Pakistan’s search for a successful model of national political economy

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article examines Pakistan’s search for a model of political economy capable of meeting the national objectives of industrialisation and accumulation of sufficient military power to deter India. It contends that the period of promise (1950s and 1960s) was made possible through heavy subsidies drawn from East Pakistan and the West. The resultant hubris blinded Pakistan’s rulers to growing discontent in the eastern wing of the country while encouraging them to take serious strategic risks against India. The unravelling of this strategy plunged Pakistan into a permanent crisis of its national political economy characterised by underdevelopment, internal and external fiscal imbalances, and a failure to mobilise national resources on a scale commensurate with its national goals. Experiments with socialism (1970s) and neo-classical economics-inspired structural adjustments (since the 1980s) have failed to deliver the desired outcomes and, in fact, entrenched Pakistan’s crisis of political economy.