HOW TO REPRESENT A CASE STUDY OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT REFORMS IN PAKISTAN?

There is a dearth of literature on local government in Pakistan for policy analysis and research. The existing documents are either consigned to official archives or withered away in personal libraries.

Using a qualitative approach, this research surveyed seventy households in two districts of Sindh. Its findings show that if used by an authoritarian regime, local government act as mediums of decentralization and create alienation between citizens and the state.

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DECENTRALISATION

The eighteenth amendment to Pakistan’s constitution passed in 2010 devolved responsibilities for governance from federal to provincial and local levels. The provinces were tasked with creating local governments consisting of district (zila), tehsil, and union councils.

However, the passage of the 18th Amendment has not translated into effective local governance. This has been largely because the lower-level governmental institutions were cynically controlled by local powerholders who did not want citizens involved in policy-making.

These powerholders had a strong patron-client relationship with their people and were able to keep the public at a distance. As a result, alienation between the citizenry and the local governments increased at each level of governance. This alienation was also further exacerbated by widespread corruption that takes place in districts and tehsils. This involves the illegal distribution of budget quotas among Nazims and council members to fund their projects, stealing essential medicines from BHUs, and a host of other issues.

PARTICIPATION

Since the 2008 elections, a lively debate has taken place in Pakistan about reforming the local government system. This discussion, dominated at first by bureaucrats, has since broadened to include policy analysts, academicians, columnists, and civil society activists. However, one voice has been missing: that of citizens.

This study addresses that gap by examining the barriers to citizen participation in the local governance process in Pakistan’s Sindh province. It argues that these barriers reflect the mindset of a military establishment that uses decentralization as a cover for suppressing community autonomy and undermining the expected positive effects on ordinary citizens. It also applies the ladder model to illustrate how the alienation between citizens and local governments reaches higher governance levels. This alienation is largely rooted in the patron/client relationship between the local feudal lords, and corrupt local elites, on the one hand, and the central government of Pakistan, on the other. This alienation is also exacerbated by the culture of favoritism that pervades the local governance system.

ACCOUNTABILITY

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There is a lack of academic studies that explore the barriers to citizen participation in local government. The current study is one of the few that has utilized a qualitative approach with an extensive questionnaire comprising seven open-ended questions.

In the case of Pakistan, the reluctance of the central government to let provinces establish functional local governments has caused many difficulties. The provincial governments drag their feet in holding elections and handing over funds to local institutions.

The result has been that citizens do not perceive districts and tehsils/talukas as responsible for providing social and household services such as education, water supply, sanitation, electricity, etc. This may be because they are unable to distinguish between the different levels of government and their functions. It also reflects the attitude of the powerholder elite that they do not want ordinary members of the public to participate in policy-making as this would challenge their status quo and give them competition.

CORRUPTION

There is a growing literature on decentralization and its impact on service delivery. However, it has been less studied how these reforms can affect citizens’ participation. This article presents a case study of how Pakistan’s successive military dictators introduced sham local government reforms that blocked citizen participation.

The key reason for this alienation is that the ruling elites did not want ordinary citizens to become involved in policy-making because it would challenge their comfortable status quo in which they get elected without competition and benefit from an illiterate, poverty-stricken public. This mindset also allows local feudal lords to retain power by keeping citizens at a distance from local governance structures.

CONCLUSION

Another factor that hinders citizen participation in local development projects is the culture of corruption and favoritism within the political system. This is partly because officials are paid very little, making them more likely to take advantage of opportunities and steal from the treasury.