Pakistan After Musharraf: Praetorianism and Terrorism

Issue Date October 2008
Volume 19
Issue 4
Page Numbers 16-25
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An uneasy relationship between military and civilian power hangs like a cloud over the future of democratic reform in Pakistan. Praetorianism has been a deeply-ingrained feature in Pakistani politics since the country’s birth, making depoliticization of the military a nettlesome task for any civilian government, particularly given that the military’s “prerogatives” comprise the defense sector, internal security, legal system, and even foreign relations and nuclear weapons. With the ever-present threat of terrorism and the public insecurity and unrest terrorist acts provoke, authoritarian backsliding remains a sobering possibility.

About the Author

Aqil Shah is Wick Cary Assistant Professor of South Asian Politics in the Department of International and Area Studies at the University of Oklahoma. He is a nonresident fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the author of The Army and Democracy: Military Politics in Pakistan (2014).

View all work by Aqil Shah