Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2014. xiii, 399 pp. (Tables.) US$35.00, cloth. ISBN 978-0-674-72893-6.
Given the paucity of good scholarly material on civil-military relations in Pakistan, The Army and Democracy must be welcomed as an important contribution to the field. This very digestible and readable book has made a cogent and strong case for civilian rule and democratic principles without in any way being opinionated or preachy. It mercifully avoids the typically laboured attempts to force data to fit a theory merely to prove the author’s theoretical expertise and instead confidently asserts its case by stating the essential bare-bones facts of civil-military relations in the history of Pakistan.
The book is divided into an introduction that is a brief literature review, seven main chapters, and a lengthy and very finely written conclusion. Shah begins with a brief mention of the principal theories that have been utilized to explain civil-military relations. These include the Lasswellian garrison-state argument that contends that an external enemy strengthens the men in uniform (see for instance, Ishtiaq Ahmed, Garrison State, Oxford University Press, 2013); the contention that military dominance in Pakistan is a product of the country’s decision to align with the United States during the Cold War (see for instance, Hamza Alavi, “The State in Post-Colonial Societies: Pakistan and Bangladesh,” The New Left Review I/74, July-August 1972; Selected Writings of Eqbal Ahmad, edited by Carollee Bengelsdorf, Margaret Cerullo and Yogesh Chandrani, Columbia University Press, 2006); and the view that the financial interests of the military-industrial complex create the necessary push-pull factors to keep the military involved in the politics of Pakistan (see for instance, Ayesha Siddiqa, Military Inc., Pluto Press, 2007).
While Shah’s book concedes that these factors play a role, he wishes to examine civil-military relations from the perspective of the internal institutional values and norms of the Pakistan military itself. In this regard, he considers his work to be a continuation of Stephen P. Cohen’s earlier work (The Pakistan Army, University of California Press, 1984). In other words, Shah wants to ask how and why the military’s own perception of its role in society has changed in the course of the history of Pakistan.
Having laid out its fundamental theoretical premises, the book proceeds into a chronological examination of civil-military relations in Pakistan. The next seven chapters illustrate how the military’s institutional thinking was shaped and reshaped by conflict with India, Cold War imperatives, safeguarding perceived interests against encroaching civilian authority, the war on terror and so on. In a word, he portrays how the British-trained army slowly morphed from considering itself an “apolitical professional military” into the sole guardian of the very reason for existence of the state. These chapters, which follow the now fairly standardized periodization of Pakistan’s high politics (that is, Pre-Ayub, Ayub, Bhutto, Zia, the return of democracy, and finally Musharraf) remain fairly close to the most important facts even when the book does not directly support or give any particular insight into the institutional norms of the military. Hence, the book is a tour de force of the last 70 years of civil-military relations in Pakistan.
However, those who study and write on Pakistan may legitimately ask, “What’s new in this book?” In theoretical terms the book does not necessarily present any new ideas. And the supporting evidence may not be extraordinarily new to other scholars in the field. Although, in addition to accurate and detailed accounts of the issues causing tension between civil and military institutions, the author has conducted a number of interviews with army personnel, some would argue that all this information was already in the public domain.
On the other hand, one can argue with equal merit that given that the military is well-guarded with respect to the information about itself, and that what it is willing to share is already accessible in the public domain, any researcher would really have to work extraordinarily hard, even ruffle some feathers, to break new ground. In fact, this is, arguably, a very risky business. For instance, it is alleged by the Human Rights Watch that Saleem Shahzad was tortured and murdered as a consequence of his criticism of the role of intelligence agencies in Pakistan (Saleem Shehzad, Inside Al-Qaeda and the Taliban: Beyond Bin Laden and 9/11, Pluto Press, 2011).
In my view, however, the book does succeed in breaking new ground. While the book may not present a new theory or even any new information that is not already available in the public domain, its strength lies in bringing the two together to form an orderly, succinct and cogent presentation of the central political conflicts and contradictions that have shaped civil-military relations in the country. Hence, its most important contribution is that Shah has sifted through the mass of data and emphasized in a concise manner the crux of the problem. This synthesis of theory and public information and the resulting clear presentation of the problem help to bring into clear focus the essential elements of civil-military relations in Pakistan.
In the final analysis this extremely readable book will be enjoyed by the general public and will inform university students. It is an important contribution to the debate and would be my first recommendation to anyone who wishes for a succinct introduction to civil-military relations through the history of Pakistan.
Taimur Rahman
Lahore University of Management Sciences, Lahore, Pakistan
pp. 731-733