the social networks existing in rural Punjab is necessary to understand the rationale behind this occurrence.

Dharay can be composed of multiple biraderis, though if one biraderi is a part of a dhara, every member of that biraderi will vote with the dhara. Each dhara will usually have a dominant biraderi within it, from which a village influential will make the decision regarding who to vote. This system facilitates the formation of patron client relationships with prospective political candidates as rather than appealing to the mass, they can try to gain favor with the village influential. The village influential is someone of social, economic, and political power in the village. Villagers in the Cheema and

Mohmand (2008) study emphasized the role the influential poses in dispute settlement, as well as his ability to use his contacts to do favors and give recommendations on behalf of the villagers. (This is not necessarily the same as a panchayat, which is a more formal gathering of village influential where individuals will bring forth disputes and they will

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be mitigated by the elders who pass the ruling according to customary law. Here, the respect of the village influential plays a large role in compliance with his mitigation and advice.) The influential is usually from the dominant biraderi as considering a loose equivalence of class and biraderi, those of the dominant biraderi in a village are more likely to have the means to obtain the economic and political power necessary to establish a position of influence in the village. Importantly, this relationship is one that perseveres longer than a single voting cycle. Hence, such dharay that contain a dominant biraderi tend to be a stable vote bank, as the position of the village influential ensures solidarity amongst the dhara. Dharay are also village specific, no doubt due to the facility of congregation due to the spatial proximity. Hence, it behooves the political candidate, in this case the nazim, to focus his patronage post election on this group.

Cheema and Mohmand (2008) found that the nazim voters in the other village were not from a dominant biraderi. The dominant biraderi there formed a part of the opposition. Instead, it was the more minor biraderis that voted for the nazim. Yet, they received fewer benefits from the union council administration than the opposition. The reason behind this again goes back to dhara politics. The nazim wants to form alliances with stable dharay. The smaller dharas that voted for him from the non-nazim village were factionalized and likely to fracture and reformulate according to changing loyalties and rivalries within. They voted for the nazim because their votes were bought and hence, it was a short term exchange. The opposition biraderi, though they didn’t vote for the nazim, represent a potential future stable vote bank because they contain a dominant biraderi and a village influential that symbolizes a stable dhara. Hence, a year after

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election, the naib nazim (deputy mayor) reached out to them to gain a better relationship.

Politics here is thus about forming stable patron client relationships with the influential from dominant biraderis, promising them goods in exchange for their favor and ultimately, leading to a focus on targeted goods as opposed to goods distribution optimized for the entire community. The nazim most favors his own biraderi and dhara, and then other dominant biraderis; the weak, lower caste biraderis that are not a part of the dominant biraderi’s coalition dhara are shortchanged because they are less organized and that is less conducive for long-term patron client relationships.

The assessment of dharay by Cheema and Mohmand (2008) are supported by my own interview of a village influential in a union council in the outskirts of Lahore in

October 2008. Representatives of multiple biraderis came to him before the 2005 union council elections to ask him to run in opposition of the Kakars (the opposition biraderi that had been the power behind the union council nazim seat in the previous elections and had allegedly done little for those outside their neighborhood). This village influential was also from a dominant biraderi in the village and often mitigated disputes and had a lot of political power that allowed him to facilitate favors for villagers. Though he claimed he did not have the know-how to run himself, he suggested to the dhara that formed in opposition of the Kakar that instead, he would select a candidate who he felt would be effective. Then he selected a candidate based not only in his credentials, but also because he was a Syed, a zaat (clan) that was a minority in the village and hence would not initiate rivalry amongst the more prominent biraderis in the dhara. The candidate in turn was honored by this nomination and told the village influential that he

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would have the ultimate veto on the policies he would put in place, as might be expected in patron client relationships10. This case corroborates the results of Cheema and

Mohmand (2008)’s study in the importance of the village influential in the dhara and his relationship to the political candidate. Unsurprisingly, after the Syed candidate won the election, pipelines and roads in the village of the village influential were prioritized.

It is to be noted that dharay existed before devolution and therefore, local identities gained political traction through that manner. However, ethnicity functioned more as a dimension for coalition building and due to the political distance between a

MPA (minister of provincial assembly) and a village was such that resources distribution was not targeted enough to engender significant resource competition between ethnicities in the village. Cheema and Mohmand (2008) clearly identify that in their analysis of pipeline infrastructure, the aftermath of devolution saw more targeted distribution favoring the nazim’s village and his support base than before devolution, a trend that is supported by my interview with a village influential in which roads were fixed first. This suggests that though dhara politics existed before, the competition over union council resources was a phenomenon resulting from devolution. This exacerbated competition between dominant biraderis. In fact, the village influential interviewed regarding dhara politics promised to set up an interview with his nazim, but the nazim was killed days after the interview in what was widely believed to be a murder orchestrated by the opposition dominant biraderi. The cleavages existed before and voting blocks even politicized them to some degree, but the politicization of the lower tier of government

10 Interview of village influential in Lahore district, 10/10/2008. 113

suddenly pitted ethnicities in direct competition over resources and hence, made these cleavages much more politically salient.

II. CASE STUDY COMPARISION

A. Comparing Districts

The two districts that are chosen lie within the same region of southern Punjab, bordering one another. They are part of what is considered the Saraiki speaking part of

Punjab, though there is some linguistic variation. Linguistic variation in D.G. Khan is greater due to the tribal region within where Balochi is still a primary language.

However, in the rest of D.G. Khan, even those that speak Balochi often speak Saraiki as well as their main language of communication. Table 4.2 provides a snapshot of variables used to compare Dera Ghazi Khan and Muzaffargarh. The figures in parentheses for D.G.

Khan provide figures for the relevant local government district, minus the de excluded tribal areas.

Though Muzaffargarh is larger and more populated than the comparative D.G.

Khan (here on assuming D.G. Khan local government district without PATA, unless specified otherwise), they are comparatively very similar. The human development index from the NHDR Pakistan 2003 further shows that the general development was at par in terms of health, education and income. We see geographical similarities in terms of rain.

Though not mentioned in Table 4.2, the Indus River separates the two. The ethnic linguistic fractionalization index shows a higher number for D.G. Khan likely due to the

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larger Baloch population in an area that is mainly Saraiki speaking. However, it is fairly low in both areas, approximately a thirty percent chance that any two randomly chosen people have a different mother tongue. Even this variation is overstated as even those that are categorized as Balochi for their mother tongue, speak Saraiki as their major language. In fact, one fact that emerged from the surveys was the self-identification of individuals as Baloch as part of ethnic identity but Saraiki as linguistic identity.

Regardless, historically, language has not been a line of major contention in this region, and currently there is wide consensus for this region to become a part of a new Saraiki province carved out of the current Punjab.

Though the districts are similar in general measures of human development, there is some disparity between the particular villages that were chosen. Given the limits of access and funding, the villages were chosen by AwazCDS11 to ensure variation on ethnic heterogeneity and homogeneity without ensuring controls on income. The two villages were selected from a union council in Dera Ghazi Khan and in Muzaffargarh. 75 surveys were conducted in D.G. Khan in the villages Qalati and Jhok Rohail in the tehsil Taunsa and union ouncil Sokar. The villages in Muzaffargarh were Nehal Wala and Aduwala in the tehsil Alipur and union council Fateh Pur where 71 surveys were completed. Given

D.G. Khan’s history, the villages are homogeneous, though union councils are not

11 AwazCDS is an NGO headquartered in Multan, Pakistan that has conducted developmental studies for the southern Punjab region and also conducted the surveys for southern Punjab for this dissertation. 115

Table 4.2: District Case Comparison

Dera Ghazi Khan Muzaffargarh Area (sq km) 11922 (6593) 8249 1643118 2635903 Population (1998) (1516920) Growth Rate 3.31 3.38 Population Density 137.8 (230) 319.5 Ethno-lingluistic 0.334 0.249 Index PFC 2003 (million 1203.4 1456.76 RS) Rain (mm) 220 220 Human 0.471 0.459 Development Index Health Index 0.863 0.863 Education Index 0.281 0.269 Income Index 0.268 0.246 Source: Population Census Organization 1998; UNDP 2003 for the Human Development Index and its components; The World Bank for the rainfall data; Ahmed and Lodhi (2008) for the Provincial Finance Commission (PFC) Award 2003 data

Table 4.3: Mother Tongue Dera Ghazi Khan Muzaffargarh Urdu 52993 129862 Punjabi 21138 195526 Sindhi 1454 2139 Pushto 11310 24218 Balochi 235445 3473 Saraiki 1318628 2271420 Others 2150 9265 Source: Population Census Organization 1998

completely homogenous as they encompass a cluster of villages. Muzaffargarh on the other hand, is heterogeneous at every level, including the village. Since the districts were

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selected on ethnic diversity at the village level (it is difficult, if not impossible, to find a case in Punjab that is homogeneous at a higher tier of organization), it is important to discuss the complexity of finding ethnic homogeneity.

There are different layers of identity where there are clans and subclans. In the case villages from D.G. Khan for instance, both villages are ethnic Baloch and consider themselves part of the same overarching tribe. Since they speak Saraiki linguistically, though they might know Balochi, Baloch is their ethnic identity as their ancestors originated from there. Then they have tribal and subtribal identities. With subtribal identities, the two villages differ, though they are from the same tribe. However, at the village level, as far as self-identification goes for the different levels, there is perfect homogeneity, though the union council itself may have differences in sub levels of identity. Again, this level of homogeneity is possible due to how tribes functioned as a cohesive functional unit and hence historical establishments were fairly homogeneous.

In the case of Muzaffargarh, you have both ethnic Baloch as well as individuals from different baraderis (clan, caste, etc.). They all linguistically speak Saraiki, but differ in ethnic groups. Here, even at the individual village level you have diversity. And unlike in the case villages in D.G. Khan, where the union council is homogeneous with ethnic Baloch, here there is no such similarity. The individuals here trace their antecedents to different regions of the country. Farther from Balochistan and the tribal areas in D.G. Khan, the ethnic Baloch here have even less resemblance to their initial tribal structure and do not even identify a tribal sardar the way Baloch in D.G. Khan do.

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B. Survey Design

To compare the effect of ethnicity on public good preferences and outcomes, I set out to compare an ethnically diverse union council with a more homogeneous union council. Since union councils are the only tier in the local government to have directly held elections, this was the logical polity to study for assessing the effect of ethnic voting on public service delivery. Using surveys allowed a direct means to garner information on voter behavior and to get to the root of differences in preferences and behavior of voters in diverse polities as compared to voters in more uniform polities.

Seventy five households are surveyed in two tribally homogeneous villages in a the Sokar union council in Dera Ghazi Khan and compared to seventy one households in two ethnically diverse villages in the Fateh Pur Janubi union council in Muzaffargarh. The surveys collect demographic data as well as data measuring levels of health, education and infrastructure. Voting and politicization are measured through various questions measuring access of information, whether the vote was cast and the motivation for the vote, as well as questions assessing perception of the effect of the political candidate’s ethnicity on the individual’s wellbeing, relationship of the nazim with the elite, etc., as well as questions on preferences for goods and the effect of devolution.12

The surveys were set to occur in October 2010, which happened to fall right after the major floods that washed through Pakistan, particularly in southern Punjab. This limited the regions available for study, particularly in Muzaffargarh. Though the villages

12 See Appendix for the complete survey. 118

chosen for study in both D.G. Khan and Muzaffargarh were at a similar proximity from an urban area and had the same average household size, the villages in D.G. Khan were much more impoverished. The income figures are not available for these areas, but the

1998 Census of select villages indicates that Nehal Walah (Muzaffargarh) had better access to electricity, water and certain heating fuels than Jhok Rohail (D.G. Khan) as well as significantly more brick homes (as opposed to mud homes) (Population Census

Organization, Basic Population and Housing Data by Union Councils 1998). The overall picture portrayed is one that indicates the Muzaffargarh villages to be more developed.

This has also been supported by the demographic questions asked in the surveys conducted in 2010. Muzaffargarh villages appear to be more developed, both because of better access to facilities mentioned in Table 4.4, as well as more diversity in occupation.

80% of D.G. Khan sample villagers’ occupations are mainly farming and labor, sometimes both combined, whereas 61% of occupations in Muzaffargarh fall into that category (68% if including mason work). The case villages in Muzaffargarh also had more shopkeepers and industry workers.

Muzaffargarh district gets a larger share of funds from the Punjab Provincial

Finance Commission than D.G. Khan due to its higher population (see Table 4.2 for specifics). The tehsils where the cases were studied, however, are provided a similar level of funding from the provincial governments (Taunsa D.G. Khan share is 0.41% whereas

Alipur, Muzaffargarh has a share of 0.44% of total Tehsil Municipal Allocation funds from the province). The Fateh Pur Janubi Union Council where the surveys were conducted in Muzaffargarh had a larger monthly budget of 80000 Rs/month in 2010,

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whereas the monthly budget for Sokar Union Council in D.G. Khan was 60000

Rs/month. The Union Council secretary of Sokar shared the breakdown of the total with development budget being 22000 Rs, and the rest as salary expenditure. The Union

Council secretary for Fateh Pur Janubi did not share the breakdown13.

Table 4.4: Wealth Indicators for Case Villages within Districts

Case Villages in Case Villages in

D.G.. Khan Muzaffargarh Percentage of Homes 1.43% 94.20% with Electricity Percentage of Homes with Tap Water or 47.30% 91% Handpump Percentage of Homes 2.70% 42.86% with Toilets Percentage of Brick 9.46% 51.43% Homes Source: Population Census Organization 1998, Basic Population and Housing Data by Union Councils

Considering that my theory suggests that ethnic fragmentation leads to fewer public services, this income disparity is unlikely to provide a false positive for my hypotheses. Therefore, this is a conservative test for my hypothesis that, if anything, will be biased against finding a significant result. However, since I map out my analysis in multiple steps in the causal mechanism, we can at least assess how ethnic disparity

13 AWAZCDS tried to obtain budget details but they were deterred. According to the NGO, local officials are concerned about accountability of funds and despite legal obligations to share, without influential clout behind them, they are unwilling to do so. Even the WB/DfID/ABD study found that gathering district budget data from their six cases was a long and arduous process and data was given reluctantly (World Bank et al. 2005). 120

affects attitudes and preferences in the difference cases even if income disparity makes it difficult to compare public goods outcomes themselves.

C. Public Goods Comparison

i. Health

Households were asked where they went for consultation for each member of the household when s/he fell sick. 90% of 72 Muzaffargarh residents went to medical facilities—i.e. either to a private doctor, private hospital in the city or a public hospital. In

D.G. Khan, only 69% of the 101 individuals who were recently ill went to a hospital, doctor or dispensary. Though only 4% of Muzaffargarh residents went to hakeems

(practitioners without formal medical training) or faith healers (called pirs), almost 20% of residents in D.G. Khan went to them for consultation, suggesting a larger informal practices in the D.G. Khan villages.

However, this discrepancy of medical facility usage is reduced when looking at women in labor. Almost 69% of 96 births occurred at home in D.G. Khan, whereas 73% of 79 births occurred at home in Muzaffargarh. Almost 24% of births in the Muzaffargarh villages occurred in a private or public hospital or clinic, whereas only 15% occurred in such places in the D.G. Khan villages. All women in the surveyed households in

Muzaffargarh who gave birth had postnatal care, primarily from a home trained birth assistant (68%). 30% went to a private or public medical clinic or practitioner. In the

D.G. Khan villages, 48% had home trained birth assistants (TBAs), 35% went to a private

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or public doctor/clinic, and 17% had no consultation. In the sample of 71 households in

Muzaffargarh and 75 households in D.G. Khan, almost 20% of Muzaffargarh households had at least one case of child mortality, and 12% had experienced child mortality in D.G.

Khan.

Altogether, there is no strong disparity in health between the two for the given indicators. Muzaffargarh does seem to use medical facilities a little more but the disparity is not stark, especially when looking at the figures for women going into labor and child mortality. Child mortality however, does seem to be higher in Muzaffargarh for the small sample cases.

Table 4.5: Comparing Health Consultations

Dera Ghazi Khan Muzaffargarh CONSULTATION WHEN ILL (%) No Access to Medical Facility 4.95 Pharmacies 5.94 5.56 Private Doctor/Hospital 43.56 47.22 Public Dispensary/Hospital 25.74 43.06 Hakeem/Faith Healer 19.8 4.17

Number of Observations 101 72

POSTNATAL CONSULTATION (%) No Consultation 17 Private Doctor/Private Clinic 29 12.5 Government Hospital/Clinic 6 17.5 Home Trained Birth Assistant 48 68.75 Other 1.25

Number of Observations 100 80 122

If we focus only on publicly provided medical facilities (public dispensaries and/or public hospitals), the disparity is larger—25% of the D. G. Khan residents who fell ill used public health units while 43% of Muzaffargarh residents used them. Even when looking at postnatal care numbers between the D.G. Khan and Muzaffargarh numbers, though a greater percentage of women used medical facilities for postnatal care in D.G. Khan villages, few of those medical facilities (only 17%) were government sponsored. For Muzaffargarh however, 58% of the medical facilities used for postnatal care were public health units. This suggests that public health units in Muzaffargarh are more accessible. Given that 44% of the D.G. Khan households placed the nearest government health facility to be over 20 km away as compared to only 14% in

Muzaffargarh who placed the health facilities to be that far, it is likely that accessibility explains much of this discrepancy in numbers. Given the higher population density in

Muzaffargarh, physical health units would more likely be at a closer proximity to any given individual.

It is notable, however, that child mortality is lower in the D.G. Khan villages. As child mortality is linked to immunization drives, which in turn need not rely on physical infrastructure of health dispensers, this can provide an indicator of health quality not as susceptible to population density. Though we have figures to indicate lower child mortality in D.G. Khan, there is no supporting data to indicate how immunization was received and whether the government was responsible for these drives. Even when the

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government is responsible, these drives are often organized by the federal or provincial government (Hasnain 2008b).

Though these numbers provide us with a static comparison, they do not themselves indicate if the health system improved in the different sets of villages after devolution. Respondents from both sets of villages were asked whether they preferred the health system before or after devolution. Muzaffargarh residents overwhelmingly preferred the old system (over 61%), whereas less than 16% of D.G. Khan thought health facilities were better before. Though one cannot say that the Dera Ghazi Khan respondents significantly preferred the health system under devolution, it is fairly clear that the Muzaffargarh residents from the diverse ethnic villages were significantly more likely to feel that the health system had deteriorated under devolution.

Table 4.6: Preference for Health System Before or After Devolution

Was the health system better before devolution or Dera Ghazi after? Khan Muzaffargarh Under the Local Governance Ordinance 2001 26.09 18.57 Under the Old System before Devolution 15.94 61.43 Under the Local Government with Changes after 2008 Elections 7.14 Same 47.83 11.43 Don't Know 10.14 1.43

Number of Observations 69 70

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ii. Education

For education, the Muzaffargarh villages had a larger enrollment ratio than the

D.G. Khan villages. Though the Muzaffargarh villages had only 121 children between the ages of 5 and 15 and D.G. Khan had 142, only 49 individuals were attending school in the D.G. Khan villages compared to 96 in Muzaffargarh. Illiteracy has less disparity between the two sets of villages, where it is almost 58% in D.G. Khan and 50% in

Muzaffargarh,. Some education for children is generally higher in Muzaffargarh than in the D.G. Khan cases. There were 9 seven year olds in D.G. Khan and 16 in Muzaffargarh.

Whereas 14 of those 16 had some schooling in Muzaffargarh, only 5 of the 9 did in D.G. Khan. The trend is consistent in other age groups as well. For age 8, 11/12 had schooling in the Muzaffargh villages whereas only 11/17 had some in D.G. Khan. For 10 year olds,

11/20 had attended some educational institution in D.G. Khan whereas 12/18 had attended in the Muzaffargarh villages.

Table 4.7: Percentage of Children with Schooling

D.G. Khan case Muzaffargarh Age villages case villages 7 55.60% 87.50% 8 64.70% 91.70% 10 55% 66.70%

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Where the divergence truly occurs is for higher education. Whereas only one individual in the D.G. Khan sample went to higher secondary school, there were 12 such individuals in Muzaffargarh. Two individuals had higher qualification than higher secondary school, with 9 such individuals in Muzaffargarh. The sample for each group does become small, but the consistently higher enrollment, though marginal, does suggest that the villages surveyed in Muzaffargarh had at least marginally better education levels.

Current enrollment disparity is the starkest. Currently, 96 individuals were going to school with only 49 doing so in D.G. Khan. This disparity is even greater when considering that the sample including household members is greater in D.G. Khan—489 individuals in D.G. Khan versus 414 in Muzaffargarh. There is also more choice in educational institutions in the Muzaffargarh villages, including an NGO school. Whereas

77% of school attendees use the village public school in the D.G. Khan villages, only

33% do so in Muzaffargarh, with a further 31% using village private schools. Public schools were easily accessible to the population. In D.G. Khan, 88% of respondents put the distance to less than a km away. For Muzaffargarh, those who used village public schools also put it less than a km away. The disparity in usage of public schools has more to do with the quality of instruction. Since D.G. Khan has no other option, it is difficult to say whether their higher usage is really a choice rather than a necessity bourne of no alternative. Muzaffargarh’s numbers clearly indicate that private schooling is preferred and private schooling options are utilized over public.

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Table 4.8: Type of School Attended

Which School Does Member Attend? (%) Dera Ghazi Khan Muzaffargarh Village Public School 77.08 33.04 Village Private School 31.25 Village NGO School 1.79 Nearby Village Public School 8.33 7.14 Nearby Village Private School 3.57 School in Urban Area 4.17 11.61 Other (including Madrassa) 10.42 7.14 Don't Know 4.46 Number of Observations 48 112

The main reasons for attendance issues in D.G. Khan were teacher absenteeism and keeping the child home to help. In Muzaffargarh, attendance was most related to lack of classroom facilities such as desks, chairs, etc. There are fewer complaints of teacher absenteeism in Muzaffargarh, possibly due to a large portion of the children attending private school where shirking is monitored more closely. Muzaffargarh residents are also more satisfied with their school system (68% satisfaction), with D.G. Khan residents satisfaction is only at 33%. This satisfaction is uninformative in comparing between public schooling in the two union councils as Muzaffargarh’s higher numbers are driven by the use of private schools.

Private school was not listed as an option in D.G. Khan. It is likely due to the lower development and income in the villages surveyed in D.G. Khan that a private

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school option is missing and that explains part of the disparity in enrollment ratios between the two cases.

No new schools have been built in either of the villages. In fact, as I discuss further on, since most respondents in the Muzaffargarh villages favored the education system before devolution, and those in D.G. Khan mostly either favored the time before devolution or thought it made no difference, this major public good does not seem to have been developed through the local government in these case villages. Overall, it is evident that both cases indicate dissatisfaction in the public school system: we can directly measure the level for D.G. Khan respondents, and we can infer this through the high level of alternative schooling choices made by villagers in Muzaffargarh.

III. POLITICAL COMPETITION AND ETHNIC SALIENCE

A. Ethnic Voting

There are multiple means through which ethnicity can affect political outcomes.

These include both whom individuals vote for (e.g. a coethnic candidate for his or her ethnicity versus a candidate for his or her economic policies) as well as how they vote

(such as forming ethnically determined voting blocks and voting with one’s ethnic group even if the candidate is not necessarily of one’s ethnicity). Variation in ethnic diversity can have an effect on voter preferences for goods, and lastly, it can affect voter propensity to hold politicians accountable. This section discusses how ethnicity variation

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affects voter behavior. The next section will look at the public goods outcomes in the surveyed villages.

Table 4.9: Voter Turnout in Pakistan Elections

Voter Turnout Year (%) General Elections 1988 43.07 1990 45.46 1993 40.28 1997 35.42 2002 41.08

2008 44.23 2013 55.02

Local Government Elections 2005 56.4 Source: The Express Tribune (May 21, 2013) for General Elections and the International Food Policy Research Institute (2008) for Local Government Elections

Local government elections in both 2001 and 2005 were as or more competitive than national and provincial level elections before (Hasnain 2008b, Pakistan Election

Commission). Table 4.10 provides a look at the candidates who won seats in the 2002 provincial and national elections, 2008 provincial and national elections and the victors of the 2005 local government elections. The seats for National and Provincial Assemblies in 2008 are mostly taken by candidates from major political parties that are factions of 129

either Pakistan Muslim League or Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) with few independents.

The high presence of secular political parties indicates that at least at the higher tiers, identity is not a major concern in the two districts.

The bold names indicate victors that won with 5% or less margin, indicating a high degree of competition. The 2002 elections occurred under the shadow of military power and yet many of the seats were competitive, i.e. contestants won with small margins, (though due to the limitations the military imposed, the historically major parties in Pakistan, Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz Sharif (PMLN) and PPP are missing). In 2008 as well many of the seats were won within a small margin. This indicates that in both districts elections have been relatively competitive. As for local government elections, in 2005 in Punjab, less than 5% of district nazim seats were uncontested (Hasnain 2008b). For our representative union councils, both had multiple candidates running for union council nazim.

Table 4.10: Political Candidates from D.G. Khan and Muzaffargarh

Dera Ghazi Khan Muzaffargarh

1. Khalida Mohsin Ali 1. Khawaja Sheraz Qureshi (PPP Mahmood (PMLQ)- 60% Parliamentaries)-45% Members of 2. Sardar Farooq National 2. Hina Rubbani Khar Ahmad Khan Leghari Assembly (PML Q)- 34% (National Alliance)-51% 2002

Continued.

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Table 4.10 continued.

3. Awais Ahmad Khan 3. Muhammad Shahid Leghari (National Jamil Qureshi (PMLQ)-49% Alliance) -51% 4. Syed Basit Ahmad Sultan Bokhari (PMLQ)-46% 5. Abdul Qayyum Khan Jatoi (PPP Parliamentarians)-51% 1. Sardar Meer 1. Malik Ahmad Yar Badshah Khan Qasrani Hanjra (PMLQ)-37% (PMLQ)-52%

2. Sardar Fateh 2. Tariq Ahmad Gurmani Muhammad Khan (Independent)-39% (PMLQ)-66%

3. Javed Akhtar 3. Ahsan-ul-Haq Ahsan Lund (National Naulatia (PPP

Alliance)-43% Parliamentarian)-44% 4. Sardar Muhammad Khan 4. Sardar Amjad Hameed Leghari (Independent)- Khan Dasti (PMLQ)-27% 49% Members of 5. Syed Abdul Aleem Provincial 5. Malik Jawad Kamran Shah (National Assembly Khar (PMLQ)-32% Alliance)-38% 2002 6. Farooq Ahmed 6. Imtiaz Aleem Qureshi Khan Leghari (National (PMLQ)-52% Alliance)-58% 7. Sardar Muhammad 7. Ahmed Karim Qiswar Yousaf Khan Leghari (PMLQ)-38% (National Alliance)-50% 8. Syed Haroon Ahmad Sultan (PMLQ)-44% 9. Allah Wasaya Khan Alias Chunnu Khan

(Independent)-49% 10. Yasir Arfat Khan (Independent)-50% 11. Syed Muhammad Qaim

Ali Shah (Independent)-51%

Continued.

