DILEMMA OF POLITICAL CULTURE: CASE STUDY OF PAKISTAN (1988-1997)

Abstract

This research has explored the question of ‘political culture’ under the title of “Dilemma of Political Culture: Case Study of Pakistan (1988-1997). In this thesis it has been investigated that how far underlying propensities of a society affect the political values which are manifested in political institutions. The nature of values which work underneath for a broader understanding of the configuration of ‘political culture’, poses an important question: what counts for people’s political preferences. With in a group and society there are diverse strands of opinion and conflicting values which may check the political preferences and in this regard the term political culture will be used as shared values legitimating social practices. Theses shared values are referred as ‘political culture’. All political systems tend to perpetuate certain patterns of behaviour by which systems are recognized and it was the question to know the nature of political values which in turn determine the nature of system. The true recognition of values can denominate the system as stable or instable and the political behaviour as mature or immature. The symbols and beliefs define the situation in which action takes place and determine the consensus based on social and political behaviour. Political culture produces controlling guidelines for effective political behaviour and for the collectivity it gives the systematic structure of values and rational considerations which ensures coherence in the performance of institutions and organizations. The field of ‘psephology’ has been explored for the identification of political values in which peoples’ political preferences which worked on the level of party, issue and candidate. The political preferences of people of Pakistan had been explored through independent variables of party, issue and candidate and peoples’ collective response to these variables by their socio-psychological paraphernalia and rational paradigm determine the level of political culture. People of Pakistan’s mobilization by these variables in political process determine the level of their participation and which in turn describes about the level of political development. In Pakistan, elected governments during 1988 to 1997 provided good opportunity to have the comparative study of four elections in which people political behaviour has been very well explored. Elections in Pakistan manifested the political participation and recruitment level of the people indicating their political alignments with semi religious and secular political parties. Political elites and political parties are considered the main agencies of political socialization and political participation in elections. Electoral activity is considered the significant and meaningful act of the political system in which political behaviour of four provinces of Pakistan has been evaluated. The analysis of electoral data and questionnaire response of four provinces was more or less similar in projecting the political ethos of these four regions. People preferred for the national parties in their voting pattern for national and provincial elections and also accepted the role of regional parties(having influence in some particular constituencies of a region) in Sindh, Baluchistan and North West Frontier Province. People leaned towards regional and religious parties in NWFP and Baluchistan due to the different nature of issues. They secured a good chunk of vote in provincial elections of Baluchistan and NWFP which manifested that people in provincial domain have different priorities seemingly different from that of national ones. In Punjab and Sindh national parties outclassed the regional and religious parties in provincial domain. In Sindh MQM/HPG got its share of vote in urban constituencies but never got majority of seats in the province. The positive aspect was that people voted for the parties which they consider legitimate for their vote and in the process of elections people out- maneuvered the smaller parties like Pakistan Tehreek Insaf, Pakistan Awami Tehreek, National Peoples Party and most of the regional groups and parties’ claimant of primordial associations for the mobilization of voters. People shed these attachments in their voting decision and voted independently for the cause. People showed their attachments with those leaders which were active in the constituency and maintained an interactive network with the community. Community was the first level of people interactions to share the information about the electoral dynamics of the constituency and the country. Community was very well aware about the stance of parties and their candidates over different issues and it provided a consensus based decision as an input in the electoral process which increased its reliability in the eyes of public.