Pakistan and its regime types

During the span of seventy years since its independence, Pakistan has witnessed nearly three decades of
military rule and for the rest of the time, military remained potent enough to engineer and manipulate
political process in the country. All of the major military regimes in Pakistan held general election for
national assembly and fortified a dummy democracy. Despite the fact that election were held during
military regimes, they were not considered as democratic. So what does it mean to be democratic? Is
there any parameter to gauge democracy? And what exactly a Pakistani political system is? Before
categorizing Pakistan as a particular regime-type, I would like to shed light on different kinds of regimes.
Academic literature tells us that there are three major kinds of regimes: Democracy, Totalitarian regime,
and authoritarian regime. It's quite difficult to give a hard and fast definition of democracy but it is a
system in which people elect their representatives who legislate and make laws on their behalf. Whereas
totalitarian regimes are the one in which states have an overarching control on society, government and
market. Soviet Union is an evident example of totalitarian regime. People have less say in the legislation
is totalitarian regimes as compared to democracy. And then there is authoritarian regime which, Juan
Lin, believes, exists between two extremes of democracy and totalitarianism. There is in such regimes,
but a limited pluralism and certain, also limited, civil rights are conferred on citizens. To these three kinds
of regime, Lin and Stepan add two further types: Post-totalitarian and Sultanism. Post-totalitarian, in
their view, is close to the ideal totalitarian regime but differs in few things like ideology. State's strength
to curb differences(political and ideological) etc. Eastern European socialist regimes fit into this category.
Sultanism, on the other hand, is a kind of a regime in which people and government are supposed to be
loyal to the Sultan or the kind. Few middle-eastern states practice this form of government. Sultanism,
Totalitarian and Post-totalitarian regimes have one thing in common, that is personality cult. But what
differentiates these types is that in Sultanist regime, people and government are subject to Sultan's
personality cult regardless of any ideology but in totalitarian and post-totalitarian regimes, allegiance of
people, government and even the head of the the state must be for the ideology. A weakening allegiance
and personality cult of head of state is a characteristic that differentiates post-totalitarian regime from
the totalitarian one. So, where does fit in? Is it a democracy? Dahl gives few characteristics of democracy
which can tell us about the presence or absence and the degree of democracy in any state. He believes
that situation of free representatives, free, fair and frequent election, freedom of expression, alternative
information, association autonomy, and inclusive citizenship, tells us much about the democracy's
condition. Katherine Adeney has examined nearly all of the indicators of democracy put forward by Dahl.
People in Pakistan are given the rights to vote and elect their representatives. As far as the fairness of
elections is concerned, every election held in Pakistan had a questionable legitimacy. Candidates are
banned from contesting elections on the basis of petty objections which is believed by many political
commentators as denial of right to represent people and also a denial of a right to elect representatives
of one's own choice. Freedom of press, Adeney finds, is also curbed by the the military which itself is
involved in manufacturing narratives. Similarly, associational autonomy is not as ideal as it should be in a
democracy. The reason for lack of such autonomy is terrorism and state's intervention. Adeney considers
few other principles like rule of law, public policy and elite recruitment to learn about the quality of
democracy in Pakistan. Adeney finds Pakistan, on these scales, as an average democracy with potential
for further democracy in the time to come. Academics put Pakistan in the category of authoritarianism
for there exists a system of electing representatives which, though, not near to democratic ideal, does
not resemble totalitarianism. Adeney finds Pakistan as a hybrid regime which Bogaards, Mohseni and
Gilbert define as a system overlapping both democracy and authoritarianism. Adeney is adamant on
classifying Pakistan as a hybrid regime rather than classifying it as an entirely authoritarian regime,
because democracy is flourishing and has grasped much space in political arena. So what this reading
tells us is that election process doesn't suffice to form democracy. Few other principles are inalienable
characteristics of a democracy. Had electing representatives been enough for democracy, military
regimes that held elections also would have been categorized as democracy and not authoritarian.