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Table 4.10 continued. District Sardar Maqsood Khan Abdul Qayyum Khan Jatoi Nazim (2005) Leghari 1. D.G. Khan : 1. Kot Addu: Malik Mehmood Qadir Khan Muhammad Rafique Khar Leghari Tehsil Nazim 2. Taunsa: Khawaja 2. Muzaffargarh: (2005) Salah-ud-din Akbar Muhammad Abad 3. De-Excluded Area: Usman Ahmad Khan 3. Jatoi: Maria Batool

Buzdar 4. Alipur: Sardar Khizar

Hayat 1. Muhammad Mohsin 1. Khawja Sheeraz Ali Qureshi (PPP Mehmood (PML)-24% Parliamentarians)-36% 2. Farooq Ahmed 2. Hina Rabbani Khar (PPP Khan Leghari (PML) - Parliamentarians)-60% 35% 3. Sardar 3. Jamshed Ahmad Khan MNA (2008) Muhammad Saif-ul-Din Dasti (PPP Parliamentarians)- Khan (PMLN)-42% 42% 4. Muhammad Moazam Ali Khan Jatoi (PPP

Parliamentarians)-54% 5. Abdul Qayyum Khan Jatoi (PPP Parliamentarians)-50% 1. Sardar Meer 1. Malik Ahmed Yar Hinjra Badshah Khan Qaisrani (PML)-32% (PMLN)-38% 2. Sardar Fatah 2. Malik Bilal Ahmad Khar Muhammad Khan (PPP Parliamentarians)-38% Buzdar (PML)-33% 3. Muhammad 3. Ch. Ehsanul Haq Amjad Farooq Khan Ahsan Nolatia (PPP Khosa (Independent)- Parliamentarians)-35% 35% 4. Sardar Muhammad Saif-ud- 4. Irshad Ahmad Khan Din Khan Khosa (PPP Parliamentarians)-33% (PMLN)-43% 5. Sardar Dost 5. Malik Jawad Kamran MPA (2008) Muhammad Khan Khosa Khar (PML)-33% (PMLN)-40%

Continued.

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Table 4.10 continued.

6. Muhammad 6. Muhammad Imran Mohsin Khan Leghari Qureshi (PML)-39% (PML)-33% 7. Sardar Muhammad 7. Malik Ahmad Qaswar Yousaf Khan Leghari Karim Langrial (MMA)-40% (PML)-43% 8. Abdul Qayyum Khan Jatoi (PPP

Parliamentarians)-47% 9. Allah Wasaya Urf Chunnu Khan Leghari (PPP

Parliamentarians)-55% 10. Shehzad Rasool Khan (PPP Parliamentarians)-

49% 11. Sardar Aamir Talal

Gopang (PML)-52% Union Sokar: Muhammad Azim Council Khan Nazim Source: Election Commission Pakistan (Candidates who won seat by a 5% margin or less are in bold)

B. Voting and Politicization

Case villages from both districts portray a population that is not very politicized.

First of all, illiteracy is high in both regions. Over 57% of the population 6 years and above is illiterate in the surveyed villages of Qalati and Jhok Rohail in D.G. Khan, and

50% of the population is illiterate for the same demography in the villages of Aduwala and Nehal Wala in Muzaffargarh. Looking specifically at the population that can vote, which is 18 and above, illiteracy is at 67% in the D.G. Khan villages and 61% in the

Muzaffargarh villages. Over 80% of respondents in both sets of villages that responded with a definitive answer either rarely or never discussed politics. The villages in

Muzaffargarh had some access to television for information that D.G. Khan villages did 133

not have but the latter did have access to radio which was the major source of political information in those villages. Community meetings ranked heavily as a source of political information in both areas. It appears then that politicization was equivalent between the two areas studied (that is, the difference was not statistically significant using Fisher’s exact test).

How then did residents of the two sets of villages decide whom to vote for? Most of those surveyed voted in the 2005 local government elections. In D.G. Khan, 74/75 surveyed said they cast a vote and in Muzaffargarh 60/71 respondents said they voted.

However, the two sets of respondents differed in how they voted. Muzaffargarh respondents were significantly more likely to vote on the basis of ethnic considerations

(the candidate is of the same identity or is supported by those of one’s own identity) than respondents of D.G. Khan. The majority of the respondents in D.G. Khan villages Jhok

Rohail and Qalati chose non ethnic considerations for why they voted: the candidate with the best policies was the primary choice amongst this category, followed by candidate with a good reputation. A few respondents were swayed by goods given to them during the campaign and a handful voted for the candidate on the basis of the candidate’s political party affiliation (even though local government elections were supposed to be nonpartisan, often the party affiliation of a candidate was well known).

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Table 4.11: Voting Basis

Dera Ghazi How Did You Decide Who to Vote For? Khan Muzaffargarh Same Tribe/Biraderi 38.67 43.55 Identity Same Language 3.23 Candidate Supported by Tribal Leader/Biraderi 1.33 38.71 Sub-Total 40 85.49

Provided Goods During Campaign 8 Good Reputation in Community 16 3.23 Non -Identity Explicit Party Affiliation 8 9.68 Candidate with the Best Policies 28 Sub-Total 60 12.91

Don't Know 1.61

Number of Observations 75 62 Pearson’s Chi- Squared=31.09 (P-value=0.00)

In Muzaffargarh, from those who voted due to ethnic considerations, almost half voted because the candidate was from the same biraderi, and half because the candidate was supported by their biraderi. The second reason indicates voting by ethnically determined voting blocks or dharay, as explained earlier in the chapter. Often times both responses essentially mean the same thing. For example, in Muzaffargarh, the main candidate was Haji Zulfiqar. Eight of the Jangla/Mehr Baloch ethnicity respondents voted for him because he was of the same tribe/biraderi, and four because he was supported by the biraderi/tribe. The significance of some individuals stating their voting choice to be

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based on what their biraderi chose rather than the biraderi of the candidate indicates that the choice of the biraderi and voting block is more significant for them than the ethnic identity of the candidate.

Interestingly, there was little variation in who individuals voted for in the D.G.

Khan village though there were multiple candidates, whereas in the Muzaffargarh villages there were half a dozen candidates who gained some level of support. With two exceptions, all the respondents in the D.G. Khan villages voted for Azim Khan. There was much more variation in the ethnically diverse Muzaffargarh villages. Where ethnic cleavages are politicized, different ethnic groups would be less willing to agree on the same candidate and would actively compete to establish a candidate that will support their ethnicity. Table 4.12 cross tabulates the ethnic identity of households with the candidates that were voted for in the 2005 local government elections in Muzaffargarh’s

UC..

Table 4.12: Voting in Muzaffargarh Villages by Ethnic Identity

UC Candidates Jaangla/Mehr Arain/Malik Gopang Total 2005 Baloch Haji Zulfiqar 16 1 1 18 Malik Aamir 1 12 0 13 Aamir Khan 6 2 6 14 Noon League 2 3 0 5 Member Kayoom Khan 1 0 0 1 Aashiq Khan 1 0 3 4 Zafar Hayat 1 1 0 2 Don't Know 3 1 0 4

Total 31 20 10 61

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The top three candidates for Fateh Pur Janubi Union Council in Muzaffargarh are the most competitive, and it is evident that there is a strong correlation between ethnic identity (biraderi in Muzaffargarh) and who the individuals voted for in the most popular candidates. Haji Zulfiqar is ethnically identified as Jatoi, Malik Aamir as Arain, and

Aamir Khan as Gopang. Gopang and Jaangla/Mehr Baloch have Baloch roots, as do

Jatoi. Arain are a common caste/clan in Punjab. Most of the Arain candidates votes came from Arain individuals, and most of Haji Zulfiqar’s votes came from the Baloch identities, almost exclusively from Jaangla/Mehr Baloch villagers. Aamir Khan gained most of his votes equally from Gopang or Jaangla/Mehr Baloch, which may be different kinship groups but share the overarching Baloch identity.

A further analysis of the data illustrates that from those who responded to the question of which party they normally vote for (15 of those that responded to who they voted for did not identify a party) illustrates that the votes Aamir Khan gained from the

Jaangla/Mehr Baloch ethnicity were very likely party votes. These were individuals who normally voted for Pakistan Muslim League Qaid-e-Azam (PMLQ), whereas Zulfiqar was part of Pakistan People’s Party (PPP). In some cases then, party did play an important role in vote, but largely, as voters themselves stated, identity trumped all.

In the Dera Ghazi Khan villages, not one responded to having strong party loyalty but many responded to the question by saying whichever is more productive. Everyone who voted for local government elections voted for the National and Provincial Assembly elections. Unlike the Union Council elections, there was variation between two key

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candidates for the Provincial Assembly elections, one a Halfani like the villagers and the other a Buzdar. Though everyone knew the ethnic identity of the candidate they voted for, that identity did not always coincide with their own. The Halfani candidate gained

75% of the votes and the Buzdar candidate 25%. Perhaps not a competitive difference, but this in itself is remarkable considering that the co-ethnic candidate was also a tribal leader for their identity group. For the MNA seat, everyone voted for the same individual,

Khwaja Sheraz, who also was not of the same identity group and voters were aware of this as they listed his identity as Khwaja (also the name of the candidate’s identity group).

So, despite there being weaker party politics in this area, it does not appear that identity politics takes precedence at the provincial or national level. Even theoretically, one does not expect identity politics of kinship groups to preside over higher tier government elections. Even in Muzaffargarh, the ethnic identity of MNAs and MPAs were not necessarily the same as the voters—for example, many ethnic Arain voted for a Syed

MNA. Again, it is the direct competition over resources at the local government level that politicizes local identities that can actually form a minimum winning coalition to win the union council nazim seat. In fact, 65% of the combined sample of respondents in southern

Punjab felt that kinship identity became more important after devolution suggesting that indeed, political competition deepened local ethnic cleavages.

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C. Ethnic Diversity and Public Goods

The broader hypothesis of this study is that ethnic voting can reduce public goods provision. For one, ethnic voters can prefer targeted goods over public goods in ethnically diverse areas either because of negative utility or inability to agree on public goods to be provided (Posner et al. 2007). Moreover, candidates who form a winning coalition due to ethnically based voting face less accountability and are more likely to get away with providing both less public or private goods (Bueno de Mesquita et al. 2002).

This is because the rules for becoming a party of the winning coalition are dependent upon ethnic identity, which is nonporous relative to other forms of identity such as class, religion, or other forms of ideology that can be adopted. Hence, the winning coalition knows that if a candidate of or favored by the other identity comes into power, they have little probability of being part of the winning coalition. Therefore, they are more loyal and hold the leader less accountable for goods distribution for as long as the leader represent their ethnic group, this is a better bargain than being completely locked out by another identity.

On the other hand, candidates who are put in power for reasons other than identity may be held more accountable. If they do not deliver, they are more likely to be voted out. Since the winning coalition is less concerned that their identity vis à vis others in the selectorate will affect their chance of returning to power, they will more likely expect representatives to deliver on services or else switch their loyalty to another potential leader.

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It is unsurprising then that the villages in D.G. Khan were less likely to consider ethnic identity an important marker in their candidate. These villages are fairly homogeneous and they do not need to worry about another identity locking them out from the political process at the local level and hence can focus on concerns of candidate performance. Muzaffargarh villages, however, are heterogeneous and are more likely to be concerned that they may be locked out of the political process due to reasons of identity.

However, there is a need to further explore the difference between voting in a voting block that includes all of your ethnic group but potentially other groups as well, and simply voting in your coethnic candidate. In the case of Muzaffargarh, the two coincide—individuals voted with their ethnic voting blocks for coethnic candidates. The theoretical ramifications here are the same as for the general case of ethnic voting where individuals will vote on the basis of identity. But it is possible to have a more heterogeneous voting block of biraderis who vote in a candidate whose ethnicity is not necessarily shared amongst all as discussed in the earlier section. This latter case falls in a more typical model of clientelist politics where the influential leaders of the dharay form a patron client relationship with the political candidate. Ethnic loyalty does play a role, but it plays a role in keeping individuals of the same ethnic group cohesively voting together. There is more accountability in that the ethnicity of the candidate is not essential and hence if the candidate breaks the contract with the dhara, they will choose another candidate in the future. However, there are still some restrictions on the ethnicity of the candidate as it is unlikely that he or she will be of the same identity as the

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dominant biraderi of another rival voting block. Moreover, if dharay are heterogeneous, though typically lead by a dominant biraderi, then they do not necessarily have negative utility in sharing or strong deviations in preferences for goods.

Following the patron client model, however, there is still likely to be provision of targeted goods over non-targeted goods as the political candidate will choose to channel funds to projects for his/her voters that are fixed in stable voting blocks that are reinforced with identity politics. Since patron client relationships cultivate in areas of low credibility and information asymmetry (Chandra 2004), political candidates have incentives to provide visible goods to their constituents and target them to those who will likely vote for him/her again rather than less visible public goods (Mani and Mukand

2007). If voting blocks are stable and the ethnicity of the candidate makes it unlikely that he/she will be chosen by another major voting block, then he has even more incentive to provide targeted goods to his current support.

Evidently, using comparative levels of public goods provision as the observable implication for politicized ethnic identity is problematic as low provision of goods can result from ethnic voting, patron client relationships as well as other issues of credibility resulting from information asymmetry and new democracy (Keefer 2007). To substantiate the role of ethnic identity of political candidates, the villagers were asked whether they believed that a coethnic in power ensured a better quality of life for them and whether they felt a co-ethnic in power entailed better access to goods.

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i. Co-ethnic Candidate and Access to Goods

Respondents in Muzaffargarh and respondents in D.G. Khan were fairly equivalent in feeling that a co-ethnic candidate would entail a better quality of life.

Table 4.13: Is Quality of Life Better Under a Co-ethnic Candidate?

D.G. Khan Muzaffargarh Better Under Same Ethnic 60.27% 60.29% Candidate Worse if Not the Same 1.47% Ethnic Candidate Identity Makes No 2.74% 35.29% Difference

Don’t Know 36.99% 2.94%

Number of Observations 73 68 Fisher's Exact P- Value=0.000

Villagers in both districts were also asked if they had better access to goods that can be more targeted such as government jobs, farm subsidies, and water rights in agriculture when a political candidate was from the same ethnicity. The question was asked for MPAs (since they do use state funds for personal campaign development 142

projects in their legislative district), and mayors at the district, tehsil and union council level. The response distribution was almost exactly the same for each level. Table 4.14 provides the figures for the district nazim.

Table 4.14: Do You Gain More Goods when the District Nazim is from the Same Ethnic Group?

Muzaffargarh D.G. Khan Yes 63.40% 39.30% No 24%

Same, Don’t 12.60% 60.70% Know Number of Observations 71 66

Muzaffargarh villagers were significantly more likely to believe that the ethnicity of the political candidate affects their access to more targetable goods. Interestingly over

36% of the respondents don’t believe they get better access to goods with a coethnic political candidate, even though 85% of voters voted on the basis of identity (Table 4.11).

This reinforces the idea that many ethnic voters vote in a co-ethnic politician not because they feel they will be gaining goods, but simply because they think a candidate of an alternative identity would mean life would get worse. This supports both Bueno de

Mesquita et al. (2002) where they theorize, though do not test, that an ethnic leader could get away with providing both fewer public and private goods due to fears that an alternative candidate would lock out the ethnic group from the selectorate and my claim

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that it is the fear of being locked out of political power that serves as the impetus for ethnic voting rather than proactively keeping goods away from other ethnic groups or antipathy to sharing for inherent reasons.

ii. Goods Preferences

What about the preferences of the inhabitants? Does ethnic diversity affect preferences for public versus private goods? When asked to put down preferences of goods, there was once again a significant difference between the responses in the D.G.

Khan villages and Muzaffargarh. Over 93% of D.G. Khan residents ranked a public good as their first preference, compared to only 55% in Muzaffargarh. Over 44% of residents in Muzaffargarh listed a private good as their top pick of preferred goods. The main private goods mentioned were government jobs and roads linking to one’s private home (as opposed to other options of roads for the community). In Muzaffargarh, 33.82% of all respondents ranked access to government jobs as their number one goods preference, followed by preferences for clean water and then better education in the community. In

D.G. Khan, almost everyone wanted improved access to clean water for the community and only 6% of the respondents chose government jobs as their top preference in goods.

It is evident then that residents in the D.G. Khan villages, the ethnically more homogeneous villages, were not only more open to voting in candidates of different identities given they had either a good reputation or good policies, but they also had a strong shared preference for one particular public good—community access to clean water. Muzaffargarh surveyed residents, on the other hand, who live in villages with

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greater ethnic diversity, felt more strongly that a co-ethnic would mean a better access to goods for them versus someone of another identity and they voted by ethnicity.

Table 4.15: Preferences for Public/Private Goods

Preferences Muzaffargarh D.G.K PUBLIC GOODS 55.88% 93.22% Better Community Education 16.18%

Improved Access to Clean Water 26.47% 93.22% Better Public Health 2.94%

Better Roads Linking Village to Urban 10.29% Area

PRIVATE GOODS 44.11% 6.28% Better Roads Connecting to Own Home 5.88%

Farm Subsidies 4.41%

Government Jobs 33.82% 6.78%

Number of Observations 68 59

Consistent with other work on ethnic politics that posit that in ethnically diverse areas groups cannot agree on a public good, these relatively diverse villages also had a larger share of individuals, almost half, that ranked private goods as their number one choice of goods, choosing it over health, education, better infrastructure for the community, or water.

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Table 4.16: Preferences for Goods by Ethnicity in Aduwala and Nehal Wala

Arain/ Preferences for Goods Jaangla/Mehr Gopaang Total Malik Baloch PUBLIC GOODS 18 13 5 55% 62% 45%

Better Community Education 5 4 1 10 15.15% 19.05% 9.09% 15.38% Improved Access to Clean Water 9 5 3 17 27.27% 23.81% 27.27% 26.15% Better Public Health 1 0 1 2 3.03% 0% 9.09% 3.08% Better Roads Linking Village to 3 4 0 7 Urban Area 9.09% 19.05% 0% 10.77%

15 8 6 PRIVATE GOODS 45% 38% 55%

Better Roads Connecting to Own 3 1 0 4 House 9.09% 4.76% 0% 6.15% Farm Subisdies 0 1 2 3 0% 4.76% 18.18% 4.62% Government Jobs 12 6 4 22 36.36% 28.57% 36.36% 33.85%

Total 33 21 11 65 100% 100% 100% 100%

Extant theories on ethnic politics posit that one possible reason for lower public goods provision in ethnically diverse areas is that preferences differ between ethnic 146

groups and are more uniform within ethnic groups so fragmented areas cannot agree upon what public good to provide. However, the following table cross tabulates ethnic identity and preference of goods and illustrates that there is no clear difference in preferences across ethnicities—in fact, the dispersion within ethnic groups is fairly similar. For example, roughly 30% of each identity group ranked government jobs as their number one preferred good and roughly 25% ranked access to clean water for the community as their preferred good. Hence, the argument that somehow preferences within ethnic groups are similar but differ across them does not hold water in this scenario.

This is likely because these ethnic groups do not differ significantly in class or wealth. Using the existence of a toilet as a proxy for wealth in these homes and cross tabulating it with ethnicity, we find using the chi-squared test that there is no significant difference between ethnicities and wealth. There is also no real difference in social organization because even though there is a large ethnic Baloch population, they are even further from the tribal areas than D.G. Khan and have lost the tribal structure that existed in their past. When asked to name their tribal leader, no one responded with a tribal leader in the Muzaffargarh survey though almost all D.G. Khan surveyed residents know their tribe head. Hence, it is unsurprising that there is no difference in goods preferences between ethnicities. One of the key contentions of this dissertation is that latent social aspects of ethnic groups are what shape preferences of ethnic groups, and not their descent based itself. This topic is explored more in depth in the next chapter.

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Though preferences do not vary between cross ethnics, we are still left with the significant result of higher demand for private goods in Muzaffargarh. This prompts us to examine the other preference based argument—negative utility.

As I argue, negative utility suggests natural antipathy to sharing, which is not necessarily the case (there is still strong support for other public goods, even if it relatively less than in ethnically homogeneous Dera Ghazi Khan villages). However, as

Alesina and La Ferrara (2002) illustrate, trust is lacking in areas of high diversity. This negative utility for public goods is not so much negative utility, but rather competition with other ethnic groups over limited resources and lacking the necessary trust to jointly prioritize public goods. If each ethnic group prioritized public goods and voted someone in who could most likely deliver on these, this would likely lead to better provision.

However, what if this candidate happens to be from the cross ethnic group and that group uses its shared identity as leverage to obtain private goods from the candidate, such as government jobs. This would especially be possible if the candidate shared the same ethnic identity and could facilitate admission to these coveted positions through kinship identity nepotism. Once the other ethnic group obtained these jobs, they could bring in more of their own as new positions opened and would gain an advantage in controlling public resources for the present, and the future as well.

Gazdar (2007) mentions how already in Pakistani bureaucracy, the earlier path dependence from nepotism gives certain identities advantages of obtaining positions in the public sphere. With decentralization, many government jobs in theory came under the jurisdiction of the elected officials. Cheema and Mohmand (2008) find that demand for 148

government jobs was one of the most highly requested goods from union council nazims in the ethnically (by kinship group) diverse villages they studied in Punjab post devolution. Thus, the lack of trust that another group controlling the government would fairly share these resources pushes them to try to optimize their opportunity of obtaining these private goods rather than focusing on demanding public goods or choosing a candidate who could credibly commit to delivering them.

Local government elections were competitive and brought political competition to the newly empowered union council level of government. Surveys indicate that a majority of combined respondents from both districts felt that ethnicity and kinship became more important post devolution14. Comparing ethnically fragmented villages with homogeneous ones suggest that voting patterns at the union council level in fragmented villages was significantly more aligned with identity. Though we do not have data collected on local kinship groups and voting attitudes before devolution, this is strongly suggestive of political competition exacerbating extant local identity cleavages after devolution.

Since homogenous villages did not fear some “other” group gaining power, they could focus more on the other, non-identity attributes of the candidate. Both the significant differences in response on whether there is better access to goods under a co- ethnic candidate and the preferences for goods illustrates how indeed the preference for public goods differ between ethnically diverse and ethnically homogeneous societies. We

14 Over 90% of respondents from D.G. Khan responded yes and almost 40% of respondents in Muzaffargarh responded yes or perhaps. I discuss the discrepancy in this result more later in the study. 149

have ruled out the inability to agree on preferences as the reason for why purely ethnically diverse societies underprovide public goods as there is no striking difference in preferences between ethnic groups for common public goods studied in this dissertation.

This suggests that the greater focus on private goods in ethnically diverse areas is related to the ability to share with the “other.”

Given the greater focus on infrastructure projects for development schemes in

Pakistan (likely due to their being more visible), respondents were asked whether they would prefer a project that improved life for the self, the tribe/biraderi, or for everyone.

Over 70% of respondents from both districts chose projects that improve life for everyone. There is no inherent antipathy toward sharing with others. Rather, it is the lack of trust and fear of being closed out of resources that explains the discrepancy in public goods preference. As explained above, government jobs are highly coveted and vulnerable to nepotism. Rather than focusing on jointly providing public goods to better life, ethnically diverse areas lack the trust required in such joint ventures and focus more on bettering life through more self-oriented paths.

Trust levels are studied further by questioning respondents on who they rely on for security. Interestingly, over 92% of respondents in Muzaffargarh responded self, with very few relying on their biraderi (though many ranked it second), whereas only 15% of respondents in D.G. Khan responded with self with over half relying on their tribal leader. Reliance on self rather than community is further evidence of lower trust levels in the Muzaffargarh villages. This is the case even though both rely heavily on their community justice system—that is, the Jirga or the Panchayat. Almost 86% of 150

respondents in Muzaffargarh compared to 96% in D.G. Khan used these mechanisms for dispute resolution. Moreover, Muzaffargarh residents were significantly more likely to feel that the Jirga/panchayat was the fairest dispute resolution system for them (75%) than D.G. Khan residents (56%). Yet, the D.G. Khan residents have more trust in their tribe for security, than Muzaffargarh residents have in their biraderi.

Table 4.17: Security and Justice System

D.G. Khan Muzaffargarh I. Who do you rely on most for security? Self 15% 92.65% Biraderi/Tribal leader 53.33% 4.41% Family 5% Police 1.47% Other 16% 1.47% Don't Know Number of Observations 60 68

II. Where do you go for dispute resolution? Govt. Justice System 11.59% Jirga/Panchayat 96% 85.51% Depends/Both 4% 2.90% Number of Observations 75 69

III. Which gives you a fairer chance? Govt. Justice System 8.22% 15.71% Jirga/Panchayat 56.16% 75.71% Depends/Both 5.48% 7.14% Don't Know 30.14% 1.43% Number of Observations 73 70 *Fisher’s Exact=0.00 for all three

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iii. Collective Action and Accountability

Another major aspect of ethnic diversity that can affect public goods provision is the capacity for collective action. Ethnically homogeneous localities are better at collective action due to stronger social networks (Posner et al. 2007, Miguel 2004,

Kimenyi 2006). In localities with high poverty, as those studied here, power of voters is in their numbers rather than in their finances. Better social networks mean better dissemination of information and can work to reduce information barriers. Moreover, politicians are more likely to respond to demands by a greater number of voters than individual requests as the larger the vote base requiring goods, the more impact their dissatisfaction can have on subsequent elections. Essentially, better collective action in a community enhances the ability of the populace to keep the politician responsive, and hence accountable, toward them. Without accountability, politicians are more likely to usurp available funds for their own benefit rather than spend them on goods for the population. Given a similar level of funding, better accountability to voters would hence imply better public goods provision.

Does variation in degree of ethnic diversity correlate with accountability of politicians? One simple indicator of accountability is simply to see if respondents went to the union council with problems that needed to be addressed—this would indicate they were alerting the government of their preferences as well as having an opportunity to be

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informed on how the officials react to those demands, providing better information on its efficacy. Only 8 of 66 (8%) of respondents in Muzaffargarh went to the UC, whereas 43 of 47 respondents (over 90% ) in D.G. Khan had gone to the Union Council at some point with a complaint. Most respondents from both districts that went to the Union Council to lodge complaints went in groups (Table 4.18). This is consistent with the expectation that going as a group would increase the chance that their complaint would be listened and responded to. Forming a group would require better collective action and suggests that where this group formation is more difficult, there would be fewer attempts to hold the

Union Council accountable to their needs.

There is a significant difference in the proportion of respondents who went to the

Union Council in the two sets of villages. The villagers from the D.G. Khan cases were much more likely to utilize their local government. Considering that more poverty is often associated with less politicization (Cheema and Mohmand 2008), it is remarkable that even with less development than the villages in Muzaffargarh, the D.G. Khan villages were still more likely to use their new political institutions to demand goods.

Since lodging complaints seems to rely on groups, this suggests stronger collective action to form these groups in the homogeneous villages studied in D.G. Khan. Evidently, here too we find support that ethnic diversity negatively impacts collective action and hence, an important mechanism to keep politicians accountable.

Both sets of residents were asked about the composition of the groups that went to the union council. It is unsurprising that in D.G. Khan, respondents were of the same identity given the homogeneity of the region. In Muzaffargarh, the question had more 153

potential for a dynamic response but given the low rate of villagers having gone to the union council at all, the distribution of responses is uninformative.

Table 4.18: Use of Union Council to Lodge Complaints

D.G. Khan Muzaffargarh Did you go to Union Council for complaints? Yes 43 8 95.56% 12.12% No 2 58 4.44% 87.88% Number of Observations 45 66

Did you go individually or in a group? Individually 16 4 21.62% 23.53% Group 42 11 56.76% 64.71% Both 16 2 21.62% 11.76% Number of Observations 74 17

Group Ethnic Composition?

Same Linguistic Group 14 4 22.95% 22.95% Same Tribal/Biraderi 45 11 73.77% 68.75% Mixed Linguistic

Mixed Tribal/Biraderi 1 1 1.64% 6.25% Don't Know 1 1.64% Number of Observations 61 16

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Most individuals in the group lodging complaints were from the same tribe/clan/caste, whereas a few of the groups shared at least linguistic identity and in only one case they were diverse even linguistically. The greater weight of similar identity groups in those lodging complaints at the Union Council supports the expectation that in a system where local identity is politicized, the betterment of the ethnic group will be prioritized over community and hence, such “interest groups” will share a similar identity. However, due to the low number of cases who went to the Union Council at all, this result cannot be relied on too heavily. The important conclusion from the questions on going to the union council is that the ethnically diverse villages are much less likely to form complaints and take them to the local government.

Unfortunately, contrary to expectations, in both cases, the union council was not very responsive to the demands of those who brought forth complaints (Table 4.19). In

Muzaffargarh, 8 out of 21 respondents felt that the union council was somewhat responsive in action to their demands, with only 3 out of 72 feeling the same in D.G.

