The Political and Administrative Economy of Sectarian Violence

• In Event: 2329 - Section on the Sociology of Religion Referred Roundtables (1 hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: 5. Religion and Violence

Abstract

This paper analyzes the widely discussed ‘unravelling’ of the Pakistani state in terms of its failure to curb the tide of Islamist violence. While most studies have focused on the Taliban insurgency and its links geopolitical interests of the military, I focus on the trend of sectarian violence- involving the Shia and Sunni communities, and incorporate the study of civilian state institutions. By using the northwestern city of Dera Ismail Khan as a case study, I discuss how the combination of domestic and regional factors, especially the intertwined domestic and regional interests of the military have created a fertile environment for sectarian violence. A combination of the military’s alliance with Sunni militant groups, and a general consolidation of their influence within the country has relegated the civilian bureaucracy to the role of passive observers or occasional martyrs in the pursuit of maintain law and order. The deliberate defanging of the civilian institutions of the state raise questions about our conventional Weberian understanding of the modern bureaucratic state.

Author

• Laila Bushra, Lahore University of Management Sciences