CSS Notes > Discuss the main features of Political culture of Pakistan.
Introduction
A nation’s political culture plays vital role in strengthening its overall system. Pakistan’s political culture has evolved over the years but not at a pace which can be expected from a democratic country. Political culture of this country is is marked by several features including the aggressiveness of voters, dynastic politics, blame-games, power lust and centralization of power.
Defining Political Culture
Political culture can be defined as set of beliefs, attitudes and sentiments of people towards a political system. It refers to the collective or shared views that people develop and maintain about their governments and all the mechanisms related to that.
Features of Political Culture in Pakistan
Following are some prominent features of political culture of Pakistan:
Aggressive Politics
Politics of Pakistan is marked by aggressiveness. This behavior is seen not only among the voters and supporters but also the politicians and leaders of the political parties. They use sentiments and aggressive approach of people to establish and destabilize governments in this country. The angry attitude of people towards politicians is mainly incited by the opposition parties.
Dynastic Politics
Pakistan’s political culture possesses the feature of dynastic politics. In this country, people mostly choose dynastic politicians and give very little opportunity to any new candidate in most of the cases. A few families are ruling over politics of Pakistan and people rarely accept new faces. Further, the political parties are also monopoly of a few families in each of the four provinces.
Lack of Public Trust
Governments in Pakistan lack complete trust of public. This makes another feature of political culture of Pakistan. People do not support policies of any government in the long run. They do not offer any government their trust owing to the problems of corruption and bad governance.
Blame-Game and Power Lust
Political culture of Pakistan is based on blame-game and power lust. These negative features become a major hurdle in strengthening the democratic process. Political parties and politicians remain engaged in such practices thus leading to a weak political system.
Centralization of Power
Government in Pakistan tend to keep power in their hands. They do not practice devolution of power. They do not establish strong local bodies system. Even the provincial governments are also kept weak. This practice makes another negative feature of Pakistan’s political culture.
Weak Institutions
Political culture of Pakistan is based on weakening of the state institutions thus leading to personalization of governments. This is another negative feature which has hardly changed over the decades. Weak institutions allow powerful individuals to manipulate the system in their own interests thus causing huge loss to the masses and image of this country.
Conclusion
Political culture of Pakistan is mostly marked with features that are of negative nature. Such features are not part of any developed and truly democratic country. Such practices in political culture lead the countries towards bad governance and an unending tale of socio-economic problems. Pakistan is no exception in this regard.