Political Polarization and Democratic Stability in Pakistan
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.70670/sra.v4i1.2458Keywords:
Political Polarization; Democratic Stability; Pakistan; Political Institutions; Governance; Electoral Politics; Democratic ConsolidationAbstract
Political polarization is now a norm of politics in the modern context of Pakistan, which has influenced the competition between the parties and the relationship between the civil and the military, the behaviour of the judicial system, and popular trust in the institutions of democracy. Theoretical framework and lenses of the study, which can be illuminated with the help of the Democratic Consolidation Theory (Linz and Stepan, 1996), are used to discuss the causes and outcomes of the polarization of democracy between the years 2008 and 2026 by resorting to secondary data as examples, peer-reviewed literature, institutional reports, and newspaper analysis. It is found that polarization in Pakistan is relational and elite-based (McCoy and Somer, 2019), which has its basis in a weak intra-party democracy, a disintegrated media space, politicised institutions of accountability, and enduring civil-military tutelage. These dynamics have undermined horizontal accountability and electoral legitimacy and have driven the system to tutelary democracy as opposed to consolidated democracy (Mohsin Ali, 2025). The paper concludes that judicial and electoral independence, intra-party reformation, responsible media practices, and dialogue between electoral parties are needed to turn this path around.
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