University of Bath PHD Political Reforms, Local Elites and Power: A Study of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan Shah, Abid Award date: 2018 Awarding institution: University of Bath Link to publication Alternative formats If you require this document in an alternative format, please contact: [email protected] General rights Copyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in the public portal are retained by the authors and/or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. • Users may download and print one copy of any publication from the public portal for the purpose of private study or research. • You may not further distribute the material or use it for any profit-making activity or commercial gain • You may freely distribute the URL identifying the publication in the public portal ? Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Download date: 07. Oct. 2021 Political Reforms, Local Elites and Power: A Study of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan MIAN ABID SHAH A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Bath Department of Social & Policy Sciences January 2018 Copyright Attention is drawn to the fact that copyright of this thesis rests with the author. A copy of this thesis has been supplied on condition that anyone who consults it is understood to recognise this and that they must not copy it or use material from it except as permitted by law or with the consent of the author. This thesis may be made available for consultation within the University Library and may be photocopied or lent to other libraries for purposes of consultation. 1 Contents List of Figures ........................................................................................................................................ 7 List of Tables ......................................................................................................................................... 8 Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................................... 9 Abstract ................................................................................................................................................ 10 List of Abbreviations and Acronyms ................................................................................................. 12 Chapter One: Introduction .................................................................................................................. 14 1.1 A Daunting Exercise: A Snapshot of Governance Challenges in FATA .................................. 14 1.2 Settling FATA via Political Reforms: The Case for a Non-normative Approach ................... 16 1.3 Contextualising Post-Conflict Peacebuilding in the FATA region .......................................... 18 1.4 Research Questions .............................................................................................................. 21 1.5 Contribution of the Thesis .................................................................................................... 22 1.6 Structure of the Thesis .......................................................................................................... 24 Chapter Two: Political Settlement: Remodelling the Perspective on Governance ....................... 27 2.1 Introduction .......................................................................................................................... 27 2.2 FATA, State Fragility and Governance ................................................................................... 27 2.3 Political Reforms via Good Governance as a Key Condition for State-building .................... 30 2.4 Good Governance: The Divergence in Developing Countries ............................................... 33 2.4 Violence, Political Context, Elites and Social Order .............................................................. 37 2.5 Political Settlement: Local Elites and Power ......................................................................... 39 2.5.1 Power and Coalitions .................................................................................................... 41 2.6 The Significance of Political Leadership ................................................................................ 49 2.6.1 The Dynamics of Political Leadership: Loyalty .............................................................. 52 2.6.2 The Dynamics of Political Leadership: Social Networks ................................................ 55 2.6.3 The Dynamics of Political Leadership: Rhetoric ............................................................ 59 2.7 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................. 60 Chapter Three ...................................................................................................................................... 62 A Historical Perspective of Political Settlement in FATA ................................................................. 62 3.1 Introduction .......................................................................................................................... 62 3.2 Pre-Colonial Era: Volatility, Coalitions and Local Leadership ................................................ 64 3.3 British Rule and Governance: Towards a ‘Stable’ Political Settlement ................................ 66 3.3.1 Customised Governance, Coalition Formation and Indirect Rule ................................. 67 3.3.2 Emergence of Maliks as an Institution: Identifying Political Power of Maliks .............. 69 3.4 The Creation of Pakistan in 1947 and Governance in FATA ................................................. 76 2 3.4.1 The Geopolitical Dimension: Pakistan’s Existential Threat ........................................... 76 3.4.2 The Significance of Maliks: Negotiating Loyalty............................................................ 77 3.4.2.1 The Political Power of Maliks: Expanded Dimensions .............................................. 80 3.5 The External Framing of Ideologies: Critical Rupture Moments in Leadership, Political Space and Adaptability ................................................................................................................................ 82 3.6 The Political Settlement in Crisis: Contested political space and new alternative actors .... 84 3.7 Reconfiguring the Hybrid Political Settlement: Violence, Political Reforms and Elite Perception ......................................................................................................................................... 86 3.8 The War on Terror: The Rupture of the Malik Institution .................................................... 87 3.9 Political Parties Act 2013: Analysing the ‘New’ Political Environment: Renegotiating Political Space ................................................................................................................................... 90 3.10 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................. 92 Chapter Four: Methodology ................................................................................................................ 94 4.1 Introduction .......................................................................................................................... 94 4.2 Why Ethnography? ................................................................................................................ 94 4.3 A Multi-Sited Ethnography: Negotiating the problematic nature of conflict ....................... 98 4.4 Navigating Access: Gatekeepers ......................................................................................... 102 4.5 Techniques for data collection ............................................................................................ 105 4.5.1 Observations ............................................................................................................... 105 4.5.2 Interviews ................................................................................................................... 108 4.5.3 Informal Interaction .................................................................................................... 110 4.6 Ethnography and Flexibility ................................................................................................ 112 4.7 Reflexivity and Positionality ................................................................................................ 114 4.8 Validation and Triangulation ............................................................................................... 118 4.9 Writing field notes and analysis of data ............................................................................. 119 4.10 Ethical issues ....................................................................................................................... 121 4.11 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................... 124 Chapter Five: PPA, and Reworked Political Leadership and Authority