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Statement of
Need
Pakistan is facing an unprecedented level of
terrorist violence. In 2008, a total of 2,148
terrorist, insurgent and sectarian attacks were
reported across Pakistan, killing 2,267 people
and injuring 4,558. The highest number were
reported from NWFP (1,009), followed by
Balochistan (682) and the Tribal Areas (385).
Terrorist violence claimed 10,123 lives last
year with 23,608 dying over the past 6 years,
7,325 of them civilians. The annual fatalities
have been rising exponentially, from 189 in
2003. The armed offensive by the military in
South Waziristan hopes to dismantle the
stronghold of the Tehrik-e-Taleban Pakistan (TTP),
an umbrella group representing various tribal
loyalties throughout the Federally Administered
Tribal Areas (FATA) along the Afghan border,
with ties to foreign groups. Conflict in this
region has already cost over $2 billion and
displaced nearly 1/3rd of FATA’s 3.5 million
strong population. The backlash to this
operation culminated in an attack on Army
headquarters in Rawalpindi, and numerous suicide
attacks on civilian targets, most recently a
massive blast in Peshawar which claimed over a
hundred lives. Experts believe these attacks
originate from NWFP (Khyber-Pukhtunkhwa), FATA,
and the former Malakand Division which serve as
centers of support for terrorist elements.
It is widely theorized that misgovernance
creates an enabling environment for
radicalization and the growth of extremist
behavior. Governance assistance has been
prioritized in the US led Global War on Terror,
for which Pakistan serves as a font-line ally.
President George Bush blamed poverty, lack of
education, hopelessness and failed governments
for creating conditions that could be exploited
by terrorists. Similarly, then-UK Prime Minister
Blair argued that “poverty and instability leads
to weak states, which can become havens for
terrorists”. President Obama’s top
counter-terrorism advisor John Brennan called
attention to the “broader political, economic,
and social conditions in which extremists
thrive” to address “upstream factors that fuel
extremism”, including basic needs and legitimate
grievances of ordinary people for prosperity,
education, dignity and worth, and security. This
argumentation is mirrored in policy discourse in
Pakistan. At a recent seminar on terrorism,
Pakistani politicians, religious leaders, and
senior military and intelligence officials
agreed that poverty, illiteracy, social and
economic injustices were the root causes of
terrorism. Pakistan’s Foreign Minister remarked
at the recent Conference on Interaction and
Confidence Building Measures in Asia, that
economic deprivation, political injustice, and
denial of fundamental rights created conditions
that were exploited by terrorists to radicalize
youth. Analysts have blamed the inadequate
government response to natural disasters,
including the October 5th earthquake as well as
the ongoing nationwide floods, for allowing
extremist organizations to step into the vacuum
and enhance support and goodwill among local
populations. Think-tanks have urged the
government of Pakistan to launch governance
interventions for socio-economic development,
cultural development, education reform, legal
and judicial reform, and political integration
to counter terrorism. The Shaheed Bhutto
foundation, an independent think-tank, conducted
consultative workshops attended by hundreds of
FATA representatives as part of their
‘Mainstreaming FATA’ project. Participants
included tribal leaders, parliamentarians,
lawyers, academics, youth, journalists,
intellectuals, political party leaders, and
current and former military and civil officials.
They cited various aspects of misgovernance as
driving conflict and unrest in the region. These
included poor service delivery (particularly
health and education), lack of investment in
infrastructure and industry, corruption, lack of
democratic representation, unresponsive judicial
system, and poor law and order situation.
However, these policy assumptions appear
divorced from empirical research at the
international and national levels. At the
international level, empirical support for links
between misgovernance and radicalization is
ambiguous. On the one hand studies find that
terrorist activity is increased by economic
underdevelopment, economic under-performance,
political repression, weak governmental
capacity, regime instability, and inadequate
social welfare policies. On the other hand,
researchers find that such factors of
misgovernance are not significant determinants
of terrorism and radicalization. At the national
level, academic research is mostly limited to
newspaper articles and opinion pieces. Academic
research that does exist lacks methodological
rigor and/or policy relevance.
The misgovernance-radicalization nexus in
Pakistan remains largely unexplored. This is
despite the growing recognition among analysts
and practitioners that the connection between
misgovernance and radicalization exists and is
detrimental to the objectives of both governance
and counter-terrorism efforts. This is also
despite the fact that both misgovernance and
radicalization have assumed crisis proportions
in Pakistan, representing grave threats to the
security, stability, and development of the
country. A review of existing literature reveals
key knowledge gaps that must be filled to inform
policy discourse and improve knowledge among
policymakers for resolving conflict, building
peace, and promoting post-conflict stability and
development.
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