Khan. There was not a single response where the union council was affirmatively responsive in action. This is interesting as though there is strong support that the homogeneous nature of the villages in D.G. Khan are conducive for demands for action and the respondents looked for more in their political candidates then simply ethnic identity, the union council was yet not responsive. Though the villagers in D.G. Khan were more likely to make appeals to the union council than the Muzaffargarh villagers, the latter had a better response rate—though there was a low rate of response for that 155

question for Muzaffargarh and hence standing alone, conclusions should be drawn from that with caution. Hence, even though collective action to form groups to appeal to the local government was better in D.G. Khan and ceteris paribus should lead to better responsiveness on part of the government, the UC was even less responsive in the D.G.

Khan case than in Muzaffargarh.

Table 4.19: Union Council Responsiveness

Was Union Council Responsive to Complaints? D.G. Khan Muzaffargarh Yes in Word 1.39% 38.10% Somewhat in Action 4.17% 38.10% Somewhat in Word 4.76% No in Action 80.56% 19.05% No in Word 12.50% Don’t Know 1.39% Number of Observations 72 21

iv. Ethnic Diversity and Elite Capture

This chapter has illustrated that both preferences and ability for collective action favor the homogeneous villages in this study in providing an environment more conducive for better public goods provision. Yet, the Muzaffargarh diverse villages had better education outcomes and marginally better health outcomes (Tables 4.7 and 4.5).

Given the better income status of the Muzaffargarh villages (Table 4.4), it is easy to

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assign this discrepancy, counter to theory, to be due to discrepancy of available funds between the two union councils being studied. However, the preceding section suggests that the Union Council in Muzaffargarh may be more responsive to its residents. What explains this discrepancy? This section explores the potential link of ethnic diversity and extent of elite capture to answer this question.

Elite capture is a difficult concept to operationalize but essentially occurs when a small segment of population that is more empowered (socially, politically, economically) than the mass, diverts government resources disproportionally toward itself (Dutta 2009).

Elite capture is not a dichotomous phenomenon—that is, it does not either exist or not exist. Rather, there are levels of elite capture. When this level is higher, more resources are diverted away from the larger population to the select few.

Bardhan and Mookherjee (2000, 2002) find that when there is more competition between the elite, the effect of elite capture is mitigated as they are less able to capture the government. Though they primarily focus their analysis to local and national levels of government and determine greater elite competition at the national levels, I attempt to apply the concept of elite competition with ethnic diversity. With devolution, the size of the electoral polity was reduced to the Union Council levels and there were fewer contesting forms of identity. As Bardhan and Mookherjee (2002) posit, this lower tier of government reduces competition amongst the elite. I take this concept a step further: if politicized local ethnic identities result in fragmented voters, it is probable that elite in this polity will be fragmented as well (assuming the different ethnic groups have a horizontal relationship and similar income levels across groups), engendering greater 157

elite competition. Where the polity is homogeneous, there is likely to be less competition between the elite.

I use two main indicators from the surveys to assess the variation in elite capture:

(1) the perception of elite backing/influence of the Union Council nazim and (2) the perceived beneficiaries of the road projects (as fixing roads is more likely to fall under the Union Council administration). If elite capture is indeed a function of the level of elite competition, than homogeneous polities are more likely to have greater elite capture than ethnically diverse polities.

In Dera Ghazi Khan, over 90% of the 68 sampled respondents said the Union

Council nazim had support from both the tribal and subtribal leaders, and over 93% felt either the tribal or subtribal leader supported the Union Council mayor. Only 7% of the respondents said they did not know. In Muzaffargarh however, the surveyed villagers were more divided in who they thought supported the Union Council nazim. A quarter of the 67 respondents mentioned the majority biraderi, a quarter the landlord’s biraderi and over a quarter mentioned other (unspecified). It does not seem that there is an emerging consensus on who the Union Council nazim gains the most support from.

Furthermore, when respondents were asked whether they believed the Union

Council nazim was influenced on which public services were provided, the majority of the D.G. Khan respondents felt that the tribal leader at least sometimes influenced the nazim, whereas the respondents in Muzaffargarh felt that their biraderi rarely, if ever, influenced the nazim. This variation is similar between the three major ethnic groups in

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the union council (that is, we cannot reject that the responses from the three groups are from the same population using Fisher’s Exact test).

15 Percentage 10

0 Majority Landlord's Other Not Either Don’t Know Biraderi Biraderi Series1 25.37 25.37 29.85 5.97 13.43

Figure 4.1: Perceived Support of Union Council Nazim in Muzaffargarh Sample

These results indicate that a small segment of the population in Dera Ghazi Khan, i.e. the tribal leaders, are consistently perceived to both back and influence the Union

Council nazim. This disproportional power in the hands of a few is further highlighted when respondents were asked which roads are given priority for repair. The majority of respondents in the D. G. Khan villages believed that those important to the elite trumped any other. Though a plurality of respondents in the Muzaffargarh villages also attributed priority to the elite, this fell far short of a majority and was 17% less than that of their counterparts in the D.G. Khan villages.

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Table 4.20: Influencing Union Council Nazim's Public Goods Provision

Does tribal leader/biraderi influence Union Council nazim on preferred public services? D. G. Khan Muzaffargarh

Yes 30.56 15.94 Oftentimes 34.72 5.8 Sometimes 25 11.59 Rarely 4.17 44.93 No 20.29 Don’t Know 5.56 1.45

Number of Observations 72 69

Table 4.21: Which Roads Are Prioritized?

Which roads are given priority? D.G. Khan Muzaffargarh Roads with the most traffic 5.88% 7.35% Roads in worst repair 1.47% 14.71% Roads that benefit the UC nazim's constituency 1.47% 17.65% Roads most important to the local elite 52.94% 36.76% Other 17.65% 8.82% Don't know 20.59% 14.71% Number of Observations 68 68

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These indicators provide strong support that the ethnically homogeneous villages were more susceptible to elite capture than the ethnically diverse ones. In local government, there is less competition between the elite due to the smaller population and smaller variation in the population. When the population is even ethnically homogeneous, there are fewer cleavages to divide the elite. In a society where clientelist politics predominate, elite capture can be rampant, and with less competition between the elite, there are fewer checks to limit the extent of elite capture. Hence, despite the fact that a homogeneous population is more likely to push for public goods and collectively make demands from their political representative, this same homogeneity can also prove to be pernicious for public goods provision where politics are defined by patron client relationships.

Thus, we have counter availing forces that are for and against public goods in both areas. The sampled villages in D.G. Khan are more susceptible to elite capture, but the voters have stronger preferences for public goods. In the Muzaffargarh ethnically diverse villages, the diversity limits elite capture, but it also leads to voters stressing private goods relatively more than in the ethnically homogeneous case.

When looking at Table 4.22, we see that despite the downfalls of devolution on elite capture in homogeneous polities, D.G. Khan sampled residents were still marginally more satisfied with the Local Government System in education, health and infrastructure than the sampled Muzaffargarh residents. Though this does not compare direct outcomes, it provides an illustration of the perceived benefits of each political system.

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We started with the expectation that with devolution, local ethnic identities would be politicized and this would prove deleterious to public goods provision. Almost 40% of the diverse villagers in Muzaffargarh felt that kinship identity may have become more important after devolution15. Though dhara politics pre-existed devolution, now the ethnic groups were in direct competition over government resources. Their vote for the

Table 4.22: Was Public Goods Provision Better Under the Local Government (LG) System?

D.G. Muzaffargarh D.G. Khan Muzaffargarh D.G. Khan Muzaffargarh Khan Education Education Infrastructure Infrastructure Health Health LG system 18.57% 30.67% 18.57% 30.67% 18.57% 26.09% Before Devolution 70% 32% 70% 6.67% 61.43% 15.94% Updated LG 5.71% 5.71% 7.14% Same 4.29% 9.33% 4.29% 20% 11.43% 47.83% Don’t Know 1.43% 28% 1.43% 42.67% 1.43% 10.14% Number of Observations 70 75 70 75 70 69

15 This number is lower than expected but there is are two possible explanations for not having a stronger result: (1) As discussed earlier, biraderi systems use voting blocks called dharay, and these preexisted devolution. Hence, even though before devolution the local ethnic groups were not directly competing for resources, they did vote with their ethnic group. (2) As will be discussed in the next chapter, at the district level, party politics dominated even when though Local Government was supposed to be “nonpartisan”. This is counter to D.G. Khan, where the surveyed villages were homogeneous and ethnicity was not so politicized, but residents were well aware that tribal politics at the district level became highly competitive—which is why over 90% believed that kinship groups became more important post devolution. 162

MPA and MNA was often based on party—in fact, of the 49 respondents who voted for

Union Council, Provincial Assembly, and National Assembly elections, 45 voted in

MPAs and MNAs from the same party, displaying party loyalty. Yet, 15 voters had different parties for their Union Council nazims and their MPA, even though 12 of these

15 voted MPAs and MNAs from the same party. Besides the explicit responses of voting by ethnicity illustrated earlier in this chapter, this suggests that there is evidence that when party conflicted with ethnicity in local government elections, many respondents chose ethnicity. Hence, even without direct data testing levels of political competition before and after devolution, there is evidence of increased competition between local ethnic identities in diverse areas after devolution.

As expected diverse areas were more likely to prefer targeted goods and displayed fewer incidents of collective political action. What was more unexpected was the lower response rate of the Union Council to the homogeneous area residents. Here, we see evidence of greater elite capture than the diverse areas. However, despite these counter forces, in sum, the homogeneous village respondents were more likely to prefer the Local

Government system than those from the diverse villages.

IV. CONCLUSION

Khan, Khan and Akhtar (2008) find that most of Pakistan is vulnerable to elite capture. We see this here in both the villages of D.G. Khan and Muzaffargarh that the elite hold more sway on the union council elected officials than the mass. The system is

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rife with patron client relationships, whether these relationships be between biraderi heads or tribal/subtribal leaders and so when seeing the low responsiveness of the UC, it is not readily clear whether it is because of the clientelist politics or because of ethnic politics or a combination of the two. However, the in-depth surveys allow us to look at the attitudes of respondents so that even if the observable implications themselves do not allow us to form conclusions on whether ethnically diverse regions result in lower public goods, we can at least identify attitudes that would be more conducive to resulting in better public goods in a more equitable political system.

In our comparative study of villages in D.G. Khan and Muzaffargarh, we find that the ethnically diverse Muzaffargarh is significantly more likely to vote ethnically and significantly prefer private goods to public goods compared to the homogeneous village cases. The diverse villages were also less likely to go to the Union Council with complaints. Lastly, the villages of Muzaffargarh was significantly more satisfied with the old system before devolution than the villages in D.G. Khan—in the latter case, most respondents were ambivalent about any difference and in the case of health and infrastructure, more respondents preferred the local government system to the old government system.

Though we are unable to compare the actual outcomes in a way that can meaningfully inform us about the effect of ethnic diversity, looking at individual preferences and behavior is in itself very informative. We find support for preference based arguments in that the ethnically diverse villages were indeed less likely to converge on preferences for public goods, and that these preferences did not vary between ethnic 164

groups. This suggests that when there are no other clear socio-economic markers that distinguish ethnic groups from one another, there is no reason to think that ethnic groups have differing bundle of preferences and it is this inability to agree on any one that leads to low provision of public goods. Considering the strong response rate amongst

Muzaffargarh on finding better quality of life under a co ethnic candidate even though many do not feel that they get more goods when a coethnic is in power, it is evident that this newly introduced political competition makes individuals more wary of being locked out of politics by another identity group. They will vote in their co-ethnic candidates despite not expecting better access to goods just because the alternative might be worse.

Unsurprisingly then, it is the Muzaffargarh villagers who overwhelmingly preferred the old system to the devolved system that brought down political competition between kinship groups and increased their political salience. Though devolution was far from successful in developing public goods in the D.G. Khan villages, the residents did not tend to feel that things were any worse off and it might actually be considered marginally better. With homogeneous ethnicity, these villages did not fear that such close political competition would empower another ethnic group and lock them out of government goods.

More specifically, Cheema and Mohmand (2008) find that a key demand from elected mayors after devolution was access to government jobs, which are targeted goods.

As Chandra (2004) says, when the public sphere is large there are many resources to be gained through government jobs, which increase the incentive of voters to vote ethnically to enjoy the benefits of nepotism in public sphere job handouts—assuming of course that

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the ethnic parties have a good chance of winning. This falls in line with studies that find that ethnically diverse regions have more demand for targeted, private goods than nontargeted, more public goods (Alesina, Baqir, and Easterly 1999). Why is there a focus on such private goods even in impoverished areas where there is a great need for public goods such as health and education?

I posit that the answer lies in the lack of trust ethnic groups have for other identity groups because they are caught in a prisoner’s dilemma. In a prisoner’s dilemma there are two players with two possible strategies, to cooperate or to defect, and hence, four possible outcomes. In this scenario, if both players (two ethnic groups in this example) cooperate and agree on voting in a candidate that promises higher public goods provision, the outcome will be optimal for the combined welfare. However, each side has an incentive to try to monopolize private goods if their co-ethnic candidate comes into power using kinship ties, such as government jobs. When government jobs equal control over government resources (legally or illegally), these positions are coveted. Nepotism adds the dimension of a feedback loop where once an ethnic group is gaining share in government jobs, it will favor those of its own ethnicity over others. Considering that access to government jobs was the single most preferred good in Muzaffargarh villages, it is evident when combined with attitudes of villagers over ethnic political leaders that maintaining access to goods that can be targeted to particular identities plays a large role in politicizing ethnicity in diverse areas. Hence, politicized ethnic groups cannot cooperate in agreeing to vote in a candidate without an eye to ethnicity as any candidate will likely have some form of ethnic identity and the other groups will fear that the

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candidate’s ethnic group will gain control over targeted goods. Ultimately, both ethnic groups have an incentive to defect and vote on the basis of ethnicity and promises of targeted goods as opposed to vote for candidates promising higher public goods provision.

This is the case even though they may feel no inherent antipathy for cross-ethnics.

In fact, this is evident from Table 4.23 below, where there is no statistical difference between the diversity of the community and the preference to target a public good for everyone over tribe or self for the vast majority of respondents. This is conjunction with the emphasis on ethnic voting and belief of better life and better access to goods under a co-ethnic stresses the competitive aspect of public goods preferences over simple disutility from sharing with the other.

Table 4.23: Preferred Target for Infrastructure Project

Dera Ghazi What Infrastructure Project Would You Prefer Muzaffargarh Khan One that improves living standards for yourself 22.54% 24.32% One that improves living standards for the baradari/tribe 1.35% One that improves living standards for everyone 77.46% 74.32% Other Number of Observations 71 74

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In ethnically homogeneous regions, there is greater trust amongst voters and they are more likely to focus on provision of public goods for the community. Ethnicity is descent based and individuals of the same ethnicity have a history of living in close proximity or having kinship ties that span many years. Just as in a prisoner’s dilemma an infinitely iterated game can allow for a cooperation outcome given the right payoffs and discount rate for the future because each side will cooperate today to optimize on payoffs from cooperation in the future, individuals from the same ethnicity expect to interact with their own group for an indefinite future. Therefore, they are more likely to cooperate to demand public goods. They do not have to worry about the political candidate favoring some other identity group over them, and the closer social ties improve monitoring and accountability of the political candidate. Hence, ceteris paribus, ethnic homogeneity is more conducive for public goods provision.

Interestingly, it appears that homogeneity might actually be deleterious for D.G.

Khan in terms of Union Council responsiveness. This is because the elite mainly comprises of the tribal leader and affiliates. In Muzaffargarh, there is no one group of elite that controls the Union Council, whereas the tribal leader in the villages in Sokar

Union Council influences the Union Council nazim without competition from other elite.

Given Bardhan and Mookherjee’s (2000) analysis on how competition within elite can reduce elite capture of the government, when elite status is correlated with ethnicity, homogeneity might actually play against better service provision in devolution.

The next chapter takes the level of analysis to the district level and compares D.G.

Khan and Muzaffargarh districts. Whereas we can find homogeneous villages and even 168

union councils, at the district level the population is much more diverse. Yet, there is a possibility that if more district council members, who are primarily union council nazims, originate from homogeneous regions, can this mitigate ethnic politics at the district tier?

Can homogeneity in sub-tiers result in better public goods provision in the higher, diverse tier? These questions are explored further in Chapter 5.

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Chapter 5 : Ethnic Diversity in the District Council

The last chapter explored how ethnic diversity affected factors that contribute to public goods provision, such as preferences for public goods, in union councils that varied in ethnic diversity. As mentioned previously, at the district level, voters are much more diverse and similarly, both D.G. Khan and Muzaffargarh are diverse at this tier.

However, as discussed earlier, in D.G. Khan, there are more homogeneous polities than in Muzaffargarh. This translates to more union council nazims, who are what the district council is mainly composed of, originating from union councils where elections are not ethnically politicized. Can this distinction alter the way politics is run at the district level?

Can variation in ethnic diversity affect incentives for public goods provision thusly?

Interviews with D.G. Khan bureaucrats indicated a unanimous opinion that devolution resulted in more politicized identities16. This is further verified by the 93% affirmative response that kinship identity did indeed become more important post devolution in the Sokar Union Council surveys. Considering that ethnicity was homogeneous at the union council level, it is highly likely that the reference was for the district level, which has the greatest control of development funds in the Local

Government.

16 Interviews of bureaucrats in district offices, Dera Ghazi Khan, 10/23/2008. 170

To compare the district level politics in D.G. Khan and Muzaffargarh, I use newspapers to track the dynamics amongst the district council members during devolution. I compare what forms of identity were most politicized in this arena. I follow this by an examination of the public goods provision trends by examining satisfaction rates, enrollment rates, and immunization rates including others in both districts using published data. Though there are too many intervening variables to assign strong causal relationships that explain the variation in public goods outcomes, this exercise is still informative in determining whether distinct trends in public goods provision even exist and if so, need to be further studied.

The next section lays out evidence indicating that politics in Muzaffargarh was party based at the district level while it was more ethnic/tribal in D.G. Khan. I follow this by a budget section comparing district budgets of Muzaffargarh and D.G. Khan before turning to public goods outcomes in the two districts to discern trends in which district performed better in public goods provision during the devolution period.

I. POLITICS IN THE DISTRICT COUNCILS

Public goods such as health and education fall under the jurisdiction of the district government. Union council members can identify development schemes and bring them to the district nazim and s/he can determine whether to give funds and how much to give.

The district nazim ultimately puts forth a budget and the district council, mainly composed of union council nazims, only has the right to vote yes or no to the budget and does not hold any amendment rights (Cheema et al. 2005).

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This process itself is rife with politics. The district nazim can use favoritism to determine who to provide development funds to. This favoritism can take the face of favoring one’s own party members (even though local government is supposed to be nonpartisan, in our cases voters in Muzaffargarh knew the party of their union council nazim candidates though the D.G. Khan union council candidate was an independent) or from one’s own identity group. Sometimes the two can coincide. Even though national parties and many of Punjab’s provincial parties are secular, within a district, more polarized identities can gravitate toward opposition parties even if the platform of the party itself is secular.

How then does the variation in average ethnic homogeneity of union councils translate to the district level? Respondents in the villages in D.G. Khan and Muzaffargarh were asked whether they felt that kinship identity had become more important after devolution. Though significant portions in both districts felt they did, whereas almost

28% said yes and 11% said perhaps in the 57 responses from the Muzaffargarh villages, approximately 93% said yes in the 75 responses from the homogeneous villages of D.G.

Khan. Given that the homogeneous villages were less likely to explicitly attribute voting considerations as ethnic, this discrepancy needs to be explained. Though part of this discrepancy may lie in the preexisting dharay in Muzaffargarh which already partially politicized ethnic identity and hence villagers may have been less aware of a more marginal increase in politicization, much of the explanation is also due to the stronger party politics in Muzaffargarh. Muzaffargarh has had a stronger party system whereas

D.G. Khan politics is more tribal, with tribes switching party alliances to maintain their

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balance of power with other major tribes (Irtaza 2012). How do these varying levels of party politics play out in the district level of government?

In the case of Muzaffargarh, there were political rivalries on multiple fronts in the district government. Sardar Abdul Qayyum Khan Jatoi gave up his national assembly seat to run for the 2005 elections for district nazim (multiple MNAs or MPAs gave up their seats for the chance to become district nazim as the development funds were primarily controlled by district nazims during devolution and hence more power lay in that seat).

However, he was one of only four district nazims who came from the opposition party and not the ruling party Pakistan Muslim League Quaid e Azam (PML-Q). He came from

Pakistan’s People Party and there was a lot of pressure on the opposition district nazims to switch their party alliance. Two of the others that belonged to districts Faislabad and

Pakpattan, could not withstand the pressure and pledged their allegiance to the ruling

PML-Q. Jatoi, however, stayed loyal to his party. This lead to the PML-Q trying everything in their power to squeeze him out, including ensuring that he could not pass the district budget. For three years Jatoi faced tactics such as locking of the committee hall (which left the budget session to be held on the road outside), attempts to limit the number of union council members from showing up at the session (68/144 were legally required to be present for a budget session to be held), influencing the bureaucracy to prevent execution of the budget, etc. . Finally, Abdul Qayyum Khan Jatoi resigned his post and returned to contest a seat in the National Assembly elections in early 2008 for the first truly democratic general elections post -Musharraf regime (Saeed 2006, Raza

2007, Dawn Correspondent 2007c, Dawn Correspondent 2008).

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Dera Ghazi Khan also had some internal politics that affected how the budget was passed, even without the interferences of party politics. Though the naib nazim (deputy mayor) was supposed to convene the budget session, the District Nazim Jamal Leghari held a separate meeting with his favored 44 members and did not include the Naib nazim in the summer of 2005 (Birmani 2005). This was unconstitutional and could have prevented the budget from being implemented as occurred in the case with Muzaffargarh.

Both these incidents illustrate that the district governments were rife with internal politics where even outside of the logrolling that occurs amongst legislative bodies, the district council members used extrajudicial methods to gain their ends. Even after the 2005 elections, the district council continued under turmoil from different factions that sided with the district nazim versus the district naib nazim (i.e. deputy mayor) (Birmani, 2009).

The bureaucracy would also take sides: in Muzaffargarh for the 2006/7 budget year, the

District Coordinating Officer (DCO) would not execute the budget as his loyalty was to the Punjab provincial secretariat, which in turn was influenced by the ruling PMLQ party, until the Court stepped in. In D.G.Khan in 2005, the DCO was supporting the naib nazim to convene the budget meeting, and yet the District nazim formed his own session. In fact, by 2009, multiple DCOs had been transferred due to the district nazim’s clashes with the head bureaucrat (Birmani, 2009).

With little mention of party politics, what drove the political competition at the district level in D.G. Khan? There is still the possibility of the union council nazims, the majority of the district council, exhibiting identity politics at the district government level. Is identity politics, or lack thereof, exhibited by voters reflected amongst

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politicians, and if so, is it to the same degree or even along the same lines? The politics in the district council in Muzaffargarh indicates the prevalence of party politics. Throughout the dispute, there is little indication that conflict occurred along ethnic lines. This is interesting considering that the majority of survey respondents in our Muzaffargarh villages voted for their union council nazim on the basis of ethnic identity. Yet, compared to the D.G. Khan respondents, they also exhibited stronger party affiliation and though there were 15 respondents who explicitly chose ethnic identity over party by voting in a union council nazim that was not of the same party as the MPA they voted for, only three times did the party of the MNA and MPA not match up, indicating that party loyalty is stronger at higher tiers of government. This party loyalty is also reflected in the politics amongst the district council members. Party loyalty was nonexistent in the sampled D.G.

Khan residents, and this at least is evident at the district level as well where party politics is weak.

Kinship identity may be homogeneous at low levels of government such as in the surveyed D.G. Khan union council, but the district tier brings with it a certain heterogeneity. Party politics is not as strong in D.G. Khan as in Muzaffargarh (Irtaza

2012). This is evidenced not only by our village respondents’ unanimously eschewing party loyalty, but the politics in the district council as well. However, though there is little evidence of ethnic politics at the lower tiers of government, politicization of ethnicity is more evident at the D.G. Khan district level. A case in point is the contentious politics surrounding the district nazim. A few years after the 2005 elections, Maqsood Leghari was kicked out as the district nazim through a no confidence vote from the district

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council lead by the ex-District Naib nazim Dost Muhammad Khosa. The divisions between the council members gravitated into camps of Legharis, a prominent tribe in

D.G. Khan, and Khosas, another prominent tribe in D.G. Khan. The rivalries within the district government were such that only two development schemes saw the light of day in the first term of the district government (2001-2005). In the second term, as the district nazim was deposed, and contentions arose over who should be given the powers between the Khosa group and the Leghari group, threats to block budget passage were evident.

Development scheme budgets hit this political hurdle as once more, as in the case of

Muzaffargarh, though the budget passed in 2009, the opposition group argued that not enough members were present at the time of vote and threatened to take the case to court.

Tactics for blocking were similar, but the cleavages were different.

In both cases, these rivalries impeded the execution of development schemes and stalled the development process. Union councils in D.G. Khan may more likely be homogeneous in rural areas, but at the district level, both Muzaffargarh and D.G. Khan are heterogeneous. This section began with the suggestion that possibly the political environment of a district council member’s polity may influence the ethnic politicization at the district level. However, in the selected cases, the reality is to the contrary. Ethnicity is strongly evident in district politics in D.G. Khan and the tribal politics therein are broadly recognized.

On the other hand, party politics was clearly evident in Muzaffargarh. Given that

Muzaffargarh was one of the few cases with a district council member who was not from the ruling party and his unwillingness to swing under pressure made him almost unique, 176

we can more clearly see the play of rivalry between parties to substantiate the claim that party politics predominated ethnic identity in Muzaffargarh at the district level. Hence, in both of the studied districts, it is evident that the political salience of ethnic identity at the union council level was not representative of the political salience of ethnic identity at the district level.

Though we are able to establish the difference in voter attitudes in environments of different levels of ethnic diversity, there are too many mediating factors between the union council level and the district level to project to the higher tier and say that we are comparing a government rife with identity politics versus one with less. More heterogeneous villages in Muzaffargarh indicate greater political salience of ethnic identity there as compared to more homogeneous villages in D.G. Khan. Yet, D.G. Khan displays more competitive ethnic politics at the district level. Given then that both districts are heterogeneous at the district level and clearly the level of ethnic homogeneity of the union council nazim district council members has no perceptible bearing on district politics, can we expect any clear trends in which district would do better in public goods provision? Theory would suggest that greater ethnic homogeneity is conducive for public goods provision. Despite the evidence of district level rivalries in this section, the subsequent sections explore the public goods provision variations in the two districts to completely discern whether the differing social dynamics in the two districts co-varied with any defining trends in public service delivery.

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II. BUDGET ANALYSIS

Below, Table 5.1 and Table 5.2 provide the budgets for D.G. Khan and

Muzaffargarh for 2007-2008. The budget for this year was not finally approved in

Muzaffargarh until October 29, 2007; though it was initially approved in July of 2007 by the District Council, later the Court and Provincial Government had to intervene to settle disputes regarding the budget. Due to the turmoil in passing the budget in the previous years, the Court had at times stipulated released funds for only day to day functioning, which would have limited beginning new development schemes. This might explain the high amount of unused funds at the beginning of the fiscal period compared to that of

D.G. Khan. However, they still had more unused funds than D.G. Khan as the opening balance for Muzaffargarh’s subsequent 2008-2009 budget was 2349 million Rupees as of

July 1st 2008 (Malik 2009). This suggests inefficiency in utilizing the budget and executing undertaken projects. If the 2007-2008 development budget was in total 2226 million Rupees and the opening balance was 2349 million Rupees, there is strong evidence that development initiatives may not have been fully executed.

In 2007-2008, there was a rollback of the PFC Award, which affected the development budget for D.G. Khan. Though this revision had not occurred in the previous year, this year saw a drop of almost 500 million Rupees. This reduced the development budget portion from almost 38% to a little more than 18% of the total budget. Since current expenditures tend to be fixed, rollback of funds hits the development expenditure the hardest.

