Pakistan’s military elite

Abstract

The Pakistan Army is a politically important organization, yet its opacity has hindered academic research. We use open sources to construct unique new data on the backgrounds, careers, and post-retirement activities of post-1971 Corps Commanders and Directors-General of Inter-Services Intelligence. We provide evidence of bureaucratic predictability and professionalism while officers are in service. After retirement, we show little involvement in electoral politics but extensive involvement in military-linked corporations, state employment, and other positions of influence. This combination provides Pakistan's military with an unusual blend of professional discipline internally and political power externally -even when not directly ruling.Pakistan's army is central to questions of local, regional, and global stability. We investigate the organizational politics of the Pakistan Army using unique individual-level data on the corps commanders of the Army and Directors-General of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) since 1971.The corps commanders are of enormous importance, working with the Chief of Army Staff (COAS) to launch coups, withdraw from power, forge external and internal security policies, and shape the politics of Pakistan. 1 We gathered data from open sources on the personal and career backgrounds of the corps commanders and ISI directors-general, their trajectories within the military, and what they did in retirement, both immediately after leaving service and later in retirement. These data provide systematic, detailed information on the military's elite personnel and, crucially, how it has managed to keep them largely on board with a complex, politically demanding project. The data have numerous, important limitations -but they are also, to the best of our knowledge, unique in the Pakistani case, and among a small number of similar studies world-wide. 3 We first show strong evidence of high levels of bureaucratic institutionalization and professionalism within the Pakistan Army. Despite its recurrent praetorianism and ongoing political influence, the rules within the organization seem to be generally followed, with limited factionalism and consistent promotion pathways. There is the stark contrast between this rational-bureaucratic organization and other political militaries, like those in Thailand, 1970s Bangladesh, 1960s Nigeria, or 1990s Indonesia, racked by internal fratricide, plagued by factional rivalries, or vulnerable to divide-and-rule strategies by ruling elites.1 This includes the nine standard corps, plus Army Air Defence and Army Strategic Forces Command. This comes to 183 officers over 45 years. There have been 18 DG's ISI, of whom a number were also corps commanders.

How Mass Immigration Affects Countries with Weak Economic Institutions: A Natural Experiment in Jordan

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How Mass Immigration Affects Countries with Weak Economic Institutions: A Natural Experiment in Jordan

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Embracing political economy to enhance policy influence: Lessons from PIM research

“…Despite PIM research showing the high costs of such policies for agricultural productivity, the environment, and the national budget (Ali et al 2016), policymakers have been unwilling or unable to address market concentration and rent-seeking behavior in the fertilizer industry. This is especially so since Fauji Fertilizer, one of the two main urea producers in Pakistan and the largest beneficiary of the subsidy, is part of a large foundation run by serving and retired army officers, which was established as an incentive to keep the military from intervening in electoral politics (Staniland et al 2020).…”