Ballots and Barracks: Unveiling Pakistan's Hybrid Democracy
Paperback
Series: Pakistan Affairs, Book 4
Publisher: Independently Published
Published: May 2 2025
Pages: 398
Weight: 1.17
Height: 0.82 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
Ballots and Barracks is a magisterial, unflinching exploration of Pakistan's fraught and fragile experiment with democracy. Written by distinguished scholar Dr. Naeem Chishti, this groundbreaking work offers a penetrating analysis of how elected governments in Pakistan function within an ecosystem dominated by unelected centers of power - the military establishment, the judiciary, and entrenched elite networks.
With a profound grasp of constitutional law, political theory, and historical context, the book delves into critical milestones:
- The architecture of electoral rituals without substantive empowerment.
- The judiciary's evolving role from legitimizer of coups to occasional bulwark against excesses.
- The interplay of military power, bureaucratic inertia, and religious mobilization in engineering political outcomes.
- The global dimensions - including foreign aid, strategic alliances, and surveillance capitalism - that reinforce domestic authoritarianism.
Elegant yet incisive, scholarly yet accessible, this book is a towering contribution to South Asian studies, comparative constitutionalism, and political sociology. It speaks not only to academics and practitioners, but to all who believe in the enduring promise of democracy.
For those seeking to understand - and to transform - Pakistan's political future, Ballots and Barracks is essential reading.
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