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Muzaffargarh had a development budget that made up 47% of its total expenditure. However, the accounting method indicates that 42% of that budget is not controlled by the district government. This includes the previous and current balance on funds for the CCBs (Citizen Community Boards), which are community committees for oversight and/or community development projects. Funds are designated to these CCBs by the federal government—in fact, the percentage of funds to be allocated to the CCBs is stipulated in the local government ordinance and the overall design of the devolution plan—and the district government cannot touch the funds. These committees are supposed to be made by citizens where they group together and either use the designated funds to monitor the functioning of the local government or to come up with small development schemes that they then help execute with the use of these funds. However, due to lack of knowledge on the process and lack of access to information regarding them in local languages, as well as the requirement that CCBs raise 20% of the required funds for themselves, the government funds for these CCBs often would go untouched (Shah,

2011). Crockfort et al. (2005) find that over time CCBs did increase, but as is evident from the large amount of money that was carried over, they did not reach their full potential as funds lay untouched. In fact, in the subsequent budget year of 2008-2009, the previous year’s CCB balance was 662.62 million Rupees. Almost none of it was used and the funds being used were only 14.4 million in 2008-2009 (Malik 2009).

For Muzaffargarh, when focusing on only the budget for development that is directed by the district, a little over 27% of the total expenditure is for development project. In 2008-2009, this amounted to a little over 21% (Malik 2009). The D.G. Khan

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Table 5.1: Dera Ghazi Khan Budget 2007-8

Current Development Total Annual Revised Annual Revised Annual Revised 2007/08 2007/08 2007/08 2007/08 2007/08 2007/08 Income Opening balance 70.76 52.511 803.274 781.306 874.034 833.817 PFC Award 2345.718 2097.15 400 174.872 2745.718 2272.022 Others 12.7 17.284 150 0 162.7 17.284 Supplementary/Tied Grants 13.3 107.816 70 445.038 83.3 552.854 Internal Adjustment

180 (Literacy Campaign) 2.422 2.422 (-)2.422 (-)2.422 Diverted from Dev; (*) 0 130 0 (-)130.0 Total (Income) 2444.9 2407.183 1420.852 1268.794 3865.752 3675.977

Expenditure Current Salary 2003.782 2047.748 2003.782 2047.748 Non Salary 340.704 359.202 340.704 359.202 Development Development 0 0 1420.852 535.017 1420.852 535.017 Total (Expenditure) 2344.486 2406.95 1420.852 535.017 3765.338 2941.967 Source: Executive Finance Office, District Government, Dera Ghazi Khan

budget provided by the EDO Finance was not disaggregated enough to explain what portion went to CCBs.

The Muzaffargarh budget is larger than the D.G. Khan budget, mainly due to its greater population, which is given the largest weight in the Punjab PFC award formula for funding districts. In per-capita terms using 1998 census population, the PFC award would be 1382 Rs/capita for D.G. Khan and 1250 Rs/capita for Muzaffargarh. A quarter

Table 5.2: Muzaffargarh Budget 2007-8

Income Amount Opening Balance on July 1st 2007 1577.57 P.F.C. Award 3295.458 Local Government Receipts 72.08

Total Receipts 4945.116

Expenditure Non Development/Current Expenditure 2469.448 Tied Grants (Non Development) 2.34 Subtotal 2471.788

Development Expenditure On Going Schemes 55.004 New Development Schemes 1037.928 Previous Years C.C.B. Balance 252.332 C.C.B. Scheme Current Year 410.292 Maintenance & Repairs 192.946 Tied Grants (Development) 277.57 Subtotal 2226.072 Grand Total 4697.86 Source: District Coordination Officer Muzaffargarh Tariq Javeid Malik “Briefing on Muzaffargarh District.” 181

weight on PFC award formula is on backwardness, and since D.G. Khan has a larger undeveloped area, this explains its higher per capita award amount. Moreover, the difference in accounting methods does not allow a straightforward comparison with the

D.G. Khan budget (World Bank et al. 2005 also mention in their six district case study the lack of standardization in how budgets are accounted and the difficulty this leads to in doing budget comparisons). Some comparisons, however, can be made. Both districts gained a miniscule amount of funds from their own receipts. Though the D.G. Khan budget does not offer a breakdown of the category “Others” in its income table, even assuming the total consists of district receipts, the 17 million they collected is a fraction of Muzaffargarh’s 72 million in government receipts.

Nevertheless, the PFC award is what makes up the lion’s share of the budget.

Ultimately, the discrepancy between the incomes of the two districts rests largely in the population discrepancy and the more than 1 billion Rupees greater opening balance for

Muzaffargarh, indicating low efficiency in usage of funds, particularly through the CCB mechanism.

Below, we see the Ministery of Finance figures for education expenditure in the two districts. Considering the lower population of D.G. Khan, we naturally expect that expenditure would be lower. The growth rates provide us with a better indicator of the focus on education given to these sectors by the district government. It is evident that

Muzaffargarh exceeded D.G. Khan not only in percentage growth of financing

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elementary schools, but also the total education budget. These figures have not been audited.

Table 5.3: Financing of Elementary Schools in 2004/5 in D.G. Khan and Muzaffargarh (in Rs million) D. G. Khan Muzaffargarh 2003-2004 500.053 645.678 2004-2005 525.055 705.054 Increase in Financing 5% 9% Source: Ministry of Education, Pakistan

Table 5.4: Total Education Budget for D.G. Khan and Muzaffargarh (in Rs million) D. G. Khan Muzaffargarh 2003-2004 836.950 939.145 2004-2005 937.846 1117.386 Increase in Financing 12% 19% Source: Ministry of Education, Pakistan

Of course, the education sector, along with the health sector was generally neglected by district governments in Punjab, partially due to the low visibility and longer time horizons in these projects and partially due to provincial and national level education and health projects, which would put the decision making power outside the purview of the district governments (Hasnain, 2008b). Moreover, more funds do not translate into better education or health as districts can have variable corruption costs.

Figures for this, along with figures to indicate the efficiency of intermediates used by the

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government to execute schemes are not available. Hence, we focus below on the public goods outcomes.

III. PUBLIC GOODS OUTCOMES

Hasnain (2008b) finds that public goods such as health and education did not receive improved focus by local governments after devolution even in Punjab, the province whose districts had the most fiscal space to work on development projects. For one, local government politicians preferred to focus on smaller, more visible and targeted schemes such as roads for which they could more readily claim credit. Secondly, even after devolution, health and education projects existed that were funded through provincial level projects in Punjab as well as some federal schemes for its improvements, further decreasing the incentive of district nazims to tackle these essential goods.

Community Information Empowerment and Training (CIET) surveys (2001/2002 and 2004/5) gauged the effect of devolution at its inception and followed up a few years later (Cockcroft et al. 2002, 2005). They found an increase in satisfaction in and access to roads, the area in which most improvements had taken place post devolution (31% were satisfied in 2002, and 38% in 2004). Muzaffargarh saw little change in this as did much of D.G. Khan, though some north and south parts of D.G. Khan did see increased satisfaction. Though the country saw increased satisfaction in sewerage service (from

13% in 2002 to 20% in 2004) and increase in access (from 51% in 2002 to 66% in 2004),

Muzaffargarh and D.G. Khan largely did not feel any change, and some pockets actually

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felt a decrease in availability. Households with water supply increased from 88.2% to

89.5% in Punjab, and households satisfied with gas supply increased from 23% in 2002 to 26% in 2004 in Pakistan. Access to electricity increased from 86% in 2002 to 93% in

2004.

Education and health did not fare as well. There was no improvement in household satisfaction with the public education system (54% in 2002 and 53% in 2004).

Satisfaction in health services increased from 23% in 2002 to 27% in 2004, but proportion of households that use those facilities fell from 29% to 24% as many households looked to alternative, private providers and satisfaction of those who actually used the government services in the past few months, 65% were satisfied in 2001/2 compared to 2004 where 69% expressed satisfaction (Crockfort et al. 2005).

These trends indicating greater improvements in infrastructure than in education and health are consistent with theories that suggest that politicians have short time horizons and when devolution brought public goods more directly under politicians from the bureaucrats that preceded them, they focused on more visible, short term projects that they could take credit for (Mani and Mukand 2007).

Table 5.5: Perception of Welfare and Services

D.G. Time Khan Muzaffargarh Perception of households with worse or much worse economic situation compared to previous year 2004 23.28 27.26 Continued. 185

Table 5.5 continued. 2006 11.92 24.38 2008 42.1 49.76 2010 40.95 66.7

Perception of households with worse or much worse economic situation of community compared to previous year 2004 17.11 4.81 2006 3.77 2.34 2008 26.93 15.08 2010 30.22 54.46 Satisfaction rate by facilities and services Basic Health Unit 2004 45.61 41.12 Family Planning 2004 26.1 8.53 School 2004 56.98 56.49 Veterinary 2004 15.25 26.61 Agriculture 2004 18.64 17.8 Police 2004 9.69 2.86

Basic Health Unit 2006 45.13 19.46 Family Planning 2006 24.28 5.15 School 2006 67.56 54.57 Veterinary 2006 24.83 14.53 Agriculture 2006 27.85 9.49 Police 2006 8.08 7.46

Basic Health Unit 2008 37.61 25.56 Family Planning 2008 19.35 8.46 School 2008 57.14 57.03 Veterinary 2008 38.59 14.83 Agriculture 2008 39.09 8.64 Police 2008 15.27 6.53

Basic Health Unit 2010 23.04 24.98 Family Planning 2010 8.69 11.81 School 2010 50.63 52.5 Veterinary 2010 11.25 7.96 Agriculture 2010 12.83 4.41 Police 2010 8.76 3.39

Source: Pakistan Social and Living Standards Measurement Survey, Pakistan Federal Bureau of Statistics

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Looking specifically at D.G. Khan and Muzaffargarh, we look at the satisfaction levels from 2004 to 2010 for alternative years and alternative indicators. The figures depict percentage of households who felt their situation was worse or much worse in each of the given years. For perception of economic situation of the household, it is evident that comparatively, Muzaffargarh residents displayed much more dissatisfaction than

D.G. Khan residents in any given year. The other trend is that perception of economic situation seemed to improve from 2004 to 2006, but then progressively became worse until 2010.

Perception of economic situation of the community portrays an interesting phenomenon. Both districts were more optimistic about how badly the community had done relative to themselves, but the difference between residents’ perception of their own economic situation and that of the community’s is remarkable for Muzaffargarh. Whereas the percentage difference in the welfare of the community versus self is usually 10% or under for D.G. Khan, and is once in 2008 a difference of 16%, for Muzaffargarh, the disparity is at least 20% points for all but the last year of 2010. The smaller discrepancy in 2010 is likely due to the occurrence of the Indus river flood that devastated much of

Muzaffargarh, and hence, is an anomaly. Otherwise, it is evident that Muzaffargarh residents do not seem to connect their welfare to that of their community as do D.G.

Khan residents and thus are much more likely to feel that their situation has worsened compared to the community’s.

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In real terms D.G. Khan did not do so well in its outcomes in education and health. With respect to education, after initially starting with a head start over

Muzaffargarh, the latter was catching up at the end of the time period. Of course, by

2010, local government had been rolled back and further elections were not held.

However, the trend indicates a stagnant decline in D.G. Khan since 2006/2007. These trends are mirrored in both Middle School figures as well as Matriculate levels. In both these latter cases, Muzaffargarh catches up with D.G. Khan by 2010/2011.

Net Enrollment in Primary School

40 Net Enrollment Ages 5- 9 (excluding katchi

30 class) D.G. Khan 9 9 Olds Year Enrolled - Net Enrollment Ages 5- 20 9 (excluding katchi class) Muzaffargarh 10

0 Percentage of5 2004/5 2006/7 2008/9 2010/11

Figure 5.1: Net Enrollment in Primary School

Source: Pakistan Social and Living Standard Measurement Survey, Federal Bureau of Statistics, Pakistan

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Primary Level Enrollment in Govt Schools as % of Total Primary Enrollment 100

60 D.G. Khan 40 Muzaffargarh 20

0 2004/5 2006/7 2008/9 2010/11

Figure 5.2: Primary Level Enrollment in Government Schools

Net Enrollment Rate in Government Primary Schools 60

50 Net Enrolment Rate in Government Primary

40 Schools (Age 5-9) (excluding katchi) D.G. 30 Khan Net Enrolment Rate in

9 9 Olds Year Enrolledin Govt 20 Government Primary -

PrimarySchools Schools (Age 5-9) 10 (excluding katchi) Muzaffargarh

Percentage of5 2004/5 2006/7 2008/9 2010/11

Figure 5.3: Net Enrollment in Government Primary Schools

Source: Pakistan Social and Living Standard Measurement Survey, Federal Bureau of Statistics, Pakistan

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Development Funds 2002-2008 900 800 700 600 DG Khan Development 500 400 Muzaffargarh 300 Development 200 100 0 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008

Figure 5.4: Development Funds Trends 2002-2008

Source: Punjab Provincial Finance Commission Awards, Punjab Provincial Secretariat

We can also look at health indicators to see how it fared during the devolution period. Immunization rates illustrate a decided advantage in D.G. Khan over

Muzaffargarh. Not only does D.G. Khan have a higher immunization record, it shows greater improvement over the time horizon. For usage of government facilities for pre natal consultation in D.G. Khan and Muzaffargarh, though D.G. Khan began with a significantly lower level of usage, it saw remarkable rise in use of these facilities. This positive show on health is consistent with survey results indicating that for health, the

D.G. Khan village respondents favored the local government system substantially higher than the before devolution system.

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% of Children (12-23 months) Fully Immunized Based on Records

30 D.G. Khan 20 Muzaffargarh

10 Percentage Immunized

0 2004/5 2006/7 2008/9 2010/11

Figure 5.5: Child Immunizations

Prenatal Consultations in Govt. Hospital/RHC/BHU 45 40 35 30 25 D.G. Khan 20 Muzaffargarh Percentage 15 10 5 0 2004/5 2006/7 2008/9 2010/11

Figure 5.6: Prenatal Consultation in Government Facilities

Source: Pakistan Social and Living Standard Measurement Survey, Federal Bureau of Statistics, Pakistan

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Prenatal Consultation in Hospital/Clinic 90 80 70 60 50 D.G. Khan 40 Muzaffargarh Percentage 30 20 10 0 2004/5 2006/7 2008/9 2010/11

Figure 5.7: Prenatal Consultation in Hospital

Source: Pakistan Social and Living Standard Measurement Survey, Federal Bureau of Statistics, Pakistan

Looking specifically at satisfaction rates for government facilities and services, it appears that except for in 2010, D.G. Khan has higher satisfaction rates than

Muzaffargarh with few exceptions. School satisfaction rates appear to be almost stagnant in both districts, and for Basic Health Units (BHU), D.G. Khan fares better. Another trend seems to be a reduction in satisfaction rates in almost all services between 2008 and

2010 in D.G. Khan, whereas there is no particular trend for services in Muzaffargarh.

Since decentralization was at a decline after 2008, this suggests that the pull-back may have had a deleterious effect, at least in the short run, on facilities and services in D.G.

Khan. Muzaffargarh does see a decline in agriculture and veterinary satisfaction rates but

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BHU Household Satisfaction Rates

20 Muzaffargarh DGK 10

0 2004 2006 2008 2010

Figure 5.8: Basic Health Unit Satisfaction Rates

School Household Satisfaction Rate

70 60 50 40 30 Muzaffargarh 20 DGK 10 0 2004 2006 2008 2010

Figure 5.9: School Satisfaction Rates

Source: Pakistan Social and Living Standard Measurement Surveys 2004-2010, Pakistan FBS

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D.G. Khan Services Satisfaction Rates 80 70 60 Basic Health Unit 50 Family Planning 40 School 30 Veterinary 20 Agriculture 10 Police 0 2004 2006 2008 2010

Figure 5.10: Public Services Satisfaction, D.G. Khan

Muzaffargarh Services Satisfaction 60 Rates

40 Basic Health Unit Family Planning 30 School 20 Veterinary Agriculture 10 Police 0 2004 2006 2008 2010

Figure 5.11: Public Services Satisfaction, Muzaffargarh

Source: Pakistan Social and Living Standard Measurement Surveys 2004-2010, Pakistan FBS

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again, considering the devastation floods in 2010 caused in this area, it is not surprising that satisfaction rates would drop.

The following table provides a look at two time periods for a variety of public goods variables. This reaffirms the better statistics for education in Muzaffargarh. D.G.

Khan does better in gender parity but overall attendance is lower. Muzaffargarh has always had better access to physical drinking water but D.G. Khan, which started off lower, did make a significant improvement in water access under the devolution period studied.

For excreta disposal, Muzaffargarh already had a near to 100% use of sanitary methods, but D.G. Khan showed a significant improvement in the time horizon. Health indicators showed similar levels of improvement in the measurement of care provided by a lady health worker, and they both had similar portions of the population within half hour of a health facility. Overall, there is no clear improvement in any one district in public goods though it seems evident that satisfaction rates were better in D.G. Khan than in Muzaffargarh.

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Table 5.6: Public Goods Indicators: Education, Health, and Infrastructure (Water and Sewerage)

D.G. Khan Muzaffargarh Public Goods Indicators 2003/4 2007/8 2003/4 2007/8 Literacy rate 10+ years 40 44 36 45 Net primary attendance rate (5-9) 34 33 30 40 Net middle/secondary attendance rate 22 16 19 17 Gender Parity Index Primary Education 0.76 1.01 0.74 0.88 Gender Parity Index for Middle/Secondary Education 0.73 0.5 0.67 Primary Educational Facility with 2 miles Government Boys 84 81 Physical Access to Drinking Water (within dwelling) 77 82 99 99 Use of improved drinking water sources 81 89 100 99 Use of sanitary means of excreta disposal 33 44 29 42 Care Provided by Lady Health Worker (LHW) 29 69 23 65 Physical Access to Health Facility within 1/2 Hour 59 57

Source: Dera Ghazi Khan Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) Punjab 2007-08, Muzaffargarh MICS Punjab 2007-08

IV. CONCLUSION

Though the lower tier village level surveys have supported the effects of political competition on local identities, we are unable to make comparisons at the district level.

Though villages in D.G. Khan are often homogeneous, the wealthy families of tribal leaders past and present have a strong role in politics and this manifests itself as identity camps fighting for control over resources of the district office. This gap between the

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people and the elite is further evidenced by the example of ambivalence of the district nazim Jamal Leghari in approving and releasing funds for CCBs in 2004 though 60 million were readily available and 57/154 registered CCBs had already paid 20% of the initial amount. A district council member stated this was due to lack of interest on the part of the nazim (Dawn Correspondent 2004a). When comparing Muzaffargarh and D.G.

Khan CCBs, there are more CCBs per person in D.G. Khan, than in Muzaffargarh: that is,

154 CCBs in D.G. Khan (10669 persons/CCB) in 2004, and 186 CCBs (14171 persons/CCB) registered in Muzaffargarh between 2003-2006 (Dawn Correspondent

2004a, Khan and Anjum, 2013). If one parses the D.G. Khan population to take out the tribal area, this difference is even more stark. This formation of CCBs is an example of overcoming the collective action problem to form groups for a purpose. This is indicative of the advantages of homogeneous localities.

The incidence of mass protests against district budgets by the people indicate a vocal population that is not necessarily complicit in these factions (Dawn Correspondent

2004b), but under the clientelist system of Pakistan politics, it is not easy for them to gain voice when the power gap is so great. Moreover, the indirect nature of the district nazim’s election makes it difficult for the people to directly influence the district nazim, who is after all the single individual with the most control of the budget. Hence, though we see that the attitudes of the local people are consistent with expectations of more homogeneous population and more conducive to better public goods outcomes, intervening variables such as clientelist politics and the politics of the district council form impediments in executing the preferences of the people. As illustrated in the

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surveys, D.G. Khan villagers were vocal in going to the Union Council to voice their complaints, but they gained little reaction. The protests in 2004 indicated the discontent over the budget by the people. The problems in passing the CCBs development scheme budget in 2009 also pointed to district politics slowing down the local government function.

In the case of Muzaffargarh, though the first phase of the local government was relatively uneventful, with the coming to power in 2005 with a candidate who was a member of the ruling party’s opposition, politics disrupted the function of government.

Yet, it was party politics that formed the divisions. Ultimately, Muzaffargarh did better in education, D.G. Khan did better in health, but overall devolution did not have any remarkable successes to boast of. As mentioned by analysts of devolution again and again, devolution was a mixed experiment with few if any significant advantageous trends (Cheema and Mohmand 2007). Ultimately, though the villagers in D.G. Khan depicted attitudes more conducive to choosing better community oriented policies and policymakers, the union council there was even less responsive than that in

Muzaffargarh. Politics at the higher district tier of government, along with the inability of the electorate to directly influence the district nazim, further reduced the chances of the people making use of the advantages offered by a government system that is closer to the people.

Khan, Khan and Akhtar (2008) explicate how the social system in Pakistan is vulnerable to elite capture and that the planners of devolution did not take this into consideration when forming the system. We see in both of our cases that elite had 198

influence noticed by the respondents on the union council, but this was especially evident in D.G. Khan. Part of this problem may well be due to lack of elite competition in a homogeneous polity as in the case of the surveyed D.G. Khan union council, whereas greater heterogeneity in Muzaffargarh may lead to more competition between the local elite and thus a lower level of elite capture.

Moreover, the dynamic of social organization in ethnic groups is an important factor in how preferences for public goods are shaped and the vertical power distance between the leaders and the mass. Even with a more diluted tribal system as witnessed in

D.G. Khan, even though the people were more likely to appeal to the union council for help, they were less likely to gain a positive response than in Muzaffargarh, where relatively few approached the local government. This social structure is rarely studied in studies of ethnic politics but it is evident in our case studies that it was an important factor in the witnessed outcomes. Hence, in the next chapter, we look in more detail in how the variation in hierarchical social organization affects public goods.

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Chapter 6 : Social Organization and Public Goods

I. INTRODUCTION

How does the social organization of a group affect the preferences of different ethnic groups for public goods? While it is often assumed that co-ethnics have common preferences within the group, less is known about how or why such preferences might vary across them. Variables that can co-vary with ethnicity such as economic class can affect the particular preferences of an ethnic group and explain some of this variation.

Similarly, social organization within an ethnic group can contribute to which public goods are given weight to. This chapter explores whether ethnic groups with greater internal hierarchy have lower public goods provision than ethnic groups with more horizontal relationships between them. Using three case districts from Balochistan that vary in levels of tribal hierarchy, I study whether this variation in social organization affects public goods outcomes and preferences.

I find that though district level data support the theory by indicating better public goods provision in the non-tribal district, especially if we focus and compare rural areas where the effect of tribalism is the least mitigated by urban influence, preferences for public goods over private goods in the surveyed areas are actually higher in the tribal areas. Though the respondents revealing these preferences may have been tainted by 200

proximity to urban areas, sense of community appears to be strong in tribal areas which might well explain the desire for public goods. However, what we also find is that elite capture appears to be the highest in the most tribal district. Since the elite here are usually synonymous with the tribal elders, it follows that they, rather than the commoners, would be more opposed to public goods such as education that may unravel the hierarchical relationships. Hence, difference in preferences for public goods of certain ethnic groups can be disproportionally driven by the preferences of the tribal elite explaining why regions of greater tribal hierarchy do less well in public goods provision.

The crucial analytical feature of social organization that drives these outcomes is the structure of power within the group. Though there is often discussion of power relationships between ethnic groups when studying castes in India or racial ethnicities

(Horowitz 1985), there is less study of the power relationships within an ethnic group.

This structure of power is manifested in the hierarchical relationships between the tribesmen and women and the leaders of each echelon of the tribe system. Tribalism itself entails the degree of hierarchy amongst a tribe. A more tribal society is one where the power and leverage of a tribal leader over the tribe is greater than a less tribal society that may still have a tribal leader, but his powers may be more marginal or even ceremonial.

Where inequality between the leaders and the mass is greater, there is less likelihood of the leaders promoting public goods that increase meaningful political participation

(Burguignon and Verdier 2000)—such as education, and infrastructure that connects individuals to the outside (telephones, televisions, internet, etc.). Across many measures, education has a tendency to decrease income inequality (Gylfason and Zoega 2003,

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Arthur and Vallejo 2012). Where it increases a voter’s ability to discern what policies would better benefit them, it can understandably play against the established political elite as more demands on sharing goods are voiced and expropriated (Burguignon and

Verdier 2000). Hence, we would expect that the greater the inequality in the tribes, the less incentive the tribal leaders have to endanger their share and position by promoting equalizing public goods.

There are two possible causal mechanisms underlying this possible correlation between greater inequality and lower public goods provision. One is that the preferences of the tribal leaders are absorbed by the tribe in general as in their forced isolation, social norms press the tribesmen and women to internalize the “tribe’s” preferences. Titus

(1998) finds that Baloch define honor in terms of their fulfilling their role in their tribe.

Hence, it would be a matter of honor to support the policies of the tribe, which are of course driven by the tribal leaders.

The second causal mechanism is that given the prevalence of patron client relationships in Pakistan, the tribal leaders politicize their roles and take control of the government entities determining the public policies to be put into place. As discussed in earlier chapters, elite capture is a danger in unequal societies. Here, a few empowered individuals can use their superior resources (here social capital as well as economic capital) to control the government. This is more likely in a society where clientelist politics predominate and political relationships are made through a few elite rather than a larger mass. Where elite capture is more prominent, the elite also have more control over public policy. The devolution period in Pakistan gives us an opportunity to observe 202

whether empowerment of the local government resulted in greater elite capture in polities with greater hierarchy. Coupled with public goods outcomes, this would allow us to observe the significance of elite capture in explaining how more unequal power relationships can translate to lower public goods provision.

To analyze this relationship between public goods and internal hierarchy, I study three districts in the province of Balochistan that vary by degree of tribalism: Gwadar

(Baloch ethnicity, non-tribal), Zhob (Pakhtun ethnicity, tribal), and Nushki (Baloch ethnicity, tribal). This encompasses the three categories of social organization in

Balochistan: Baloch nontribal, Baloch/Brahui tribal, and Pakhtun tribal17. I first compare district level public goods outcomes using the Government of Balochistan, Federal

Bureau of Statistics and UNICEF’s 2004 study as well as the Pakistan Social and Living

Standard Measurement Surveys conducted by the Federal Bureau of Statistics. The

Government District Database is used to gain information on social organization within these districts. However, this data is general and is limited in gaining an in-depth insight into local politics. The regions being studied are difficult to access and hence, have limited data available regarding them. As a part of this dissertation, I conducted in-depth surveys in union councils from all these districts through reputable NGOs.

These original surveys questioned residents not only on basic demographics and the level of development in terms of health, education and infrastructure, but also

17 Baloch and Brahui are not the same ethnicity and though there are some historical accounts linking them historically, there are others that indicate that their ancestry is completely distinct (Shah 1994). However, their structural organization is similar enough to allow them to be grouped together for the purpose of this study. It may well be why the 1998 Census also grouped Brahui and Baloch together for data on mother tongue (Population Census Organization 1998). 203

assessed their level of politicization and how they voted. The surveys were also used to gain a more nuanced understanding of the degree of hierarchy in the studied cases. To gather this data, 81 surveys were completed in Gwadar by the Rural Community

Development Center of Gwadar, and 70 surveys were conducted in Nushki and 70 in

Zhob by MAHEC Trust. The localities that were studied were each within 50km from a city, thus controlling for urban influence. One union council was chosen from each district (Surbandar in Gwadar, Shahbazai in Zhob, and Baghak Mal in Nushki) and two villages were surveyed within that union council.

The cases were selected on the basis of level of hierarchy. There are only three non-tribal districts in Balochistan. Considering that the other two, Kech and Turbat, were well known for their better rates of education as compared to Balochistan in general, I chose Gwadar to avoid bias, which if anything, gained a late start in school infrastructure compared to the average Balochistan district (Population Census Organization 1998). The tribal districts were chosen in conjunction with the recommendations of MAHEC Trust.

