Informed choices
In the 19th century, the modern form of political parties along with parliamentary and electoral systems originated in Europe and the US. Regardless of the political orientation of parties across…
West, ummah’s lost conscience
WHEN historians write about the period we are living in, they would feel — they must feel — compelled to call it an era where international law became meaningless, where…
A hard state?
THE recent in-camera civil-military huddle at Parliament House once again unfolded three conceptual cleavages that have rent apart the polity. One, the establishment continues to seek stability through a ‘hard state’, or…
Need for a hard state
The COAS has said that Pakistan needs to turn into a hard state, to be able to counter internal and external threats. For far too long has Pakistan trudged along…
The great incumbent replacement
Political scientists are obsessed with trying to understand the socio-political world we live in. Oftentimes, they emulate natural scientists, occupied with finding common patterns in seemingly unrelated phenomena. Such generalisations…
A kind of insanity
The US has consistently followed a line which either veers to the right or in a few cases has deviated slightly to the centre. It has not really moved from…
Trump: ratings and resentment
It is a measure of how divided the US has become that rarely in its history has one seen a president being the object of so much adulation among his…
Lawmakers’ pay
A STORM of protest led by no less a person than the prime minister had engulfed the country after Punjab’s provincial assembly passed a bill on March 13 for increasing…
Unjustifiable ends
THE new BJP led by Narendra Modi and Amit Shah is in a hurry to cremate its party elders, even before they are dead. The announcement of its candidates for…
Exit democracy
WHILE Pakistan clings to fantasies of hybridity regarding its political framework, the Economist Intelligence Unit has categorised it as an authoritarian regime. The EIU’s latest Democracy Index ranks Pakistan 124…
