Devolution Plan 2000: dictatorship,democracy, and the politics of institutional change in Pakistan

Contemporary development theory and policy research puts an overarching emphasis on institution building as a key driver of change in developing countries. Over the past few decades, decentralisation reforms have played out as the linchpin of such institution building efforts, advocated by international development agencies and favoured by national governments. This article examines decentralisation reforms implemented in Pakistan under the Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers initiative through a case study of the implementation and outcomes of Devolution Plan (DP) in Khyber Pukhtunkhwa province. Promulgated by General Musharaf in 2000, the DP aimed to restructure and rebuild political and administrative structures, to redress key issues of governance, resource distribution, and service delivery. The Local Government System (LGS) was a key reform element within the DP, but it lost traction and was abolished in 2008/09. This article demonstrates two important factors, regime legitimisation and the preservation of clientelistic politics, that have profoundly shaped implementation of the DP. The findings demonstrate how the implementation of this large-scale internationally supported attempt at institution building ultimately succumbed to a range of particularistic interests.     

Party patronage and merit-based bureaucratic reform in Pakistan

ABSTRACT

How do ruling political parties accommodate their members’ demand for access to state patronage with a push for merit-based bureaucratic reform? I argue that political commitment to reform is contingent on electoral calculations within the party. Therefore, distortions in reform implementation reveal not only dynamics within the party itself, but also the significance of appointing the right bureaucrats to the right posts to regulate access to patronage. Drawing on qualitative fieldwork in Punjab, I contextualise political commitment to bureaucratic reform to provide an explanation for their unsustainability and for persistently low state capacity in countries with weak, patronage-reliant parties.     

De-politicizing Westoxification: The Case of Bonyad Monthly

This article studies materials published in the Bonyad Monthly, a journal sponsored by the Pahlavi state. It was published for two years (1977–78), just prior to the 1979 Revolution in Iran. Bonyad Monthly’s mission was to engage in the ongoing intellectual debates at the time in Iran’s encounter with modernity. It primarily published articles, interviews and translations, with the aim of exposing the cultural and moral perils of modern western culture. The writers of Bonyad Monthly cast the modern world as morally soulless, culturally debased, politically imperial and arrogant. The Journal also depicted Iranian culture as the mirror image of the modern west, and part of the rising “Eastern spiritual” resurrection. More specifically, Bonyad Monthly helped invert and de-politicize the notion of Gharbzadegi (Westoxification). The Gharbzadegi discourse, a powerful rhetorical device, had been used by oppositional intellectuals to condemn the Pahlavi modernization programme. It was now ironically claimed by the Pahlavi state and used to craft a new state-sponsored anti-modern ideology. This signified a major ideological turning point for the modernizing state in Iran. The editor and writers of Bonyad Monthly were influenced by a broader anti-modernist current around the Pahlavi State. Very prominent scholars such as Henry Corbin, Ahmad Fardid, Hussein Nasr and Ehsan Naraghi articulated anti-modernist ideas, calling for the return to Persian and Islamic spiritual identity. This article discusses the ironies and complexities of a modernizing state imagining itself as the champion of anti-modern ideas and traditions.     

Customizing English Language Program for EFL Learners

This paper discusses the importance of having a customized instructional approach specifically for students who are learning English as a Foreign Language （EFL） in the foreign language setting. Most of the innovations introduced by the Education Ministry of Malaysia such as the Communicative Language Teaching （CLT） and phonics are suitable for ESL （English as a second language） learners, while the EFL learners are still left behind. A suitable teaching approach which customizes the needs of the students in EFL setting, especially in the state of Terengganu should be introduced. The main focus of the program exploits reading and writing skills in providing language input since these two skills are more dominant in terms of utility and functions among the EFL students as compared with the ESL students who are enable to exploit speaking and listening skills because of the natural setting. The research investigates the prospect of developing a suitable language teaching program based on 10 basic sentence patterns （10SP） which are exploited through the principles of transformational generative grammar and customized learning experiences focusing on reading as a bridge in acquiring other language skills such as writing, listening, and speaking.     

Does a membership fee foster successful public good provision? An experimental investigation of the provision of a step-level collective good

We report the results of an experiment investigating the provision of a step-level collective good. This experiment compares the behavior of subjects in a public good game with the behavior of subjects in a club good game. In the club good game, players who do not contribute the membership fee are excluded from the consumption of the collective good. The introduction of a small membership fee has surprisingly strong effects: it increases the provision of the collective good, delays provision failures and increases the number of contributors. The experiment also reveals the limits of the introduction of a small fee. At a high threshold level, the membership fee no longer ensures successful provision.