Due to the insecurity and violence in Balochistan during the time of this study, the most tribal regions were also the most inaccessible due to militancy and insurgency. Hence, though the original research design sought to use a more tribal Pakhtun district and a more tribal Baloch district, the latter was not possible. Barth (1969) and Titus (1998) both suggest that Pakhtun tribes are more egalitarian than Baloch tribes. However, the

Baloch tribal district was chosen due to its accessibility. Given that stronger Baloch tribalism was correlated with more hostility toward outsiders, this naturally biased my chosen tribal district against my theory. Nushki’s very ease of access suggested a softer

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tribalism and hence a less distinct difference in public goods outcomes between the case districts. However, although imperfect, this research design made it possible to carry out the survey research that otherwise would not have been feasible in this context.

II. HIERARCHY

A. Tribalism and Hierarchy

The assertion in this dissertation is that stronger hierarchical relationships within an ethnic group structure are not conducive for better provision of public goods. More tribal societies are where these hierarchical relationships between the tribal leaders and the tribe are more asymmetrical with greater power resting with the leaders. On the one hand, this power asymmetry engenders less incentive for tribal leaders to help educate and better politicize the tribe for fear that they will then be better able to demand goods and share the political and economic pie. Secondly, when the tribal leaders have more socioeconomic power in the society, unless they have competitors from other tribes/ethnicities sharing the polity, their organized hierarchical relationships ensure that the elite at the top will hold disproportional sway over the government, hence subjecting the government to elite capture. Given the small size of the union council polity under the

Local Government Ordinance, this ensured a greater likelihood of tribally homogeneous polities where tribal chiefs could more likely control the local government uncontested.

Keeping in mind that the union council was responsible for both identifying which development schemes would receive funding for from the district, how those funds were

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spent (including which infrastructure projects were given priority), and influencing who gained coveted jobs in government run health centers as well as schools, who the union council nazim listened to and felt accountable to would significantly impact public goods provision in a polity.

To capture how tribal hierarchy affects public goods preferences and outcomes, I divide my district cases by linguistic ethnicity and by whether they are tribal or non- tribal. Table 6.1 categorizes Balochistan’s districts by both linguistic ethnicity18 and tribal variables. (Districts in bold were those surveyed for this dissertation.)The reason I add in linguistic ethnicity is because there are certain nuances to tribal hierarchy that cannot simply be grasped by whether there is a tribal chief. It is a common perception both amongst locals and in literature (Barth 1969, Titus 1998, Rolls 2008) that Pakthun tribes are more egalitarian than the Baloch ones. Though in my survey analysis I attempt to decompress hierarchy using observable categories to compare hierarchy in the tribal districts, without available data objectively listing the degree of tribalism in different districts, the linguistic measure was used as a first pass in choosing two tribal districts that would be expected to vary in tribalism. The non-tribal district choice was more clear- cut as there were no tribal chiefs or tribal leaders in that society.

18 I dichotomize ethno-linguistic identity as Pakhtun (Pashto speakers) or Baloch. There are significant portions of population in border districts such as Lasbela that speak Sindhi. However, not only is this linguistic identity not very politicized, but there are cases where people speaking different languages such as Sindhi or Balochi actually trace ancestry to the same tribe. During my interviews in the Balochistan provincial secretariat (10/16/2008, 10/17/2008), multiple individuals mentioned that members of the same tribe in these border regions can have different mother tongues. Since the purpose of this linguistic dichotomization is to focus on how Pakhtun and Baloch tribes have different hierarchical tribal structures (as well as focusing on politicized ethno-linguistic cleavages), I limit my categorization to Baloch (Balochi speaking) and Pakhtun (Pashto speaking) demarcations. 206

With this categorization, I expect that the less tribal the district, the better performance in terms of public goods outcomes. I then assess both public goods preferences and levels of elite capture in my survey analysis to better map the trajectory that takes level of tribalism to performance in public goods.

Table 6.1: Balochistan Districts by Tribalism and Linguistics Non- Tribal Tribal Baloch/Brahui Barkhan Gwadar Dera Bugti Kech Kohlu Panjgur Bolan Jaffarabad Jhal Magsi Nasirabad Kalat Khuzdar Mastung Awaran Kharan Washuk Chaghi Nushki Sibi Mixed Quetta Pakhtun Harnai Pishin Killa Abdullah Ziarat Loralai Killa Saifullah Zhob Musa Khel Sherani Source: Balochistan District Database

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B. Measuring Hierarchy

“This council (Jirga)…is the central institution on which the whole tribal structure rests. In it the hierarchy of tribal leaders, the organs of external administration, and the framework of sections meet and articulate in a manner that is decisive to the function of each” (Pehrson 1982, 23).

The tribal or Sardari (where Sardar is a generic term for leader) system in Balochistan is thought to have initiated as an organization of fighting men, where hierarchy was imperative for a clear line of authority (Pehrson 1982). Though wars are limited (though feuds and fighting continue), the Jirga, literally the council of elders, provides a mirror image of the hierarchical relationships between different tribal leaders and the common tribes people. Amongst the Baloch, the Tumandar is the tribal chief and amongst the

Pathan, the tribal chief is often designated as the Khan, though the generic term Sardar is often used in both linguistic groups. Tribes are divided into clans and further kinship groups branch off from clans. A Jirga can be held at different levels of the tribe. If the dispute is within clan, the Jirga will be held within the clan with clan leaders, known as waderas (other terms include malik) presiding over the Jirga along with other high ranking members of the clan. If the dispute is between clans, then higher echelon leaders such as the Tumandar (tribal chief) or his representative will preside.

The Jirga system in Balochistan is estimated to have existed more than 600 years ago (Shah 1994). However, its more institutionalized form can be traced to the reign of

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Nasir Khan in the late 18th century. After colonialization, the British further institutionalized the Jirga as part of their local government system, adding alterations to the preexisting system. Balochistan was divided into Native Balochistan and British

Balochistan, where the former was indirectly ruled through treaties with the chiefs of the princely states (namely the Khan of Kalat) and the latter was directly ruled. Sardars (the head of the tribe) were given more composite power under the British, reducing the ability of the tribe to hold the Sardar accountable as this new power source for the Sardar was external to the tribe, and enhancing Britain’s ability to rule indirectly by patronizing the few chiefs rather than the many commoners (Shah 1994, Titus 1998). A political agent, along with his subordinate administrative members, was responsible for appointing members to the tribal council using the Sardar’s name to add legitimacy. Though British authority no longer exists, the remnants of the administrative system still exist and the

Balochi government works with the tribal elders to ensure law and order. Balochistan has been divided into A and B areas, where the much fewer A areas have a police system.

The majority B areas are policed by levies that are not strictly police but are local militia that traditionally helped enforce Jirga decisions and have divided loyalties between the government and the tribe (Pehrson 1982, Raza 2012).

When a dispute arises, the tribal council convenes, reviews the evidence and determines a verdict on the basis of customary law, also known as riwaj in many Balochi tribal areas. Pehrson’s 1950’s anthropological study examined the customs of the Marri tribe that reside mainly in the Kohlu district, but many of the customs hold for other tribal systems in Balochistan as well. In his ethnographic study, he witnessed that the

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commoner could bring his case to the Jirga, but then he had to hold silent for the remainder of the session. He could not join the discussion regarding his case. Therefore, people would not even present their case to a Jirga unless they had the assurance from one of the members/leaders beforehand that the leader would argue for their benefit. This power of the tribal council naturally led to extensive opportunities for bribery.

Unfortunately for the commoner, the council member accepting the money did not ensure that he would speak out for their benefit when the time came (Pehrson, 1982). Besides the fees associated with using the Jirga to settle a dispute, this bribery became an important method for tribal leaders to gain funds from their positions.

It is to be noted that though tribal elders are traditionally related to the royal line of chiefs (Shah 1994), it was not a necessary condition after British rule. In fact, the

British encouraged Sardars to appoint the title of Mukadam to individuals of wealth and influence to counter balance the clan hereditary leaders called Waderas. This led to multiple individuals holding a similar position of leadership, which blurred the lines of clear authority in the tribe. However, though personal influence was important in choosing which tribal leaders gained prominent positions in the tribal council, hereditary power predominated in the Jirga and hence the tribal power structure.

Amongst the Pakhtun, the northern Pakhtun that live in what was once North

West Frontier Province but now designated as Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the Jirga was a system that helped establish and reinforce equality amongst individuals (Titus 1998). All members had equal right to speak and decisions were taken unanimously, where negotiations and discussion would continue until a consensus was reached (Titus 1998). 210

However, the southern Pakhtun that reside in northern Balochistan have a more hierarchical structure that partially emulated the southern Baloch and the hereditary leaders hold more sway on Jirga decision making. They too, like their southern Baloch neighbors, had British colonialists backing hereditary leaders to maintain law and order in their region.

However, Pakhtun fiercely value their independence as well as having strong religious values that counter their tribal loyalty. Both of these characterizations cross cut and limit the power of their leader. Moreover, having more sedentary lifestyles than their more nomadic Baloch counterparts, the same land is parceled through and subdivided between successive generations, leading to much violent in-fighting amongst families that is largely responsible for the ‘honor in vengeance’ trait associated with the Pakhtun.

This scarcity of land is also responsible for the large amount of out migration in the region (Titus 1998). Their history as nomadic traders and this outmigration combined with their entrepreneurial spirit has led to vast networks of Pakhtun ranging from

Afghanistan to India. This combined with their dedication to hard work and desire for individual aggrandizement (sometimes read as greed by their adversaries) has led to their economic success relative to the Baloch in a province in which they are yet a minority

(almost 30% spoke Pushto in 1998 according to the census of that year and though the massive migration of Afghan refugees has increased their numbers and added to the ethnolinguistic clashes, they are still a minority). Though tribe and Jirga are important for even the citified Pakhtun, this striving for individual economic success leads to better reception of education and greater decentralization of their tribal system. They

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economically dominate Quetta, Balochistan’s provincial capital, and disproportionally dominate the civil bureaucracy due to their superior education levels.

Conversely, Baloch are more likely to uphold their tribal hierarchy. Honor is defined within their role in the tribe. Though the greater number of Baloch understandably leads to their greater presence in politics in Balochistan, it is notable that much of the Balochi representatives are themselves sardars who carry over their tribes as their constituencies. Most of the independents running for political positions are in fact sardars (Titus 1998). Conversely, in Pakhtun areas in Balochistan, tribal leaders are not so politically successful. They often lose political battles to religious leaders or middle class Pakhtun (Titus 1998). Again, this represents the difference between the form tribal loyalties take between the Pakhtun and the Baloch/Brahui in Balochistan.

Another telling facet of the tribal distinctions between the Pakhtun and Baloch structure is the assimilation of outsiders into the tribe. In the Baloch tribal structure, an outsider can petition to be a part of the tribe, swear allegiance to the tribal chief, marry someone within the tribe, and his children will be considered a part of the tribe (Pehrson

1982). There is no such assimilation process amongst the Pakhtun. Pakhtuns marry within

Pakhtuns. It is exactly the stricter hierarchy amongst the Baloch that allows assimilation of outsiders without threatening their identity. The more egalitarian structure of the

Pakhtun relies on using endogamy to maintain the integrity of their identity.

It is this assessment of the distinctions between the Pakhtun and the Baloch cultures that has led to the preliminary assumption that Pakhtun tribes are more likely to

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be egalitarian than Baloch tribes. As categorized in Table 6.1, districts are grouped by the dichotomous variable of tribal or nontribal, and Pakhtun or Baloch. The ethno-linguistic demarcation of the districts is based on data on 1998 Census data on mother tongue as well as the Balochistan District Database hosted by the Balochistan provincial secretariat and the dichotomous designation of the districts as tribal or non-tribal relies on the social organization information from the same District Database. This categorization is used in

Section III to conduct a district level analysis of Balochistan comparing districts across ethnolinguistic designation and tribal designation to ascertain whether language and tribalism are key variables in determining select public good outcome differences.

However, even in tribal systems, the level of hierarchy can vary. Barth (1969) proclaims Pakhtun (also called Pathan, or Pushto) tribes to be more egalitarian than

Balochi tribes. Even as early as the gazetteers originally written in the beginning of the

20th century by British anthropologists, there is a distinction marked between the Baloch and the Pakhtun tribes. The latter are thought to come to their decisions in a more egalitarian manner in the Jirga, whereas with Baloch tribes the decision is considered to be made more top to bottom (Bokhari, 1997). Barth (1969) also remarks on how the

Pakhtun in Balochistan live at the boundary between the Pakhtun in the now Khyber

Pakhtunkhwa province and the Baloch in the south, and years of proximity with the

Baloch has lessened the divide between the two tribal systems. Yet, levels of hierarchy among the Baloch tribes also vary. Districts that border other provinces have greater external influences that may lessen tribal influence. For example, the district Lasbela is near Pakistan’s economic power horse, its largest city Karachi. Due to workers migrating

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there for work, the exposure to the outside is reducing tribal culture (Balochistan District

Database). A similar story can be told in other districts as well. Hence, not all Baloch tribes need have a more hierarchical structure than Pakhtun tribes.

To conduct a more in-depth analysis of the effect on public goods outcomes by variations in tribalism, I study three districts that vary in hierarchy in Section IV. The chosen districts are Gwadar, which is Baloch non-tribal, Nushki, which is Baloch tribal

(albeit a more diluted tribalism than traditional Baloch tribes such as the renowned militant Bugti and Marri tribes), and Zhob, which is Pakhtun tribal. I further define hierarchy using a five point measure to compare hierarchy in the three districts: (1) existence of tribal chief (2) existence of taxes paid to the chief (3) conditions for Jirga membership (4) the authority making decisions in the Jirga and (5) whether the property the individual resides on is communal or private. Communal property is associated with tribesmen historically paying for grazing rights to the Sardar, though in some cases this practice is obsolete (Pehrson 1982), and also gives the Sardar additional leverage on the tribe as the controlling authority of the land.

III. BALOCHISTAN DISTRICTS, ETHNO-LINGUISTIC IDENTITY, AND

TRIBALISM

To begin my analysis of the relationship between tribalism (which is the existence of hierarchical relationships within a tribe and in this section limited to the simplest and dichotomous definition of the existence of a tribal chief) and public goods outcomes, I

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analyze the public goods profile of two of the most renowned tribal districts in

Balochistan: Dera Bugti, home to the Bugti tribe, and Kohlu, home to the Marri tribe.

These tribes are emblematic of tribal culture and even during the period of British

Balochistan, though they were considered to be under direct rule, they were categorized as “tribal areas” (Shah 1992). Studying the districts housing these symbolic tribes can provide us with a preliminary insight into the potential significance of tribalism in undermining public goods provision. Following this exposition, I move on to comparing districts by ethno-linguistic identity and dichotomous tribal/non-tribal designation to determine whether this categorization significantly affects public goods outcomes in education, health, and infrastructure. The expectation is that Pakhtun districts should do better than Baloch districts in public goods performance, and non-tribal districts should do better than tribal districts.

A. Dera Bugti and Kohlu

The districts attributed with the strongest tribal culture in Balochistan are Dera Bugti, home to the Bugti tribe, and Kohlu, home to the Marri tribe. Even though these regions were considered under British Balochistan, they were designated as “Tribal Areas” (Shah

1994). The Tumandars and other leaders of the Bugti tribe and the Marri tribe are attributed with being behind some of the major insurgencies in Balochistan fighting for secession from Pakistan (Tahir 2008). Considering that the history of tribalism in

Balochistan is rooted in military expeditions, it is no surprise that the militancy associated

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with this tribe is accompanied by strong hierarchical relationships between the leadership and the tribesmen and women.

Table 6.3 illustrates how public goods indicators for these tribal districts compared to those of other Balochistan districts, while Table 6.2 provides basic district statistics. Dera

Bugti performs the worst in Balochistan in terms of education indicators and performs consistently below average on health and infrastructure/utility access as well. Kohlu also performs under the median for education figures and all other figures with the exception of seeking health provider and seeking government health facility. Interestingly, both districts do abysmally in birth care with a skilled attendant. This is indicative of the lower significance given to women in more tribal societies.

Table 6.2: Balochistan Provincial Statistics Compared to Dera Bugti and Kohlu Districts Population Area Population Density ELF Balochistan Min 1489 33340 4 0.01 Max 50545 760000 286.45 0.77 Mean 13353.46 250000 43.13 0.26 Median 7703 22000 23.27 0.12 Dera Bugti 10160 181310 17.84547 0.081 Kohlu 7610 99846 13.12037 0.163 Source: Population Census Organization 1998

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Before leaping to the conclusion that more tribal societies are indeed less likely to provide public goods, it is important to map out other important variables that affect public goods provision—namely variables affecting income. There are no income figures by district available for Balochistan districts. However, livestock forms an important

Table 6.3: Balochistan Provincial Statistics on Public Goods Indicators as Compared to Dera Bugti and Kohlu Balochistan: Dera Min Max Mean Median Kohlu Bugti Primary Net 3 47 24.11 23 3 17 Enrollment 2004 Primary Net 12 70 46.27 53.5 12 28 Enrollment 2010 Literacy 10+ 10 59 26.15 24 10 18 Seeking Health 15 95 64.7 68 38 92 Provider Seeking Government 2 85 42.59 38 13 80 Health Facility Birth using Skilled 0 74 19.74 13 2 1 Attendant % Housholds with No 0.3 95.3 48.24 45 91.9 94.2 Utilities* Drinking Water Access 4 93 30.48 27 6 9 in Household Source: Federal Bureau of Statistics 2010 for enrollment data for 2010, Government of Balochistan Planning and Development Department et al. 2004 for the remaining data.

*Utilities: Electricity Gas, Water Connection, Cable TV, Internet

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Table 6.4: Income Proxies Using Assets for Balochistan Districts Median Mean land value Livestock of % Own Value for % Have landowners agriculture Owners Livestock (in lakh) land Kohlu 3.7 73.8 Jaffarabad 10 22.5 Musa Khel 1.7 78.1 Quetta Chiltan 5 12.4 Loralai 1.6 3.8 Pishin 3 29.5 Pishin 1.3 8.6 Mastung 3 38.3 Khuzdar 1.3 71.1 Loralai 2.5 21.6 Quetta Chiltan 1.1 5.2 Zhob 2.5 78 Dera Bugti 1.1 96.7 Gwadar 2.5 20.1 Zhob 1 77.7 Kalat 2.3 55.6 Barkhan 0.9 85.2 Awaran 2 49.7 Jhal Magsi 0.8 86.4 Chaghai 2 29.3 Jaffarabad 0.7 68 Barkhan 1.8 81.8 Kharan 0.7 36.1 Dera Bugti 1.6 36.2 Sibi 0.6 36.7 Sibi 1.6 24.7 Quetta Mastung 0.6 26.4 Zarghoon 1.5 4 Ziarat 0.5 26.3 Kharan 1.5 47 Killa Saifullah 0.5 87.7 Khuzdar 1.3 65.9 Kalat 0.5 46.7 Ziarat 1.1 85.7 Lasbela 0.5 68 Jhal Magsi 1 47.2 Awaran 0.5 88.4 Nasirabad 1 23.9 Bolan 0.4 52.9 Lasbela 1 52.3 Nasirabad 0.4 36.2 Kech 1 34.8 Chaghai 0.4 14.5 Musa Khel 0.8 69.3 Panjgur 0.3 50.5 Killa Abdullah 0.7 63.5 Gwadar 0.3 55.6 Panjgur 0.7 43.9 Quetta Zarghoon 0.2 2.7 Kohlu 0.6 31.2 Killa Abdullah 0.2 57 Killa Saifullah 0.5 83 Kech 0.2 80.6 Bolan 0.4 23.4 Source: Government of Balochistan Planning and Development Department et al. District Based Multiple Indicators Cluster Survey 2004

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means of livelihood in Balochistan, especially given their historically nomadic lifestyle

(District Database Balochistan, Pehrson 1982, Shah 1994). Agriculture is also an important form of income for many of these districts. Above are the lists of districts by highest to lowest mean value of livestock and agricultural land in lakh Rupees as well as the percentage of households that own livestock and agriculture. This is a simple method of assessing whether Dera Bugti and Kohlu have assets that are generally lower than other districts, which might help explain their poor performance in public goods.

Dera Bugti is by no means below the median in either livestock ownership or ownership of land. Though less than half the households own land, they in no way are the worst off in terms of value of agricultural land compared to other Baloch districts. Kohlu as well relies heavily on livestock ownership and compared to other Balochistan’s district, has the highest mean value of livestock, though only a small portion of the population own agriculture land. This emphasis on livestock is consistent with the history of nomadic lifestyle among Balochi tribes. Yet, though Kohlu and Dera Bugti do relatively well in one of the key assets in Balochistan (i.e. livestock), they perform poorly in development of public services.

Of course, not all districts rely heavily on livestock. Quetta is the capital city and the urbanized population would have little need for livestock. Moreover, Balochi districts tend to have higher ownership of livestock compared to their more northern Pakhtun brethren. Regardless, this does suggest that finances alone cannot explain the paltry performance of Dera Bugti and Kohlu on public services, particularly in education and utility access that would link them to the outside world. 219

This seeming correlation of low public good outcomes with tribalism becomes even more significant when we consider that the Bugti Sardar (tribal chief) was receiving 120 million Rs. in land rent for the natural gas found in the district, as well as monthly payments of 2 million for providing security (Siddiqui 2005, Chandran 2006).

Considering the communal nature of tribal land in many Balochi tribes, including the

Bugti tribe, one would think these funds would be redistributed to the people. Granted

Balochistan had a small budget passed on to it from the center, but Dera Bugti had extra funds coming in through their rents. Yet, they have the lowest indicators in public services compared to other Balochistan districts suffering from the same lack of government distributed funds and the same arid, dry desert conditions. This result, along with anecdotal evidence, is strongly suggestive of a link between strong tribalism and lower public service delivery.

B. Ethno-Linguistic Identity and Tribalism

Though this study started with the assumption that the linguistic Pathan tribal structure was more egalitarian, it was quite soon evident from the data that on average, there is not a stark difference in tribalism between the Pakhtun and the Baloch. Barth

(1969) mentions that proximity of the Pakhtun with the Baloch tribes in northern

Balochistan has lessened the disparity in their tribal structure, with the Pakhtun in northern Balochistan closely resembling the hierarchy of the Baloch tribes, unlike their brethren in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Table 6.5 below indicates that on average, neither

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education nor government health stand out as significantly different between the two linguistic groups. Significance tests using both ANOVA and Wilcoxon-Mann-Whitney tests were run and confirmed no significant difference between the two populations at the

10% level . Both groups are within one standard deviation of the other. Tribalism varies within these linguistic groups and linguistic affiliation alone does not help us determine which aggregate group is more hierarchical.

Table 6.5: Education and Health by Ethno-Linguistic Identity

Balochi/Brahui Pashtu Mean House Value of Homeowners 0.925 (0.49) 0.988 (0.44)

Net Primary Enrollment 2004 21.75 (8.10) 22.5 (11.02)

Use of Government Health Facilities 40.43 (26.82) 55.88(26.57) Source: Govt. of Balochistan, Planning and Development Department et al. 2004

In terms of tribal districts, there are only three districts in Balochistan that are consensually agreed upon as non-tribal. These are Kech (also known as Turbat), Panjgur, and Gwadar. The other districts all have some level of tribalism. With such few observations for non-tribal districts in an already small sample size, any statistical significance using ANOVA tests would be questionable; hence, I rely solely on the

Wilcoxon-Mann-Whitney rank sum test for significance results. This nonparametric test relies on simply ranking the observations from each category and then comparing them to test the null that the results from both categories are as if from the same population. 221

The sample size is 25 observations, with Quetta eliminated from the dataset as on outlier as it is the provincial capital and largest urban center in Balochistan. This small sample excludes running a reliable, robust regression. However, to ensure that non-tribal districts do not have significant advantages in the form of smaller area and higher income, I use the Wilcoxon-Mann-Whitney rank sum analysis on these contextual variables to garner significance.

Table 6.6: Area, Population Density, and Income Proxies Non-Tribal Districts Tribal Districts Area (sq km) 17355 (4967) 13294 (14457) Population Density (persons/sq km) 15 (2) 35 (39) Own House with Value (percentage) 92% (3) 80% (20) Mean House Value (in Rs lakh) 1.33 (0.55) 0.92 (0.44) Mean Agricultural Value (in Rs lakh) 1.4 (0.96) 1.92 (1.97) Mean Livestock Value (in Rs lakh) 0.27 (0.06) 0.90 (0.74) Income Index (HDI) 0.23 (0.17) 0.31 (0.21)

Source: Govt. of Balochistan Planning and Development et al. 2004 for all figures except for the Income Index, which is from Pakistan NHDR 2003.

The only significant difference between non-tribal and tribal districts is in the mean livestock value, which is greater in tribal districts than in non-tribal districts.

Otherwise, the two regions do not significantly differ with respect to area, population

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density, or asset (such as mean house value, whether they own a home) ownership.

Considering how particularly area and population density are perhaps the most cited reasons for underdevelopment in Balochistan, these variables are essential to control for before proceeding to comparisons of indicators of public goods provision.

For proxy indicators for provision of public services, I look at net primary school enrollment for children aged 5-9 for both 2004 and 2010, literacy levels, and percentage of population that lives within 2 km of a school. For health, I look at how many births used trained birth assistants (TBAs), the percentage of population that sought consultation when sick, and the percentage that used government health facilities when ill. For infrastructure, I look at percentage of population that has no access to utilities such as water connection, internet, cable, gas, electricity, and telephone. I also look at the percentage of population that has access to drinking water in the household. Table 6.7 below provides the mean figures in each category for non-tribal districts and tribal districts.

It is evident from Table 6.7 that non-tribal districts do better in all public goods indicators on average but only significantly so in a few: they have significantly fewer girls who never enroll (at the 5% level), they have a significantly more literate population

(at the 10% level), they have significantly more mothers assisted by trained birth assistants (at the 5% level), and they are significantly more likely to have drinking water access within the household (at the 5% level). Given the small sample size, finding significance in these groups suggests a large disparity in the said categories.

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For the remaining variables, we can draw no conclusions. The consistency in better indicators for the non-tribal districts is suggestive, but with such a small sample size, we cannot form solid conclusions and it is difficult to find significant relationships. Looking at the four significant indicators, it is striking that two are related to females: female education, and mothers going into labor.

Table 6.7: Public Goods Provision Indicators for Education, Health, and Infrastructure Non- Tribal Tribal Districts Districts % Live within 2km of 88.33 79.55 School (13.61) (12.09) % Net Primary 28.33 21.45 Enrollment 2004 (6.43) (8.94) % Net Primary 44.2 Enrollment 2010 51 (5.29) (18.54) 48.67 72.05 % Girls Never Enroll (8.50) (12.79) 32.67 22.73 % Literacy (9.45) (6.27) 13.05 % Used TBA 39 (15.72) (12.95) % Sought Health 61.32 Consultation 73 (17.06) (21.83) % Used Government 61.33 42.41 Facilities (6.81) (27.99) % Drinking Water in 43.33 Household (7.57) 24 (11.74) 50.57 52.1 % Access to No Utility (5.45) (25.38) Source: Govt. of Balochistan Planning and Development et al. 2004 for all data except Net Primary Enrollment 2010 obtained from Pakistan Federal Bureau of Statistics PSLM Surveys 2010-11

*Observations in bold are significant at a 10% level of significance or lower

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Tribal systems are often patriarchal, and those in Balochistan are infamous for oppressive treatment of women. It is unsurprising then that the disparity in how women are treated between tribal and non-tribal systems within the same province is great enough to overcome the small sample size and be found to be significant.

Besides the small sample size that disallows conclusive large n analysis, there is another issue with conducting analysis by dichotomously categorizing districts as non- tribal and tribal. That is, there is variation between tribal districts in the extent of tribal control over people’s lives that the leadership has through hierarchical relationships. In the next section, I attempt to gauge some of this variation in tribalism by using three district case studies in Balochistan, rather than two dichotomous tribal/non-tribal cases.

Preliminary selection for selecting districts varying in tribal power relied on ethnolinguistic differences in the tribes, working with the assumption that Pakhtun tribal systems would be less hierarchical in power distribution. However, after collecting the data, the districts are ranked in level of tribalism using surveyed measures. Though I could unfortunately not access a more tribal Balochi district due to security reasons, this survey study allows me to assess how varied tribalism affects attitudes on politics and public goods and whether these can affect public goods provision.

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IV. CASE STUDIES

A. Case Selection

For my case study analysis, I study the districts Gwadar, one of the three non-tribal districts, Nushki, a Baloch tribal district, and Zhob, a Pakhtun tribal district. The other two non-tribal districts are known for their relatively higher human development figures in Balochistan and hence were avoided to limit selection bias. An attempt was made to try to minimize the area difference between the districts, but this was somewhat problematic. As mentioned before, there were limited Baloch tribal areas open for survey.

After the assassination of Nawab Akbar Bugti, the Sardar (or more correctly Tumandar, i.e. tribal chief) of the Bugti tribe in 2006 by President Musharraf’s regime, Balochistan became politically volatile and even more unstable and prone to violence and anti- establishment than it was already. There were few Balochi tribal districts deemed safe enough for the NGO Mahec trust to venture into. Districts where there were multiple powerful tribes politically vying for control of the district such as in Khuzdar and Kharan were avoided. Though tribal homogeneity could not be fully ascertained at the district level, the Baloch tribal district chosen was one where there is limited tribal rivalry.

Chagai was originally selected for these reasons. Given that with the passage of the Local

Governance Ordinance, several new districts were created in Balochistan, Nushki was separated from the larger Chagai. Chagai’s area was so large that it was more pragmatic to choose a smaller Nushki than to choose Chagai, which even after bifurcation was an outlier in terms of large area size. This is how the Balochi tribal district Nushki was

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chosen, where expediency concerns had to outweigh choosing exemplary cases of tribal societies from each ethno-linguistic category.

Therefore, there is not as strong a hierarchical difference between Nushki and Zhob as may be expected from a Baloch tribal area and a Pakhtun tribal area. In order to ascertain and ensure which tribal district had a more hierarchical social organization, five measures were used to rank the degree of tribalism. These measures gauged the existence of a tribal chief, how the Jirga system functions and the consolidation of the decision making power among the tribal elite, whether respondents paid taxes to the chief and whether they lived on communal land. Where it is clearly established that a select elite have greater authority in making decisions for the tribe, it is evident that hierarchical relationships are intrinsic to its ethnic structure.

More specifically, twenty male head of households were asked five questions to try to establish a sense of the power the tribal elders have over the mass. First of all, both districts have a tribal chief (Gwadar does not and none of the other questions are applicable as they do not hold Jirga councils for dispute settlement). Respondents were asked if they live on communal tribal land. All respondents in Nushki live on communal land whereas only two of the respondents in Zhob lived on communal land. When respondents were asked whether they pay tax to their tribal (or sub tribal) leader, which was once common for grazing rights on communal land (Shah 1994), no one in Nushki acknowledged any form of taxation whereas the two respondents who lived on communal land in Zhob paid some form of tax though the 17 others living on private property did not. This differentiates Nushki from the tribes in Marri and Bugti that do pay some form 227

of tax to their leaders (Titus 1998). The two who paid tax in Zhob both stipulated that there was no overt enforcement, though one categorized it as completely voluntary and the other attached social stigma with noncompliance. Given that all Nushki residents live on communal land and few Pakhtun did so (this is consistent with Titus (1998)’s exposition of the two systems where Baloch tribes are more likely to have communal land than the Pakhtun, who value private property that is the cause of so much in- fighting), this suggests stronger leverage for Nushki tribal leaders.

The remaining two questions focus on the Jirga (the adjudicating council settling disputes) membership and decision making. There is no clear cut line on membership, but

Zhob respondents were significantly (using the Wilcoxon Mann Whitney rank sum test) more likely to believe all male members could be a part of the Jirga (68.42%), whereas from those in Nushki who responded definitively, half believed all males were members

(38.89% of total respondents) whereas half stipulated that though attendance was universally allowed amongst men, only certain members could speak during the proceedings (38.89% of total respondents). When asked about who makes the decisions in the Jirga, the vast majority of respondents in both districts mentioned the importance of lineage linked to the tribal chief as well as good reputation.

In sum, the difference between the two tribal areas is not stark. However, given the larger communal area in Nushki which gives tribal leaders more leverage on its tribesmen and women, as well as less clarity in the common member being allowed to speak in a

Jirga, the Nushki tribal system would appear to be more hierarchical. This designation is also validated when we look at the figures for party support, which can cut across tribal 228

loyalties and hence, reduce tribal power. In survey analysis, all 38 respondents in Zhob mentioned a political party that they supported (relevant for MPA and MNA elections, not for local government elections). In Nushki, however, only 49% of 53 respondents supported a political party. This result is consistent with the aforementioned trend of

Baloch Sardars running as independents but Pakhtun voting for religious leaders (almost

85% of the respondents in Zhob supported a religious political party). Moreover, it is notable that only 20% of Zhob respondents felt the tribal leader backed the Union

Council nazim, whereas in Nushki, 60% of respondents believed that the Union Council nazim was backed by either the tribal or subtribal leader. Hence, it is clear that the tribal leader is severely limited as the political leader in Zhob, and hence, has less political power than the tribal leader in Nushki.

When we focus on the Jirga structure, the proximity of the two has chipped away at more prominent differences to indicate similar hierarchical structures. Though Barth

(1969) and Titus (1998) speak of the egalitarian Pathan, perhaps in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa we would see egalitarian jirgas that relied more on unanimous decision making, but as evidenced by this survey analysis, in the boundary between the Baloch and the Pakhtun province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the Pakhtun tribes have assimilated the Baloch tribal structure where the hereditary lineage of tribal leaders holds the most power in decision making, and this hierarchy was further perpetuated by the British colonialists.

Since Pakhtun districts tend to be smaller than Balochi districts, I chose Zhob, the largest Pakhtun district in Balochistan, to minimize the area discrepancy. Zhob had also been subdivided into two districts, and the figures below reflect what the area and 229

population in the new boundaries of Zhob would be using the 1998 Population Census.

Even though Nushki is now the smallest district area wise, it had for a large time before its separation been a part of the largest district in Balochistan, i.e. Chagai. Moreover, all non-tribal districts have large areas, and given the large area of Gwadar, Zhob was selected to try to match it. Hence, given the predominance of area as the main problem cited for development, a significant attempt was made to account for this during case selection.

Table 6.8: Area and Population of Case Districts

Gwadar Nushki Zhob Area (sq km) 12637 5797 15987 Population (1998 census) 185498 98030 193458 Population Density 14.7 16.9 12.1 Source: Population Census Organization, Census 1998

Income in the area is difficult to determine as there are no official figures. The following table lists a number of proxy income variables to allow some comparison of income between districts. Some of the figures refer to the entire Chagai district rather than Nushki as they were formulated before the subdivision of Nushki into a separate district. These figures are marked with an asterisk.

It is difficult to compare income levels given such rudimentary information. The income index from the 2003 Pakistan National Human Development Report is specific but as noted earlier in the dissertation, it focuses on manufacturing and agricultural output 230

for its figures. Gwadar relies heavily on fishing for its production and income, and all districts have laborers that are working outside the district and sending back remittances.

Table 6.9: Income Proxies for Gwadar, Nushki and Zhob Districts

Gwadar Nushki Zhob PFC Release 2007-8 (in Rs millions) 212.616 214.993 262.678 % Own Homes with Value 91.6 88.5* 85.3 % Have Livestock 55.6 14.5* 77.7 % Own Agricultural Land 20.1 29.3* 78 Income Index from HDI 0.04 0.267* 0.301

Sources: 1. PFC Release from Provincial Secretariat, Balochistan

2. % Own Homes with Value, % Have Livestock, %Own Agricultural Land from Government of Balochistan, Planning and Development et al. 2004

3. Income index from HDI from Pakistan NHDR 2003 (*values for Nushki are values for Chagai)

Looking at assets, it is evident that Zhob’s economy is much more reliant on agriculture, which probably also explains how it has the highest income index value given that agriculture is calculated for within this index. Analyzing the PFC releases for the district and the percentage of population that own homes of value indicates that if nothing else, there is not a large discrepancy in income in these areas, either for the district or personal income. Given the impoverished localities that are being studied here, simple indicators such as owning homes with value provide a good rule of comparison for the relative wealth of the districts. Unlike livestock and agricultural land ownership that are only

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good indicators of income if we assume they provide the lion’s share of the economy, the need for a home is ubiquitous and hence provides a standard in assets that can be compared across districts. Altogether, though these districts are by no means perfectly controlled for, none stands out as having a distinct advantage that would translate to an easy a priori assumption of better goods provision.

The next section provides public goods provision comparisons at the district level using published government data. Subsequently, I move to the union council level for each district to compare the results of the survey analysis that form the backbone of this study.

B. Public Goods Figures at the District Level

Table 6.10 illustrates indicators for education, health and infrastructure in terms of utility access for households. Theory, as discussed in this dissertation, would suggest that non-tribal Gwadar should do better in terms of public goods provision than tribal Nushki or Zhob. Moreover, if the effect of tribalism is not simply dichotomous but rather more deleterious on public goods provision as tribal hierarchy and asymmetrical power increases, than we would expect Nushki to do less well than Zhob in public goods outcomes.

In terms of district level indicators, Gwadar does better than Nushki or Zhob for the education indicators of net primary enrollment for ages 4-9, as well as for literacy levels for the population above 10 years of age. Another notable point on education is that Gwadar, the non-tribal district in this sample, has the lowest gender difference in

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both education and literacy. It is true that population density is lowest in Zhob, but the gender difference cannot be explained by this fact.

Table 6.10: Education, Health and Infrastructure Indicators

Gwadar Nushki Zhob Education: Net Primary Enrollment 51 30 27 Gender Difference in NPE 9 13 17 Literacy 10+ 50 43 32 Gender Difference in Literacy 36 41 37 Total Number of Schools 247 209 326 Health: Children Immunized 12-23 Months 43 70 85 Gender Difference in Immunization 6 7 -2 % of Consultations using Govt. Facilities 44.25 38.46 34.16 % of Consultations using Private Disp/Hosp 60.93 51.83 44.51 Infrastructure: Tap Water 54 31 15 Electricity 66.43 60.95 75.04 Source: Pakistan Federal Bureau of Statistics (PBS, Pakistan Social and Living Standards Measurement Survey (Pslm) 2010-11 Provincial/District. Data on Total Number of Schools from Balochistan Education Management Information System (2008-9)

From the tribal districts, Zhob has the highest gender difference in enrollment and

Nushki has the highest gender difference in literacy rates. Since literacy rates include a much older population, it provides a more historical comparison between the districts.

The primary school enrollment rates are indicative of more current policy on education.

Hence, it would appear that though Nushki has historically had a larger gap in education between males and females, its smaller gap in enrollment indicates a positive move for

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female education. Nevertheless, the comparison of these figures between districts again indicates that non-tribal areas are more conducive for female education than tribal areas.

As for comparing the two tribal districts, even though Nushki is considered more tribal than Zhob, yet Nushki has better education indicators, though by a slight margin.

Part of the reason for this may be the relatively small difference in tribal hierarchy between the two districts as discussed above. Secondly, Nushki has much more exposure to the outside world than Zhob. Not only does it border Iran and has locals migrating there for work, there is also a relatively higher military presence in Nushki (which has increased since the conflict in Afghanistan as Nushki borders Afghanistan as well as

Iran), which both provides jobs for the locals as well as exposing them to the primarily non-Balochi institution. Most importantly, Nushki (as well as Chagai) is considered to be a peaceful district, unlike other districts where violence and feuds are prevalent (Pakistan

Population Census Organization District Report Chagai, 1998). Tribal conflicts in Zhob, on the other hand, are still common and considered deleterious to development in the district—in fact, the district administration has to at times step in to help diffuse conflicts

(Government of Balochistan, District Database).

It is interesting that there is no similar gender gap for health. There is little difference between immunizations for males and females, and in Zhob, females were slightly more likely to be fully immunized. It is only education where social attitudes are repressive towards females seeking education, particularly in tribal societies.

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For district comparison, immunization rates were highest in Zhob, followed by

Nushki, and lastly Gwadar. However, it is remarkable that health consultations using government facilities were highest in Gwadar as well as consultation of private health dispensaries/hospitals. Usually, in underdeveloped Pakistan, we see higher private consultation with lower government facility usage due to the low quality of the latter. The fact that usage of both is higher than the other districts suggests greater satisfaction in government facilities than in Zhob and Nushki, and not just a substitution effect due to lower private alternatives. Zhob lags marginally behind Nushki in both private medical and government medical consultation. Zhob residents were more likely to turn toward unlicensed medical consultation compared to the other districts. In sum, Gwadar lags in immunization rates19 but shows well in government health facility usage.

Utility access of tap water and electricity also suggests ambivalent results in infrastructure provisions to households. Though Gwadar has the highest rate of tap water access, Zhob does better in access in terms of access to electricity. What would be interesting to compare would be the difference in infrastructure that allows access to the outside world, as this is infrastructure that is controlled even by modern governments when their authority is threatened, and hence would more likely be controlled by tribal leaders wary of politicizing their tribe. For this information, I turn to data on telephone, internet, and cable TV connections in the three districts.

Looking at the table below, again Gwadar has better access to all three items of communication technology: telephone, internet, cable TV. Except for telephone access,

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Zhob also has slightly higher access in the above utilities than Nushki, though the difference is unremarkable.

Table 6.11: Communication Infrastructure

Gwadar Chagai/Nushki Zhob % Telephone 13.9 6.1 5.1 % Internet 0.4 0.1 % Cable TV 19 0.4 0.6 Source: Govt. of Balochistan, Planning and Development et al. 2004

These results suggest that education, and particularly female education, is the most salient public good that varies with tribal hierarchy. This is an intuitive result as education contributes to breaking down hierarchical structures and hence, is anathema to the established leadership (Burguignon and Verdier 2000). The greater access to infrastructure that links the district with information for the non-tribal district also indicates that hierarchical societies may be less inclined to invest in such infrastructure.

The district level analysis is therefore consistent with the theory that non-tribal social organization is more conducive for public goods outcomes.

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C. Public Goods at the Union Council Level

This section uses in-depth surveys originally conducted for this dissertation at the union council level within these districts to provide a more thorough understanding of differences in public goods preferences and outcomes in hierarchically varied polities.

Two villages were chosen from each union council to be surveyed that are within 50km of the district capital and cluster sampling was used to select respondents. 81 household surveys were completed in Gwadar’s Surbandar Union Council, 70 household surveys were completed in Nushki’s Baghak Mal Union Council, and 70 household surveys were completed in Zhob’s Shahbazai Union Council. Table 6.11 provides basic statistics for the represented union councils.

Though I focus on the period of devolution for case study analysis, it is important to note that devolution in Balochistan did not allow for as much fiscal space as Punjab to begin new development schemes, and it was less popularly represented. Besides the only

31% voter turnout for local government elections compared to Punjab province’s 54% voter turnout, there were other functional hurdles for the local government (Hasnain

2008b). As well as the lack of fiscal space for union councils and other tiers of district government to engage in any development projects, union council nazims were often propped by tribal leaders trying to keep sub tribal/clan leaders politically important to them in power (Hasnain 2008b). This likely explained why in 2001, the first round of local government elections, 40% of the union council seats were uncontested (that is, there was only one entry for the union council seat and hence, no competition). However, in 2005, this number of uncontested seats dropped down to 17% (Hasnain 2008b). Even 237

so, this large amount of power tribal leaders hold over local government seats substantiates the claims that local government has been even more at risk for elite capture as is often theorized (Bardhan and Mookherjee 2002, Dutta 2009). However, given that we are controlling for the province, we can still compare between union councils to gauge how the local government responded to local needs. Union council governments were responsible for identifying development schemes and using development funding funneled from the district to execute those schemes. Comparing their responsiveness across the sampled districts would help assess whether tribal hierarchy can affect this variable.

Within this context, I compare the public goods outcomes in the three union council polities and assess whether they are as correctly predicted by theory. I then assess both how preferences for public goods vary between the three polities representing the variation in tribal hierarchy, and the consequences that the differences in tribal structure have on elite capture of the local government.

i. Public Goods Outcomes at the Union Council Level

Below, in Table 6.12, are development statistics at the union council level for the union councils surveyed in the course of this study from the Pakistan Population Census

Organization: Surbandar Union Council in Gwadar, Baghak Mal Union Council in

Nushki, and Shahabzai Union Council in Zhob. These figures are based on the 1998

Pakistani census, the last completed census as of the date of this dissertation. Union council level figures were published in 2004 to better help understand the varied

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development levels in districts to aid in the local government system initiated in

2001/2002. The Nushki union council polity Baghak Mal has the highest literacy ratio, and also the highest number of mud homes (as opposed to brick or semi brick homes). It also has the highest level of piped water as a source of drinking water, and the second highest level of access to electricity as source of light. Cooking fuel is largely equivalent between the various districts with wood being used in over 90% of homes for cooking.

Table 6.12: Development Statistics for Gwadar: Surbandar Union Council, Nushki: Baghak Mal Union Council, and Zhob: Shahbazai Union Council Nushki Gwadar Baghak Zhob Surbandar Mal Shahabzai UC UC UC Population 13535 9535 13048 Literacy Ratio 14.5 23.9 10.7 Percentage of Kacha (Mud) Homes 43.84 95.42 7.49 Source of Drinking Water: % Piped Water 7.00 18.52 6.14 % Hand Pump 0.53 1.10 1.21 % Well 0.95 0.81 7.17 Source of Light: % Electricity 1.40 28.78 47.59 % Kerosene 97.63 71.14 50.86 Source of Cooking Fuel: % Wood 92.74 94.98 90.45 % Kerosene 6.21 3.54 1.85 % Gas 0.41 1.25 0.44 Source: Population Census Org., Census 1998, Basic Population and Housing Data by Union Councils

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Table 6.13 exhibits statistics collected in October of 2010 from two surveyed villages in each of the above union councils of each district.

It is evident that Zhob’s Union Council lags behind the others in all but the number of rooms in the house. Gwadar’s Surbandar Union Council does better in having the fewest mud homes and the highest rate of running water. Gwadar and Nushki union

Table 6.13: Development Indicators for Surveyed Households by Union Council

Gwadar Nushki Baghak Zhob Surbandar UC Mal UC Shahabzai UC % of mud homes 20.25% 98.57% 100% % access to electricity 97.53% 100% 0% % running water 75.31% 47.14% 2.86% % toilet in home 92.59% 100% 11.43% % use wood for heating 82.50% 100% 96.77% Average no. of rooms 2.59 2.49 4.7 Average household size 7.49 5.6 5.5

councils have similar levels of access to electricity with Zhob’s union council seriously lagging behind with no electricity access whatsoever. Gwadar has the largest household size, whereas Nushki and Zhob have almost the same average household size.

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The expectation is that the non-tribal union council will do better than the tribal union councils in public goods, particularly education. Following are the results from the survey analysis.

This evidence is surprising in the face of both theory and the overall district level results found in the previous section. At the district level, the non-tribal Gwadar exceeds the tribal districts in education indicators. Here, Zhob’s Shahabzai Union Council has the highest illiteracy rate, and Nushki’s Baghak Mal Union Council has the lowest, a result which shows no pattern leading us to believe that a non-tribal system is more advantageous to education outomes. Moreover, Zhob has the highest school attendance rate for children between the ages of 6 and 16 (significantly higher than the other union councils at the 10% level using Pearson’s chi-squared test), as well as the highest satisfaction with the school system and the best attendance by teachers. Again, a tribal area has better education figures here than non-tribal Gwadar.

There is a discrepancy for Zhob showing a high illiteracy rate accompanied by high levels of school attendance. Given that illiteracy levels that include adult populations are stickier and less likely to fully illustrate the recent changes in education, the indicators of school attendance provide a better measure of comparison on education.

Given the lowest levels of physical development of Zhob’s case villages (such as no access to electricity), it is even more remarkable how well they do on education indicators. This is the case even though more Nushki households were in closer proximity to schools than Zhob households, yet the latter have better attendance.

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Table 6.14: Education for Surveyed Households by Union Council

Gwadar Nushki Zhob Surbandar Baghak Shahabzai UC Mal UC UC Illiteracy 10+ 44.38 36.3 46.6 School <5km 77.46 92.16 83.02 Currently Attending School (Ages 6-16) 75 81.25 87.78 Currently Attending School* (Ages 4-9) 64 68.85 71.88 Satisfied with School System 14.29 12.2 26.42 Teacher attends most of the time 28.57 92.68 98.11 *Missing data is included in this measure. Often parents only respond when a child does attend, so this measure, as opposed to the previous one, includes missing data on the assumption that the missing data implies no attendance.

The discrepancy between Zhob’s low literacy rates and high attendance rate is puzzling unless one considers out-migration figures. For the district of Zhob, 39.7% of surveyed individuals had family members working outside, whereas Chagai (which

Nushki was a part of) had 5.1% and Gwadar had 8.3% (Government of Balochistan et al.,

2004). This figure is remarkable considering Nushki has many laborers working in Iran and Gwadar, due to it largely being a territory of Oman until Pakistan’s acquisition of it in 1958, has laborers working in the Middle East (Population Census Organization,

1998). Yet, Zhob has a significantly greater population working outside. Though we do not have data on the education levels of those emigrants, it is not too difficult to surmise that educated individuals are more likely to find work elsewhere. This would naturally

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deplete the educated pool behind and explain why higher enrollment rates among the youth are found alongside lower literacy figures for the total. Hence, it would seem that despite the literacy figures, Zhob, even with its substantially lower development, has a higher push for education in the community.

Though Gwadar at the district level does better in primary enrollment than the tribal districts as indicated in the Table 6.9 in the previous section, the surveyed villages are not so fortunate. A smaller portion of the Gwadar respondents were within 5 km of a school compared to the tribal districts, and they had by far the lowest teacher attendance.

Gwadar’s low teacher attendance is in line with the picture presented in Punjab and Sindh with problems of teacher absenteeism. It is noteworthy that both the tribal districts had remarkably better attendance. This might be due to the tighter knit tribal communities where social norms and sanctions are more likely to work to prevent shirking.

The villages in Zhob are the farthest from government health facilities, have the most number of households that have lost at least one child under five years of age and have the highest number of children without vaccinations. Gwadar has the fewest households with under 5 child mortaility and children with no vaccinations. The Zhob villages have the fewest households that are within 5 km of a government health facility, which might explain their lagging behind the other district’s villages in child mortality and vaccinations. However, it is less clear why Nushki, which has the most households within 5 km of a government facility (which often administers vaccinations and vaccination programs), still lags behind the Gwadar villages in child mortality and vaccinations. 243

Table 6.15: Percentage of Households by Health Indicators Nushki Gwadar Zhob Baghak Surbandar n n Shahabzai n Mal UC UC UC % Live Near Govt. Health 87.65 81 98.51 67 32.86 70 Facility ( <5 km) Child Mortality ( <5yrs) 18.52 81 25.4 63 59.7 67 % Children No Vaccinations 6.33 79 12.28 57 19.64 56 % Sought Medical Consultation 97.22 72 89.7 68 96.22 53

There is not a significant difference between Gwadar and Zhob in seeking medical consultation when ill, though Nushki lags slightly behind. In fact, many Nushki residents used multiple forms of consultation, where if decompressed would show that of all consultations, 72% were medical and 19% used faith healers. Zhob had 1% using faith healers and Gwadar had none. Altogether, the difference in consultation itself between districts is not remarkable. Moreover, there is not a significant trend that can be pointed out to differentiate the districts beyond health facility access affecting Zhob union council’s low performance.

Given the surveyed Zhob villages lack of infrastructure development (Table 6.12), as well as sporadic utilities in the Gwadar and Nushki villages, roads were one infrastructure item that all shared and could be compared. Since for the duration of the field research for this study, roads were more immediately under the jurisdiction of the

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local government with union councils primarily responsible for identifying schemes that needed to be developed, residents were asked how satisfied they were with road maintenance. Gwadar had the highest satisfaction rate at 13.04%, whereas only three individuals responded in Nushki and none expressed satisfaction. In Zhob’s villages, only

1 of 66 (1.51%) respondents was satisfied with road maintenance. It is evident that the tribal areas have less developed links from the villages to the city. Though this validates the overarching theory of tribal areas preferring isolation to maintain the integrity of their social organization, this one indicator does not seem to be sufficient to come to that conclusion. However, given that Gwadar as a district does better in utilities that link with the outside world as discussed in the previous section, this information seems to corroborate that trend. The low satisfaction rate indicates that the masses want better roads, but those in power are not delivering.

It is evident through this analysis that the selected villages are not necessarily representative of the district being studied, as there is a discrepancy in public goods outcomes at the district level (Table 6.9) and at the union council level represented by the two surveyed villages within each (Table 6.13). District level data clearly indicate that the non-tribal district does better in education figures than the tribal districts. All these villages were a similar distance away from the main city in each district after which the district was named. Yet, the statistics that most contradict theory are those for education.

If we consider proximity to schools being less in Gwadar’s union council accounting for the slightly lower enrollment rate (and the higher teacher absenteeism, which was

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attributed by a third of respondents as the reason for child not attending school) than the other union council, there is little variation left to be explained.

However, Gwadar district does do better in education than Nushki or Zhob. This discrepancy between surveyed villages and the overall district suggests requires further explanation. Table 6.15 below provides the net primary school enrollment rates broken down for urban and rural areas in each district. These figures indicate that the further we get from urban areas, public goods provision declines at varying degrees for these districts.

Table 6.16 is illuminating in explaining the discrepancy between the surveyed villages’ data and the published district level data. Gwadar has lower enrollment figures in the urban areas compared to the other two districts, but it does significantly better than

Table 6.16: Percentage Net Primary Enrollment (Ages 4-9) by Urban/Rural

Urban Rural Total % Male Female Total Male Female Total Male Female Total Nushki 62 50 57 30 17 23 36 23 30 Gwadar 53 60 56 57 34 47 55 46 51 Zhob 62 61 62 31 11 21 35 18 27 Source: Pakistan Federal Bureau of Statistics, PSLM 2010-11

the other districts in rural areas, leading to a sum total better enrollment ratio for the district. This evidence suggests that the proximity of the village cases to the city contaminated the results. It is not surprising that urbanization would be deleterious to 246

tribal attitudes. After all, the claim of this study is exactly that education and access to information infrastructure all contribute to breaking down hierarchical relationships.

Urban centers have relative excess in both. The stipulation of case identification was simply to have equi -distance from cities. Due to ease of access, villages within a couple of hours drive were chosen. The cities were near enough that families send their children to urban schools and use urban health centers for care, both of which would expose them greatly to the city. The research design missed the possibility that proximity to urban centers, without actually being in the city would still expose tribal areas enough that it would affect attitudes toward and provision of education. Indeed, this effect of urbanization is rigorously covered in modernization and democratization literature that finds that urbanization reduces traditional differences in society (Lipset).

Here we again see that Gwadar outperforms the tribal districts in total performance. Nushki does slightly better than Zhob in rural areas, but this small discrepancy can be attributed to Zhob’s much larger area and lower population density, as well as the in-fighting in the region that is cited as being pernicious to development

(Titus 1998).

Despite the urban contamination factor, the village surveys still provide us with insight on political attitudes and preferences for goods. In the next section I focus on attitudes and preferences of residents. Yet, conclusions have to be drawn carefully since proximity to cities affects public goods outcomes and will likely affect preferences and attitudes as well.

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ii. Voting and Politicization

Though the purpose of this chapter is not to test the relative effectiveness of the devolution episode, the local government system provides an opportunity to compare political attitudes and study how the political environment differs with hierarchy.

One thing that is evident is the lack of competition for the Union Council nazim

(mayor) seat in both Nushki and Zhob. Even though Nushki had at least two contestors, only one vote was given to the second contester. Both Union Councils had Union Council nazims running almost uncontested. Nushki and Zhob union councils were also significantly more likely to vote by identity.

Using the Herfindahl concentration formula on the local kinship group data from the surveyed households, Gwadar appears to be a lot more fragmented than the Nushki or

Zhob union councils (Table 6.16). The latter two are fairly homogeneous. Gwadar is overall a homogeneous district in that it is predominantly Baloch ethnicity and it does not have tribe ascriptions, nor does it have baraderi ascriptions. However, there is strong loyalty to family ties that encompass a smaller group of people, and hence appears as if there are many fragmented identity groups whereas it is more in the way of many extended families. Given the small number of respondents who voted by identity, it is evident that these smaller kinship/family groups are not significant enough to be politicized into identity politics. When asked for identity, except for the 32% of respondents who claimed their identity as simply Baloch or did not know, there are only a few respondents per family name/group, further clarifying that their choice in “identity”

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was an extended family name. Gwadar residents, between all three districts, were least likely to vote by identity or feel that ethnic identity of a co-ethnic candidate was relevant to their quality of life. Hence, even though a smaller kin identity is significant enough that most respondents chose that name as their identifying marker, it is not numerically large enough in numbers to become politically relevant. Hence, there is little voting by identity even though small kin groups provide identity in the absence of a larger, organized ethnic group.

Even if the tribal union councils are considered to be more uniform in identity, we still find that they made significantly less use of the union council for making complaints than Gwadar’s union council residents. Yet, from the few in Nushki and Zhob who went to their union councils, they received a better response than those in Gwadar.

This discrepancy could perhaps be explained by the fact that Nushki and Zhob rely for justice predominantly on the Jirga system, whereas Gwadar residents rely on the government. Hence, Gwadar residents when dealing with mundane complaints, who appeal to the same government system though the tribal districts would not be habituated to do so. It is difficult to judge the responsiveness, however, as there are so few cases of lodging complaints in the Nushki and Zhob surveyed villages.

Politicization here is measured through the frequency of political discussion and the extent that media (radio, television, newspapers) are used for political information as opposed to community meetings. The overall trend is that Nushki ‘s Baghak Mal union council predominates on both counts. This trend is consistent with the higher literacy

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figures witnessed above. Zhob’s Shahabzai union council lags behind in politicization, but it is also the least developed with the least access to utilities such as electricity and toilets.

The following table provides a group of measures used to construct a comparison for politicization levels of the different union councils. The number of union council nazim seat contesters indicate the level of competition for the seat. Though Nushki mentions two contesters, there was only one individual who voted for the second contester. Both Zhob and Nushki had nazims walk into power, whereas Gwadar had more dispersion in votes. Yet, Nushki and Zhob residents were more likely to vote, and Nushki was significantly more politicized in terms of discussing politics frequently, as compared to the other districts. The tribal regions were also much more likely to vote by identity, as compared to Gwadar. Nushki, the most tribal region in the sample, was significantly more likely to believe that life was better under a co-ethnic candidate, with Gwadar residents least inclined to find the ethnicity of a politician as relevant to their quality of life. Zhob residents also give this measure low significance, probably due to the fact that all respondents had a party that they explicitly supported and gave precedence to over identity.

We also see that Gwadar residents were most likely to complain to their Union

Council, followed by Zhob, and lastly Nushki. Though the union council’s responsiveness is indicating higher response rates in the tribal districts, there are far few cases of complaints which make it difficult to truly compare the responsiveness figures.

However, almost all respondents replied to whether they went to the Union Council to 250

make a complaint and the figures correspond to the level of tribalism between districts.

Nushki residents’ lack of use of the union council suggests that they do not expect as much success through this avenue. This directs us to issues of elite capture that may tamper with union council accountability to the elite rather than the common voter. I discuss this later in the chapter.

Table 6.17: Voting and Politicization Gwadar Nushki Zhob n n n UC UC UC No. of UC contesters 3 26 2 42 1 55 Voted in 2005 Local Govt. 58.75% 80 61.43% 70 82.86% 70 Elections Discuss Politics Weekly + 9.09% 77 24.28% 70 1.43% 70 Gain Political Info via 32.47% 67.17% 67 2.70% 37 Media 77 Vote by Identity 12.50% 56 33.33% 45 44.29% 70 Explicit Party Supporters 35.29% 34 49.05% 53 100% 38 Quality of Life Better if Co- 5.88% 68 55.07% 69 14.06% 64 Ethnic Candidate Herfindahl Index for 0.859 70 0.136 70 0 70 Kinship Complained to UC 35% 80 14.49% 69 22.86% 70 UC Responsive 14.90% 47 80% 10 75% 16 Total Surveys 81 70 70

iii. Preferences for Goods

The objective of this chapter is that hierarchical tribal societies will see relatively less provision of education (lower literacy, lower enrollment rates) than less hierarchical or

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non-tribal societies. Looking at district level data, though the non-tribal Gwadar district does better in education indicators than Nushki or Zhob, there is no remarkable difference between Nushki and Zhob. In our case villages, between Zhob and Nushki, though Zhob has the higher illiteracy, more currently, it has higher enrollment rates, more satisfaction with school, and better teacher attendance. We look at respondents preferences for goods to see whether these reflect the public good outcomes witnessed in the villages. Surveys asked respondents to rank their top three preferred goods. The results are broken down by the top preference show in Table 6.17, and later in Table 6.19, all goods mentioned (on average three goods per respondent) are treated equally.

Table 6.18: Top Preferences for Goods

Gwadar Nushki Zhob UC, UC, UC, n=80 n=68 n=70 Public Goods: 16.25 60.29 67.14 Better Community Education 7.5 50 15.71 Improved Community Water Access 2.5 4.41 12.86 Better Roads for Village 2.5 37.14 Improved Health System 3.75 5.88 1.43

Private Goods: 83.75 39.7 31.43 Farm Subsidies 2.5 8.82 2.86 Government Jobs 81.25 30.88 28.57 Better Roads for Own Home 1.43

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Overall, Nushki and Zhob are much more likely to choose public goods as their top preference than private goods, as compared to Gwadar. This is consistent if we consider the fragmentation in self- identification as indicated in the previous section.

Though Gwadar kinship groups are not politicized, because government jobs in Gwadar

(as in most of Pakistan) are strongly susceptible to nepotism, these are highly competitive goods in a district where fishing is the most likely and not altogether the most stable alternative means of life. Nepotism is evidenced in the fact that on average 77% of

Gwadar respondents believed that shared identity with a political candidate ensured better access to jobs. This compared to 20% feeling the same amongst the Nushki respondents, and none whatsoever in Zhob. For the tribal districts, the villages are homogeneous but tribal Baloch are more political than tribal Zhob, hence explaining the discrepancy of responses between the two districts.

Table 6.19: Identity Facilitates Government Job Access Does your identity group get more Gwadar Nushki jobs when MPA is of the same group? UC UC Zhob UC Yes 78.67 20.59 No 30.88 Same 35.29 Don't Know 21.33 13.24 100 Number of Observations 75 68 57

In fact, government jobs gain plurality votes in Nushki as well. Zhob residents prioritize better roads for village to the urban center, further confirming the low 253

development of the area. As mentioned earlier, even though all villages had similar proximity to the urban area in their respective districts, road quality to the city, nor the topographic passage between the two was controlled for. Considering the low development and utility provision in these Zhob villages, it is unsurprising that roads are given the plurality vote.

Yet, Nushki and Zhob still chose goods for the community as a majority over those that were more private. As homogeneous villages, this is consistent with the finding in previous chapters that homogeneity in self-identification is consistent with preferences for more public goods. This result indicates that self-identification need not be a politicized identity for it to be pernicious to prioritizing community needs over private needs.

To garner a bigger picture on goods preferences, respondents were asked to provide their top three preferences for goods. Since it is difficult to judge how their preferences differed between the top three goods they chose (they could have been indifferent between certain goods), and whether their responses in ranking the goods would have been different had they only one choice, the results below treat all goods mentioned equally.

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Table 6.20: Top 3 Preferences for Goods Gwadar Nushki Zhob UC UC UC Public Goods: 64.19 42.43 74.29 Better Community Education 18.34 25.76 18.29 Improved Community Water Access 11.79 7.07 16 Better Roads for Village 14.41 2.02 30.86 Improved Health System 19.65 7.58 9.14

Private Goods: 35.81 56.58 25.71 Farm Subsidies 0.87 25.76 4.57 Government Jobs 29.26 30.3 16 Better Roads for Own Home 5.68 0.52 5.14

Zhob continues to have the most number of respondents choosing public goods in their top preferences. Though Nushki has the highest percentage votes for education than the other districts in both top preferences and top three preferences, it does less well in combined public goods due to the high preference for farm subsidies and government jobs. In Gwadar, the sudden improvement in public goods indicates that after government jobs, preferences for improvement in health and education rank high.

The goal of this chapter is primarily to study whether the hierarchical tribal system affects provision of public goods, primarily education, as this can erode the hierarchical structure. This section has indicated that as far as preferences for goods are concerned, there is no evidence that individuals prefer goods any differently coming from a tribal structure, at least when living in proximity to a city. Preference for education in the top three ranked goods is fairly similar in all three union councils.

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iv. Elite Capture

One result that has been striking in the survey analysis has been that despite the low development of Zhob villages where there is no electrification and access to water is difficult as compared to the Nushki villages that have both access to electricity and better figures in access to piped water and toilets, Zhob villages still does significantly better in enrollment rates and health indicators. District level figures may put Zhob behind Nushki but it is evident that Zhob’s sparser population density is a mitigating, uncontrolled for variable, as well as topographic hurdles for development in the larger area. At the village level, proximity to the city has jeopardized comparison between tribal and non-tribal, but both Zhob and Nushki are both tribal regions. They can be compared with more integrity as proximity to the city should not result in significantly disparate influence on the tribalism of the villages. What explains the better education outcomes in the Zhob cases despite the vast divide in development?

Preferences have indicated that both Zhob and Nushki respondents had a strong eye toward community goods. This leaves us to discuss the influence of the elite on public goods provision and the different levels of elite capture. Elite capture occurs when a small, relatively powerful (socially, economically, politically) group has disproportional control over government resources and shaping public policy. In our cases, these elite would be the tribal leaders and chiefs. To gauge the comparative extent of elite capture in the surveyed union councils of Zhob and Nushki, respondents were asked whether their tribal leader backed the Union Council nazim. The more respondents who felt this was the case, the greater likelihood that the tribal leader had greater influence and hence more 256

control over the union council government. Table 6.20 illustrates the results. Nushki residents were significantly more likely to believe their tribal leader backed the Union

Council nazim than Zhob residents.

As discussed earlier, Baloch tribal leaders are more political than Zhob tribal leaders, and hence exert greater influence on the distribution of resources and how the development funds are spent in their constituencies (before devolution, MPAs were given development funds from the province and Balochistan was quick to return to that system after the end of the Local Government Ordinance in 2009). Pakhtun tribal leaders, however, have not been able to gain significant political power due to the cross cutting loyalties toward religion and self among the Pakhtun. In our cases, this general trend is backed by the lack of political backing of the Union Council Mayor in the Zhob Shahbzai union council, as compared to Nushki’s Baghak Mal. Moreover, the stronger party supporters among Zhob’s respondents indicate that the vote is not contingent upon loyalty to the tribal leader. Nushki respondents, however, feel that the identity of the politician is more likely to affect their well –being, are less likely to support a political party, and they more strongly view the Union Council mayor as having backing by the tribal or subtribal leader. Cumulatively, this suggests a stronger case for elite capture in the Nushki villages than in the Zhob cases.

Devolution in Balochistan has not been accompanied by as competitive elections

(where more than one viable candidate is running for a seat) as in other provinces.

Hussain (2008b) points out that tribal politics had a large role to play in who ran for union council nazim. The UC mayor was determined by the tribal chief, who tried to 257

maintain power amongst his clan leaders by distributing local government office positions amongst them. These elections were hardly examples of competitive (having multiple candidates to choose from), free and fair elections. Without going into intricacies of how elite capture may have occurred here, this is evidence of hijacking of the local government. With union council level homogeneity in most of Balochistan, there was no tribal competition over the UC mayor seat and hence, even competition amongst the elite was not forthcoming.

Table 6.21: Tribal Elite Influence over Union Council Nazim Nushki Zhob n n UC UC 60.87 69 20 70 Tribal Leader backs UC Nazim

Tribal Leader Influences UC Nazim on 37.68 58 15.39 65 Goods Provision

We have seen that both the cases in Zhob and Nushki saw no significant competition for Union Council mayor. In Nushki, however, the mayor who came into power was backed by the tribal leader. This suggests that tribal leaders play a larger political role there. Moreover, the tribal leader is believed by significantly more respondents than those in Zhob to influence the UC Mayor in what goods should be provided. This suggests the higher likelihood of elite capture of the local government in

Nushki, than in Zhob. When the tribal leaders have more than their fair share of power

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over the funds that are used for public goods provision, the desires of the masses are not likely to be adhered to, and corruption is rampant amongst Sardars (Titus 1998).

Conversely, amongst the Zhob respondents, their political leaders are more likely to look toward the needs of the common man, which can explain why despite the developmental hurdles, the case villages in Zhob still had relatively good access to education.

In our case of Nushki, public goods provision was relatively good what with the proximity to the city and the overall peaceful nature of the tribes in the region. However, the relationship of the tribal leader to politics suggests the vulnerability of the district to the whim of the leader. When hierarchy is stringent and there is no competitor to the leader in a homogeneous polity, there is also no check to counter balance his influence.

What would happen in a heterogeneous polity? Some heterogeneous districts in

Balochistan were divided by ethnicity to reduce tension over who controlled the district in the local government system. A prime example is the district of Sibi, where Pakhtun and Baloch shared residence in difference areas of the same district. Sibi was divided into

Sibi and Harnai, so that each group would have a majority in its own district, reducing the tension on who would control the district mayor’s seat.

Despite the addition of 4 new districts, there are still districts where prominent tribes had to share in the district government. One notable example is that of Kharan. One

NGO worker who asked to remain anonymous, mentioned how the District Mayor and the District Coordinating Officer asked him to limit the NGO’s educating efforts to his

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own tribes people20. This anecdote, in the midst of other anecdotes about the Marri and the Bugti who repelled outsider initiatives for development, might at first glance repudiate the assumption that tribalism stunts development. However, unlike the relative tribal homogeneity of Marri in Kohlu district and the Bugti in Dera Bugti, Kharan district has been shared amongst multiple competing tribes. This competition can subsume tribal leader’s desire to uphold their authority to the greater threat of being less competitive vis a vis other rival tribes.

The tribal system in Balochistan is very complex. I have been terming Dera Bugti and Kohlu as relatively homogeneous districts. But they are of course heterogeneous in terms of their clans and sub clans. However, they recognize and share one overarching

Sardar. Matheson (1997) in her five years in Dera Bugti in the late 50’s remarks on the unquestioning obedience tribesmen of different clans showed the tribal chief (though after the lucrative natural gas discovery, the clan the land belonged to did engage in conflict with the Sardar, as disussed by Paul Titus in Matheson, 1997). Pehrson (1982) also remarks on how the Political Agent in appointing members in the Jirga council, would do so under the name of the Sardar. Hence, despite in-fighting even within homogeneous districts, there is a distinctive difference between a group who recognize the authority of one leader and follow his dictates, and between rival tribal groups who each have their own overarching Sardar.

It is beyond the scope of this dissertation to delve into a detailed study of how variation in ethnic heterogeneity can affect the consequences of elite capture. However,

20 Interview with NGO worker, 10/16/2008. 260

when determining that ethnic homogeneity comes with many benefits, this exposé, however shallow, suggests that when dealing with internal hierarchy and low politicization of the common voter, homogeneity may have its downfall by limiting elite competition in a polity that functions primarily on patron client relationships where tribal leaders carry their tribal vote bank and carry political seats. Bardhan and Mookherjee

(2002) discuss how less elite competition in a decentralized system, as compared to a centralized system where there are a greater diversity of elite, is deleterious to public goods provision as it increases the chance of elite capture of the local government.

Homogeneity in regions where ethnic elite predominate simply aggravates this trend.

Moreover, internal hierarchy that is hereditary and reinforced through institutionalized interactions solidifies clientelist relationships between those same elite, politicians (if they are not already one and the same as often occurs in Balochistan), and voters. These patron client relationships are even more difficult to disassemble than those based on elite determined solely on class status due to the many issue linkages (such as the need for the

Jirga for conflict resolution) that reinforce and reproduce the elite status and mass dependency on that relationship, making it more costly for the common voter to defy the intermediary elite promising their vote to the politician. Hence, the lack of elite competition and the hereditary leadership positions reproduced through the Jirga process both lead to power monopoly of the rulers and disempower the voters even in a functional democracy. Homogeneity can further aggravate this effect, providing another explanation as to why Kohlu and Dera Bugti, relatively homogeneous districts, underperform compared to most districts in Balochistan.

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Hence, the stronger hierarchy amongst the Baloch empowers their leaders in politics and increases elite capture. This trend is aggravated in homogeneous polities as there is no counterbalance to the tribal elite. Whereas my case of Nushki does fairly well in public goods outcomes due to its proximity to the city, and no doubt its place in the border region, we still see the power that the tribal leader has on politics. This is representative of the Baloch tribes and indicates the vulnerability of the Baloch to the vastly asymmetrical power of their tribal leaders. Conversely, the lesser hierarchy of the

Pakhtun disallows as strong politicization of their leaders. With stronger party politics in their region, there is more competition over government resources, and hence, more accountability to the voters. Though we could not find statistically significant difference between Pakhtun and Baloch regions due to the small data and the cross cutting levels of tribalism amongst the two, we still found that on average, Pakhtun areas did better in education, a public good that is most threatening to the hereditary hierarchical tribal leaders.

IV. CONCLUSION

This chapter set out to analyze how ethnic social organization, the existence of hierarchical relationships more specifically, affect public goods provision in polities. The expectation is that tribal leaders who benefit from this hierarchy would be unwilling to invest in public goods such as education that would increase politicization of the tribe and increase their demands for more goods. We find evidence at the district level that

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indicates non-tribal districts tend to do better than tribal districts in education. Specific comparisons of non-tribal Gwadar with tribal Nushki and tribal Zhob show that Gwadar does better in access to communication technology, which can also be used to better politicize a population. However, there was little variation in education to be explained for the villages surveyed in each of these districts, likely due to their proximity to urban areas, which would dilute the effect of tribe.

We did find that the most tribal district, Nushki, was also the most susceptible to elite capture. Overall analysis indicates that Baloch tribal areas are more likely to be vulnerable to elite capture and hence, more likely to be victim to the whims of their tribal elite. This may well explain why the Baloch population is so often lagging behind in education than their Pakhtun counterparts, as is indicated in their low representation in the educated civil bureaucracy. When this elite capture is reinforced by loyalty established through ethnic social organization, it can be even more difficult to break free and designing institutions to reduce the power of the elite in shaping public policy becomes even more imperative.

To more fully understand the effect of tribalism on public goods provision, there are two avenues that should be sought from here. One, would the sharing of a polity by rival tribes by having competing elite result in similar outcomes as having contesting party candidates as in the Pakhtun areas. Secondly, there should continue to be a designation of regions by variation in tribalism rather than a dichotomous designation. Though this chapter attempted to do so by comparing Baloch and Pakhtun tribal areas, the proximity to urban areas contaminated some of the analysis. There is still a need to both broaden the 263

analysis to more cases and to delve deeper into rural areas to truly assess whether preferences of voters are affected by the social organization of their tribes.

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Chapter 7 : Conclusion

I. KEY FINDINGS

This dissertation set out to explore two causal mechanisms that linked ethnicity with lower public goods provision: (1) ethnically fragmented societies illustrate negative utility in sharing that is deleterious to public goods provision (Alesina and La Ferrara

2000) and (2) different ethnic groups have differing preferences for public goods that impede agreeing on which public goods should be provided (Alesina, Baqir and Easterly

1999, Alesina and Spolaore 1997). Focusing on Pakistan’s devolution period effective from 2002-2009/10, I studied two districts in southern Punjab that vary in their union councils by levels of ethnic heterogeneity and three districts in Balochistan that vary by the strength of tribal hierarchy.

A. Ethnic Fragmentation and Southern Punjab

Consistent with previous literature, survey analysis in southern Punjab confirmed that preference for public goods provision was higher in the more homogeneous union council. Respondents from the fragmented union council were also significantly less

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likely to prefer public goods provision during devolution as compared to before.

Considering that a substantial portion of respondents from both districts felt that devolution increased the political importance of local identities, this suggests that political competition introduced by the Local Government Ordinance 2001 increased the political salience of social identities and resulted in lower performance in public goods provision compared to before devolution.

There was no significant difference in preferences for public goods between ethnic groups in the fragmented polity. Hence, explanations that rely on differing preferences across ethnic groups to explain lower provision of public goods are unsubstantiated in this study. Therefore, we look at explanations that point to ethnically fragmented societies feeling more negative utility in sharing public goods and therefore preferring private provision. I argued that there is no inherent antipathy in sharing, as is evidenced by Posner et al. ‘s (2007) experiment. Rather, political competition, in this case the introduction of elections at the union council level through Pakistan’s devolution, deepens the cleavages between ethnic groups and leads to more politicized ethnic groups fighting over the same, scarce resources such as government jobs. Control of politics controls access to certain private goods, which exacerbates ethnic competition when ethnic identities can form a minimum winning coalition. The relatively nonporous ethnic identities increase the fear that if the “other” claims the political seat, then they themselves will be locked out of goods such as government jobs whose access has historically been influenced by ethnic linkages. When identities are nonporous, it is more difficult for ethnic groups to cooperate on optimizing public goods provision. If the

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ethnicity in power defects and diverts private resources to its group, the other cannot cross the rigid boundaries to benefit.

Not surprisingly then, Alesina and La Ferrara (2002) find significantly lower levels of trust in heterogeneous polities. In this study, not only do we find that ethnic identity was perceived to be more politically important post devolution, but also that that the respondents in the heterogeneous polity were much more likely to verbalize ethnic identity as their reason for voting for their union council nazim candidate. Though over

85% of the respondents from the Muzaffargarh sample voted ethnically, only about 60% believed that having a co-ethnic in power would improve their quality of life or lead to improved access to target goods. Moreover, when asked who they would prefer a local infrastructure project target, over 77% chose community over ethnic identity or self, with the remaining choosing self. Not one individual suggested specified the exclusion of other ethnic groups for a public good. This supports the proposition that ethnic voting is due to the fear that life would be worse under another identity and would lock one out from targeted goods, rather than a negative utility in sharing public goods. Given that over 20% voted ethnically without expecting better benefits, also suggest the play of

Buena de Mesquita et al’s (2002) proposition that ethnic loyalty reduces the amount of goods, both public and private, that the leader disseminates among the winning coalition because the winning coalition knows that they are unlikely to be part of the subsequent regime if the other ethnic leader comes into power. This defensive voting perpetuates a system of empowering one’s own group vis à vis other ethnicities to ensure continued political control and control over scarce resources. Hence, private goods are preferred

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over public goods—again, not because of inherent negative utility, but as a result of lack of trust that pits politicized groups into a prisoner’s dilemma that impedes an outcome where groups focus on shared public goods.

B. Social Organization and Public Goods Preference in Balochistan

Alesina, Easterly and Baqir (1999) refer to different ethnic groups having differing public goods preferences, which then impedes consensus on public goods provision.

However, there is more focus needed in specifying what aspects of ethnicity are responsible for these diverse preference formations. Ethnicity refers to descent based identities. There are omitted, co-varying variables that actually correlate certain ethnic groups with certain preferences. Linguistic identity is one such variable (Alesina and

Spolaore 1997) and economic class is another variable that can co-vary with ethnicity when forming ranked groups (Horowitz 1985) and shape the preferences of ethnic groups. This dissertation focuses on yet another such variable: social organization. In this study we expect that more tribal districts in Balochistan are likely to be less developed as tribal leaders try to limit modernization forces that can disrupt tribal hierarchies.

The analysis in this dissertation showed that the quintessential tribal regions (for the tribes Bugti and Marri) in Balochistan are also among the most backwards. Analysis of a non-tribal (Gwadar) and two tribal districts (Nushki and Zhob) further illustrated that public goods indicators, particularly education which would be the most deleterious to tribal hierarchies, were better in the non-tribal district than the tribal district. Surveys at the union council level provided more mixed results, due to the possible contamination of

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urban influence. Though these areas were rural, they were close enough to cities that the surveyed villagers traveled there for health and for some education as well. Hence, though the Gwadar non-tribal union council did least well in education, comparison of rural/urban data indicated that urban areas in Nushki and Zhob did better than the urban areas in Gwadar, but Gwadar outperformed the two tribal districts in the rural regions (as well as in sum total). Though this limited stronger conclusions to be drawn from the surveyed data, it did indicate that as Lipset suggests, urbanization does indeed mitigate influence of traditional systems. Hence, the urban areas do considerably better in public goods indicators than the rural, more tribal regions. In Gwadar, which is non-tribal, the difference between urban and rural is much smaller.

Given that both Zhob and Nushki are both tribal, we can still compare the two with the assumption that the urban effect is controlled for. Here, the union council in Zhob definitely lags behind the union council in Nushki in terms of access to electricity, water, toilets, etc. Yet, Zhob, the less tribal of the two districts, depicts a higher net enrollment rate than Nushki. The difference itself isn’t strikingly high, but given that the Zhob union council lags seriously behind in terms of electrification, it is definitely notable. Though

Balochistan’s Pathan’s have a more hierarchical tribal system than their brethren in the north, they still have strong norms that originate with their original social structure that glorify equality and egalitarianism within the tribe. Hence, they have a strong desire for furthering the self, which is more conducive for promoting education, as opposed to the

Balochis who may be more likely to see themselves in their role within the tribe (Titus

1998).

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This evidence of lower public goods provision, namely education, begs the question of whether the tribesmen have no desire to push for education or if this is top-driven by the tribal elders who would have the most to lose with the dissolution of tribal hierarchy.

Again, our survey analysis has to be viewed with a grain of salt due to potential urban influence. However, it appears that there is a strong desire in public goods provision, particularly in the less tribal Zhob. The Gwadar union council, though not politically ethnically fragmented, has high social fragmentation as identity is based on extended family-kin groups. Zhob and Gwadar surveyed union councils are homogeneous with one identity. Just as in the survey analysis of southern Punjab, the regions with homogeneous self-identification were more likely to choose public goods over private goods versus the areas with fragmented self-identification. This suggests that at least when analyzing the effect of social organization on preferences for public goods, the common tribesman or woman still prefers public over private goods, including education.

How can we then explain the low levels of education in more tribal areas? District level outcomes indicate that indeed, the non-tribal area has better education outcomes.

Yet, preferences indicate that there is a strong desire for public goods such as education to better the livelihoods of all. This discrepancy necessitates a discussion on the role of elite capture and ethnicity.

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C. Elite Capture and Ethnicity

In Pakistan’s clientelist system, the risk of elite capture is high. Elite capture occurs when a small group of powerful individuals/families hold disproportionate control over the government. Since this is perhaps a ubiquitous issue in politics, analyzing it is more an issue of comparison. Some areas have higher levels of elite capture than others. This comparative risk can be affected by many factors: competition from other elite, independent media, the politicization and informativeness of the voters, etc. (Bardhan and

Mookherjee 2002). Though this study has highlighted the social benefits of homogeneous polities as they engender trust and increase likelihood for preference of public over private goods, this homogeneity can also reduce competition for the residing elite and increase elite capture of government. This might well explain why despite greater use of the union council by the homogeneous polity in southern Punjab, it appears as if their positive response rate was much lower than in heterogeneous polity. The homogeneous polity was also more likely to believe that certain public goods (namely roads) were geared to meet the need of the local elite than the heterogeneous polity. This suggests that homogeneous polities can be more susceptible to elite capture, or more correctly, higher levels of elite capture.

Elite capture can also explain the discrepancy of preferences and outcomes in

Balochistan. The Balochistan analysis began with the assumption that hierarchical systems are a potential omitted variable when studying ethnic preferences. We would expect hierarchical systems to be less conducive for fostering education. But by this statement, we are treating the ethnic group as a unit. Disaggregating it into the tiers of 271

hierarchy allows us to specify which echelon would be the driving force behind manifesting the preferences for public goods. The tribal elite have the most to fear from a more politicized tribe that demands its share of goods, such like Bourgoign and Verdier

(2000)’s oligarchs. Hence, it behooves the elite to limit those influences that can potentially increase demands for goods, such as education and access to infrastructure that links the outside world with the tribal areas. Unsurprisingly, public goods such as health are much less likely to be affected by tribalism (except in some cases when viewing women’s health issues, oppressive tribal culture can be deleterious for women’s health access).

Thus, when assessing elite capture in the surveyed union councils in Balochistan, we found that the most tribal union council surveyed was also the most susceptible to elite capture. The union councils in the less tribal Zhob, and particularly in Gwadar, were less likely to be considered influenced by and catering to the elite. Given the history of

Balochi tribal leaders’ roles in politics, this explains how a small tier of elite can continue to perpetuate the traditional tribal system and limit the mitigating influences.

In analyzing how ethnic groups can share preferences for a package of goods and differ from other groups, it is important to specify the omitted variables that affect that preference formation. In this dissertation we looked at social organization and hierarchical systems. Traditional society still exists, though continually diminishing with modernization. The hierarchical heads have the most to lose by erosion of their power and are most likely to limit access to public goods that hasten their demise. Linking political power with power over their ethnic group further solidifies their power over 272

public goods, a feat more difficult if the elite are economically powerful but do not command ethnic loyalty, which reduces the need for coercion. Hence, elite capture can be exacerbated when linked with ethnic identity in hierarchical systems. Paradoxically, a more heterogeneous polity can actually mitigate the pernicious effect of elite capture by providing competition among the elite. This raises an important question for public policy: are the pernicious effects of elite capture worse than the pernicious effects of a fragmented polity? The answer to this question for each political unit can have important ramifications for public policy.

II. APPLICATION

Political parties in Pakistan have resisted devolution due to its history of being used as a ploy by the military to fabricate legitimacy after military coups. However, with the passage and application of the 18th Amendment in recent years, provinces have gained more power vis a vis the center and local government now resides more firmly within their jurisdiction. Each province must now frame their own local government structure, and though no doubt initial attempts will minimize sharing power with local government, there is a more real hope for meaningful decentralization from the province to the district

(or other locality as defined by the provincial parliament) as many developing countries have done these past two decades (Manor 1999). Advocates are often seduced by the downward accountability of decentralization, the better identification of needs of a locality, better information regarding performance due to closer proximity of the

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politicians to the locals, and hence, potentially improved accountability as voters can more readily attribute problems and solutions to the relevant politicians. However, social factors affect the functioning of each of these potential advantages and if the social structures are faulty, decentralization can hinder rather than help development.

This dissertation helps provide guidance to potential pitfalls in the decentralization process. There are three main potential issues that it highlights that are relevant for public policy: ethnic fragmentation of a polity leading to prioritizing of private over public goods, hierarchical societies limiting access to education, and the potential for elite capture, which targets public policy toward the few rather than the many. All three can possibly lead local government to fail in its promise of better delivery of public goods. . If fragmented societies have fears of being locked out of government jobs, this arena must be reformed to focus on merit rather than nepotism

(which should be the case anyhow, but this analysis increases the stakes for reform).

Institutions need to be shaped so that decision-making for public goods lies in the hands of those that are most apt to take progressive measures, and to prevent elite capture.

Most states have some form of heterogeneity and with the increase in popularity of grass root democracy, there are a broad range of polities that would benefit from a closer assessment of how bringing democracy to lower tiers may be hindered through sociopolitical cleavages. Though this has garnered much attention, social organization of ethnic groups has found limited study in political studies. Yet, tribal rule is not exceptional to Pakistan. Many countries contain parts of the population that still recognize tribal chiefs and where said chiefs still have power. 274

Besides the neighboring Afghanistan, tribalism can be found farther regions as well.

There are tribal chiefs in Africa as well. Ntsebeza (2004) discusses the role of tribal authorities in South Africa that were empowered, much as they were in Balochistan, by the colonialists and they continue to exercise control in politics even after the end of

Apartheid. Though the South African government attempted to replace them with a local government of elected officials, the power of these tribal elite was such that they forced concessions from parliament and the president, even threatening violence if their terms were not met. Though this does not necessarily discuss whether their system was such as to inhibit public goods provision, the corruption costs were high. Just as Pehrson (1982) spoke of Jirga council members gaining compensation for presenting a commoner’s case at the Jirga council, figures in the tribal authority in South Africa would charge unauthorized fees to fulfill their political duties. This illustrates how colonial history interacted with tribal systems to manipulate them so that tribal leaders were no longer accountable to their tribe’s people from whom they traditionally derived power and authority, but rather to the colonialists who backed them with their power and resources.

This reinforced the hierarchical nature of social organization whilst chipping away at the social accountability that may have existed before. Applications of the theories analyzed here to other ethnic groups with internal hierarchy would be illustrative in determining whether this social organization is indeed pernicious to development.

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III. LIMITATIONS AND FURTHER STUDY

Small n case study analysis can always benefit from application of theory to more cases to substantiate the established results. In the analysis of southern Punjab, the different dynamics of politics at the district level, particularly the tug of war of power between different tribes in Dera Ghazi Khan and different political parties in

Muzaffargarh, as compared to the union council level limited a projection of the results from the lowest tier of local government to the highest. Both districts suffered manipulation of budgets and consequent conflict over their passage, making it difficult to garner much information from budget analysis. Though union council level surveys were instructive, budget allocation decisions were made at the district, and an in-depth analysis of how union council members interacted as part of the district council would be illuminating: would they be more affected by the politics of their heterogeneous or homogeneous constituency, or would their attitude toward public policy be more affected by the political dynamics at the district level? This is relevant not only for local government, but for any government. Governments are likely to always have tiers, and representatives from lower tiers often have to make political bargains at higher tiers. It would be instructive to analyze how the political discourse in a smaller polity translates to the larger one.

In studying social organization in tribal societies, if security was no longer a concern, it would be more informative to study a quintessential Baloch tribal system next to the quintessential Pakhtun tribal system and to focus the study on rural areas that are outside occasional visits to urban areas for the inhabitants where the tribal system remains the 276

strongest. Moreover, the study could have been enriched by district budgets as well as interviews with local government politicians and third party observers that could more clearly define the role of tribal elite in controlling government resources in their polity.

Security concerns limited this aspect of the study, but further study in this area would greatly benefit the research.

Finally, to more concretely establish that internal hierarchy rather than descent based identities per se are the operational variable responsible for public goods preferences, the study of feudal systems would be a conducive parallel. These exist in both southern

Punjab and Sindh. Comparing the hierarchy between the two as well as public good outcomes would help us ascertain whether ethnic ties and ethnic trust mitigates the egoism of the elite in a hierarchical system or is the level of social organization in a polity sufficient in explaining the variation in public goods in comparable localities.

Ethnicity is a complex identity that scholars until now have trouble pinning down. It enters into social, economic and political interactions and can have positive impact when it strengthens social sanctions to ensure compliance (Alesina and La Ferrara 2005, Grief

1993) as evidenced by the substantially better teacher attendance in tribal societies in

Balochistan, or it can have negative impact if it strengthens clientelist politics and increases elite capture or if in diverse societies it reduces trust and competitive drive leads to valuing private goods over public goods. Through its many dynamics it has a

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significant role to play in determining public policy, whether to improve or thwart its efficacy.

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Appendix A: Glossary of Terms and Acronyms

Glossary of Common Urdu Terms baraderi clan, "brotherhood" dhara/dharay voting block katchi residencies composed of mud, semi-permanent homes top most leader designation in certain Pathan tribes, and a term for sub-tribal malik leaders in certain Baloch tribes naib nazim deputy mayor nazim mayor sardar chief, leader polity below district but above union council responsible for municipal tehsil services, water, sewer, etc. tumandar top most leader designation in certain tribes wadera, mukadam sub-tribal leader

List of Common Acronyms

DCO District Coordinating Officer FBS Federal Bureau of Statistics, Pakistan HDI Human Development Index ICG International Crisis Group IFPRI International Food Policy Research Institute KP Khyber Pakhtunkhwa NHDR National Human Development Report PCO Population Census Organization, Pakistan PFC Provincial Finance Commission Pakistan Social and Living Standards Measurement PSLM Surveys SPDC Social Policy and Development Centre UNDP United Nations Development Program USAID United States Agency for International Development

299

Appendix B: Chapter 3 Variables

VARIABLE DEFINITIONS

BALOCHISTAN Provincial dummy for Balochistan KHYBER PAKHTUNKHWA (KP) Provincial dummy for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa SINDH Provincial dummy for Sindh PUNJAB Provincial dummy for Punjab AREA 1998 District area in sq. km from the 1998 Census by Pakistan's Population Census Organization POPULATION District population density based on the 1998 Census's data on DENSITY 1998 population and area INCOME 2004 Index based on equally weighted summation of percentage ofhouseholds that have no toilets and percentage of households that live in only one room from Pakistan Bureau of Statistics PSLM surveys ETHNO-LINGUISTIC The Herfindahl index for mother tongue data from the 1998 FRACTIONALIZATION population census by the Population Census Organization RAIN The average rainfall from 1960-1990 based on the World Bank's climate website PFC AWARD The Provincial Finance Commission award for each district for the year 2002-2003 from Ahmed and Lodhi 2008 CITY Dummy for major cities in Pakistan based on the National Reconstruction Bureau's designation in the LGO 2001 LITERACY 2004 Literacy levels for ages 10+ from Pakistan’s Federal Bureau of Statistics PSLM surveys PRIMARY SCHOOL ENROLLMENT 2004, Net primary school enrollment for ages 5-9 by district as reported in 2010 Pakistan Bureau of Statistics PSLM Surveys 2004 and 2010 HEALTH INDEX The health component of the human development index figures for Pakistan in the 2003 National Human Development Report (NHDR) for Pakistan by UNDP CHILD IMMUNIZATION 2004 data on percentage of children immunized from the Pakistan RATES Bureau of Statistics PSLM surveys for 2004 HUMAN DEVELOPMENT Index of education, health, and income indicators from the 2003 INDEX National Human Development Report for Pakistan by UNDP HDI-INCOME INDEX The income component of the Human Development Index for Pakistan from the 2003 NHDR Pakistan by UNDP EDUCATION INDEX The education component of the Human Development Index for Pakistan from the 2003 NHDR Pakistan by UNDP 300

NATIVE The part of Balochistan that was under indirect rule during British BALOCHISTAN colonialism from Shah (1992) BRITISH The part of Balochistan that was under direct rule during British BALOCHISTAN colonialism from Shah (1992)

301

Appendix C: Sample Survey

Survey District Dera Ghazi Khan

Email: [email protected]

Use corresponding numbers given in codes to fill in answers. If the question does not apply, write in NA for not applicable. Make sure that you fill in the numbers clearly in the applicable slot. Many of the questions do not require answers from all household members but make sure you fill in the response for the household member that answers the questions.

Demographics

Q1: Q2: Q3: Q4: Q5: Q6: Q7: Q8: How many Position in Gender Age – in What is Educational Is If in people Household 1=M completed the level of household school including 2= F years current each member now, yourself USE CODE primary household currently where? are in the occupation member attending (USE household? of each including school? CODE) resident? respondent (1=yes, (USE (USE CODE) 2=no) Member ID Member CODE) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

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Code for Q2: Code for Q5: 1=head of household 1= too old to work 2=child, earning 2= too young to work 3=child, not earning 3= farming cultivate agricultural products 4= male adult, earning 4=makes handicrafts/stitching 5=male adult, not earning 5=household chores 6= female adult, earning 6=run grocery shop 7= female adult, not earning 7= industry worker 8= other, specify ______8=school going 9= Don’t know 9= labor mason ------10= labor other Code for Q6: 11= government service 1=Illiterate 12= car wash 2=no formal education, but can read and write 13= transportation of goods to market or 3=preschool storage/porter 4=Primary School (Grade 1 to 5) 14= domestic worker/maid or servant 5= Middle School (Grade 6 to 8) 15= begging 6= High School (Grade 9 to 10) 16= none 7= Higher Secondary School (Grade 11 to 12) 17= part time work 8= Madrassa/Relgious Education 18= Army, Navy & Air Force 9=Higher Qualification 19= Other, specify ______10=Technical Education and Vocational Training 20= Don’t know 11=Too young to be in school ------12=Other, Specify______Code for Q8: 13= Don’t know 1=In village Public School 2=In village Private School 3=In village NGO School 4=In nearby village Public School 5=In nearby village Private School 6=In nearby village NGO school 7=In the urban area 8=Other, specify ______9=Don’t know

Wealth

Q9: Q10: Q11: Q12: Q13: Q14: Q15: Q16: Q17: Q18: Q19: Where What type Do you Do you Do you Do you How far What Do you What How do you of house own have have use your do you do you have a kind of many live? do you any access to running running have to get your toilet in heating rooms (USE live in? other electricity? water? water for go for drinking your system do you CODE) assets? drinking? drinking water house? do you have in (USE (1= yes, (1= yes, water? from? have? your CODE) (USE 2=no) 2= no) (1=yes, (1=yes, house? CODE) 2=no) (USE (USE 2= no) (USE Multiple CODE) CODE) CODE) (number choice [If yes, of 303

skip to rooms) Q17]

Code for Q9 Code for Q10 1=Own house 1= Mud house (kacha) 2= Rented house 2= Brick house (pacca) 3= Other 3= Fabricated 4= Don’t know 4= Shelter ------5= Tent Code for Q11 6= Don’t Know 1= No assets ------2= Fruit/vegetable farm Code for Q15 3= trees 1=within property 4= goats 2= less than a km away 5= cows 3= between one and five km 6= buffalos 4= more than five km 7= chicken stock 5= don’t know 8= TV/Fridge ------9=Radio Code for Q16 10= jewelry 1=tap water 11=bicycles 2=hand pump 12=agricultural equipment 3=well, without hand pump 13=fans 4= stream 14=motorcycle 5= river 15=sewing machine 6= standing water 16=VCR/Cassette Player 7= other, specify ______17=weapons 8= don’t know 18=sports items ------19=Other, specify Code for Q18 20=Don’t Know 1= gas 2= electricity 3= coal 4= wood 5 = none 6 = other 7= don’t know

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Health

Q20: Q21: Q22: Q23: Q24: Q25: Q26: Q27: Q28: In the Where did Have your Has Where did Was How far is Were there Where last you seek children had your you seek ORS the nearest any did two consultation immunizations? child consultation given government pregnancies woman weeks, when sick? had for the to the health in the past go for was (USE CODE) diarrhea child? child? facility? two years? prenatal anyone (USE CODE) (Check all that in the care?

sick? apply) past 30 (USE CODE) (1=yes, (USE CODE) (1=yes, days? 2=no) 2=no) (USE (1=yes, CODE) 2=no) (1=yes, Member ID Member 2= no) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Q29: Q30: Q31: Where did woman go for postnatal care? Where did births occur? Have you lost any child before 5 yrs of age?

(USE CODE) (USE CODE) (1=yes, 2=no, + #)

Member ID Member 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

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Code for Q21, Q24: Code for Q22: 1=no access to medical facilities 1=BCG 2=nearby pharmacies 2=DPT1 3=pharmacies at the market 3=DPT2 4=private hospital in city 4=DPT3 5=private doctor 5=Polio 1 6=public dispensary 6=Polio 2 7= public hospital 7=Polio 3 8=hakeem 8=Measles 9=pir/faith healer 9=no vaccinations 10=other, specify ______10=not sure about some 11= did not seek consultation 11=don’t know 12=don’t know ------Code for Q26: Code for Q28, 29: 1= less than 1 km 1=no consultation 2=between 1 and 5 km 2=private doctor/private clinic 3= between 5 and 10 km 3=government hospital/clinic 4= between 10 and 20km 4=home TBA 5= more than 20 km 5=other, specify ______5= don’t know of any 6=don’t know ------

Code for Q30: 1=at home 2=in private hospital/clinic 3=in public hospital/clinic 4=other, specify______5=don’t know

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Education

Q32: Q33: Q34: Q35: Q36: Q37: How far How Does Does What How is your often the your factors satisfied child’s does school child’s affect your are you school? the have school child’s with teacher enough have attendance the (USE attend tables operating /enrollment school CODE) for and toilets? in school? system?

each chairs? child? (USE (USE CODE) (USE CODE) Member ID Member CODE) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Q38: Q39: Q40: Have there been any new If yes, where have they been Were these schools built to schools built in the past 8 built? (name of location, plus serve everyone or targeted years? USE CODE) toward one community? (1= yes, 2= no, 3=DK) (USE CODE)

Code for Q33: Code for Q32: 1=always attends, with few exceptions 1= less than 1 km 2=attends most of the time 2=between 1 and 5 km 3=attends half the time 3= between 5 and 10 km 4=attends less than half the time 4= between 10 and 20km 5=rarely attends 5= more than 20 km 6=don’t know 5= don’t know of any ------Code for Q34: Code for Q35: 1= has enough for all students 1=yes 2= enough for most students 307

2= sometimes 3= enough for half the students 3=no 4=enough for few students 4=don’t know 5=none for the students ------6=don’t know

Code for Q39: ------1= less than 1 km Code for Q36: 2=between 1 and 5 km 1=teacher absenteeism 3= between 5 and 10 km 2=help at home or work 4= between 10 and 20km 3=school too far 5= more than 20 km 4=lack of bathroom facilities 5= don’t know of any 5=no proper classroom (desks, chairs, etc.) ------6=other, specify______7=don’t know Code for Q40: ------1=targeted toward whole community 2=targeted toward ethnicity (specify) Code for Q37: 3=other, specify ______1=very satisfied 4=don’t know 2=satisfied 3=somewhat satisfied 4=dissatisfied 5=very dissatisfied 6=don’t know

Infrastructure

Q41: Q42: Q43: Q44: Q45: Q46: Q47: Q48: How often How How Are you Are you Which Do you What do your long often satisfied with satisfied with roads believe infrastructure water/sewer does is the road water/sewage are that project pipes break? it take road maintenance? maintenance? given better would you to get next (USE CODE) priority? roads most prefer? (USE CODE) them to (USE CODE) would fixed? your (USE improve (USE CODE) home CODE) your

(USE fixed? quality CODE) (USE of life? CODE) (USE Member ID Member CODE)

Code for Q41: Code for Q42: 308

1=once a week 1=one day 2=once a month 2=one week 3=once a year 3=one month 4=rarely 4=more than a month 5=never 5=don’t know 6=don’t know NA=not applicable NA=not applicable ------Code for Q44, Q45: Code for Q43: 1=very satisfied 1=once a year 2=satisfied 2=between one and five years 3=somewhat satisfied 3=between five and ten years 4=dissatisfied 4=never been fixed 5=very dissatisfied 5=other, specify______6=don’t know 6=don’t know ------Code for Q48: Code for Q46: 1=one that improves living standards for yourself 1=roads with most traffic 2=one that improves living standards of the 2=roads in worst repair subtribe 3=roads that benefit mayor’s constituency 3=one that improves living standards for the tribe 4=roads most important to local elite 4=one that improves living standards for everyone 5=other, specify______5=other, specify______6=don’t know 6=don’t know ------Code for Q47: 1=yes 2=maybe 3=no 4=don’t know

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Voting and Politicization

Q49: Q50: Q51: Q52: Q53: Q54: Q55: Q56: Q57: Q58: Did you How How How do you Have Did you Was this Who in Was the What factors vote in did often gain you go group the UC UC do you the 2005 you do you political ever individuall composed did you responsive believe UC decid discuss information gone y or as a of people make to your affect the elections? e who politics ? to group? from the the complaints responsivne to ? the same or complain ? ss of the [1=yes vote (USE CODE) UC to (USE different t to? UC? 2=no for? ask CODE, NA ethnicities (USE 3=not (USE them if not ? (USE CODE, (USE CODE) registere (USE CODE) to fix applicable CODE) Check all d] CODE an ) (USE that apply) , issue CODE,

check ? check all all (1=y, that that 2= apply) apply no) Member ID Member )

Q59: Q60: Q61: Q62: Q63: Q64: Q65: Q66: Does your Who did you vote Who did you Who did Did you What What is your What is UC mayor for in the last vote for in you vote know the political identity? your full have election for Union the last for in the political party do ethnic backing Council Mayor? Provincial last party you (however identity? from the Assembly National affiliation of usually they identify tribal [Name, Tribe, elections? Assembly the UC support? themselves) [tribal leader? Village, elections? member identity, Implicit/Explicit [Name, you voted (name of subtribal (USE Party] Tribe, Party, [Name, for? party) identity, CODE, NA Region] Tribe, linguistic

if not (Write DK if the Party, (1= yes, 2= identity, ID applicable) respondent does Region] no; the tribal not know, and election leader, write NA if did not years the subtribal vote) answer leader] Member applies to)

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Code for Q50: Code for Q51: 1=same tribe 1=daily 2=same language 2=weekly 3=provided goods during campaign 3=monthly 4=good reputation in the community 4=rarely 5=explicit party affiliation 5=never 6=implicit party affiliation 6=don’t know 7=candidate supported by the tribal or subtribal ------leader 8=candidate with the best policies Code for Q52: 9=other, specify ______1=newspaper 10=don’t know 2=radio ------3=television 4=community meetings Code for Q54: 5=other, specify______1=individually 6=don’t know 2=group ------3=both ------Code for Q55: Code for Q56: 1=same linguistic group 1. union council member 2=same tribal group 2. union council nazim 3=same subtribal group 3. union council naib nazim 4=mixed linguistic 4. bureaucrat, position ______5=mixed tribally 5. other (including district, tehsil)______6=mixed subtribally 6. don’t know 7=purely community effort, ethnicity was not ------important Code for Q57: 8=don’t know 1=yes in action ------2=yes in word 3=somewhat in action Code for Q59: 4=somewhat in word 1=yes, from both tribal and subtribal leader 5=no in action 2=yes from tribal, not subtribal 6=no in word 3=yes from subtribal, not tribal 7=don’t know 4=not from either 5=don’t know ------Code for Q58: 1=tribal ethnicity of group 2=subtribal identity of group 3=income of group members 4=the will of the tribal and subtribal leaders 5=budget constraints 6=other, specify______7=don’t know

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Preference for and Access to Goods

Q67: Q68: Q69: Q70: Q71: Q72: Q73: Q74: Q75: Q76: Does What Do you Rank the How Rank When you Which do Which Does your your tribal promises think following satisfie who have a you think would tribal leader of goods that your goods in d are you dispute, are is more give leader influence did the quality of order of you rely on you more accessbile you a influence the District candidat life is preference with most likely to go to ? fairer the UC Mayor in e you better : the for a chance mayor in which voted for under a police securit jirga/panchaya (USE ? which public make to shared (USE security y in t or the justice CODE) public services you that ethnic CODE) in your your system? (USE services should be appealed candidat area? area? CODE) should be given to you? e or does (USE CODE) given preference it not (USE (USE preference ? (USE matter? CODE) CODE ? CODE) (USE and (USE CODE) CODE) rank (USE CODE) most [UC, to Tehsil, least) District, PA, NA]

Q77: Q78: Q79: Q80: Q81: Q82: Q83: Q84: Q85: Q86: Does your Do your Where do Do you Do you Do you Do you Do you Do you Do you tribal preferenc you think think think more think think have have have leader es for most of education was done more was health better better better influence public the provision for done for provision access to access to access to the MPA goods developm was infrastruct better was farm water public in which differ ent funds better ure under water better subsidies rights for jobs public from are spent? under the the local access under the under agricultur under services those of local governmen under the local devolutio e under devolutio should be the tribal (USE governme t or the old local governme n? devolutio n? given leader? CODE, nt or with system? governme nt or with n? preferenc select up the old nt or the the old (USE (USE e? (USE to 3) system? (USE old system? CODE) (USE CODE) CODE) CODE) system? CODE) (USE (USE (USE CODE) CODE) (USE CODE) CODE)

Q87: Q88: Q89: Q90: Q91: Do members of your Do members of your Do members of your Do members of your Do members of your ethnic group get more ethnic group get more ethnic group get more ethnic group get more ethnic group get more jobs/farm jobs/farm jobs/farm jobs/farm jobs/farm subsidies/water rights subsidies/water rights subsidies/water rights subsidies/water rights subsidies/water rights for agriculture in the to agriculture in the to agriculture in the to agriculture in the to agriculture in the 312

government when the government when the government when the government when the government when the MNA is of the same MPA is of the same district nazim is of the tehsil nazim is of the UC nazim is of the same ethnic group? ethnic group? same ethnic group? same ethnic group? ethnic group?

(USE CODE for each— (USE CODE for each) (USE CODE each) (USE CODE for each) (USE CODE for each) example: 1/2/2 for jobs/ farm subsi/water rights)

Code for Q67: Code for Q68: 1=better health 1=better under same tribal candidate 2=better water delivery/clean water 2=better under same subtribal candidate 3=better education 3=worse if not the same subtribal candidate 4=better roads 4=worse if not the same tribal candidate 5=more personalized goods (food, clothing, 5=it makes no difference vehicles) 6=don’t know 6=more agricultural subsidies ------7=other, specify______Code for Q70: 8=don’t know 1=very satisfied ------2=satisfied 3=somewhat satisfied Code for Q69: 4=dissatisfied 1=Farm subsidies 5=very dissatisfied 2=Government jobs 6=don’t know 3=Better education in community ------4=Improved access to clean water for community Code for Q71: 5=Better roads linking the village to urban areas 1=on self 6=Better roads connecting to your home 2=on tribal leader 7=Better/more public health clinics/doctors 3=on subtribal leader ------4=on family Code for Q72: 5=on police 1=government justice system for all 6=other, specify______2=jirga/panchayat for all 7=don’t know 3=govt justice for some, jirga/panchayat for some ------[specify which] Code for Q73: 4=don’t know 1=jirga ------2=government justice system Code for Q74: 3=depends, specify______1=jirga 4=don’t know 2=government justice ------3=depends, specify______Code for Q75, Q76, Q77, Q78: 4=don’t know 1=yes 2=often times ------3=some times Code for Q79: 4=rarely 1=corruption 5=no 2=farm subsidies 6= don’t know 3=new subsidies ------

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4=improving education Code for Q80, Q81, Q82, Q83: 5=improving health 1= under Local Government System 6=improving water and sewerage 2=under the old system before devolution 7=other, specify______3=LG system with recent changes 8=don’t know 4=same 5=don’t know ------Code for Q84-Q91: 1=yes 2=no 3=same 4=don’t know

Q92: Do you believe that tribal identity became more important politically after devolution?

Code for Q92:

1= yes

2= no

3= other, specify______

4= perhaps

Tribal Hierarchy Addendum (only 10 needed per village)

1. Does your tribe have a recognized chief/leader? (Write NA if not part of tribe and do not continue) a. yes b. no c. don’t know 2. Do you pay taxes to the tribal chief or leaders? a. yes, taxes are mandatory and enforced b. yes, taxes are paid because of strong social pressure c. yes, but taxes are voluntary and there is no stigma if not paid d. no, there are no taxes e. don’t know 3. Can anyone be a part of a jirga council? 314

a. yes, any male can be a part of a jirga council b. though any male can attend, only certain members are allowed to speak at a jirga council c. don’t know 4. Who are the decision makers in a jirga council? a. The tribal chief b. The tribal chief and sub tribal chiefs c. High ranking members that share the same lineage as tribal chief d. High ranking members that are of good repute e. High ranking members that are of the tribal chief’s lineage and have good repute f. Unanimous support or overwhelming support is sought from those attending the council to make a decision g. Other ______h. Don’t know 5. Who owns the land you live on? a. self owned, private property b. communal land belonging to tribe c. land belongs to the tribal or sub tribal leaders d. tenant on someone else’s land e. don’t know

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