The politics of civil service reform in Pakistan.

• Author: Wilder, Andrew
• Position: Report

Over the course of the past six decades, the so-called steel frame of the civil service that Pakistan inherited from colonial India has become decidedly rusty. (1) The ineffectiveness of state institutions due to the diminishing capacity, over-politicization and corruption of the bureaucracy and its political masters is seriously undermining Pakistan's economic, social and political development. In addition the failure of Pakistan's state institutions to protect the welfare of its citizens, provide adequate social services and promote the rule of law are eroding the legitimacy and stability of the state.

International attention is belatedly focusing on Pakistan as a result of concerns over the destabilizing effects of an increasingly aggressive Taliban-led insurgency in this nuclear-armed state. One result of this attention is the commitment of large amounts of foreign aid by international donors, including $7.5 billion by the U.S. government over the next five years. The rapid increase in foreign aid, however, combined with the decreasing capacity of Pakistan's state institutions to spend these funds in an effective and accountable manner, are likely to result in much of this aid simply fueling the very corruption that is eating away the legitimacy of state institutions. (2)

This paper argues that, for these large amounts of foreign aid to have significant benefits, the government of Pakistan and its international donors will have to prioritize rebuilding and repairing the dangerously weakened steel frame of the civil service. (3) After briefly providing some historical context, the paper outlines some of the main civil service reform priorities. It then discusses some of the political factors and interest groups that have contributed to the very limited reform progress to date. The paper concludes that future progress will not depend on more donor-driven technical assessments of what needs to be done, but rather on better strategies and tactics to address the politics of civil service reform, including creating a broader constituency supporting reform.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

Pakistan's colonial heritage has heavily influenced its political culture as well as its bureaucratic and political institutions. (4) For the purposes of this study, the legacy of executive rule by a powerful bureaucracy is particularly worth highlighting. During the 19th and 20th centuries, colonial administrators developed powerful and highly centralized bureaucratic institutions, administered by the famed Indian Civil Service (ICS), to rule the empire. While representative institutions were gradually introduced into colonial India, the role of these elected bodies was to serve as advisory rather than policymaking bodies, and to deal with local administrative matters rather than substantive issues. They were never intended to be democratic institutions that transferred power to elected representatives, but rather were designed to help legitimize and strengthen the authority of the bureaucratic state. (5) The power imbalance between the very strong bureaucratic institutions that Pakistan inherited from colonial India and the very weak representative and democratic institutions has been one of the greatest causes of political instability in Pakistan since its independence.

During the six decades since the departure of the last British colonial administrator, Pakistan's bureaucratic institutions have remained much stronger than its democratic institutions. The concentration of power in the executive branch, usually controlled directly or indirectly by the civil and military bureaucracies, has been at the expense of the legislature as well as the judiciary. Like the elected institutions during the colonial period, Pakistani legislatures have often had little more than an advisory or rubber stamp function, do not usually initiate legislation and serve primarily to legitimize the exercise of power by the executive branch of government. It is the executive, supported by the bureaucracy, that typically initiates legislation, often bypassing the National Assembly altogether by promulgating presidential ordinances. (6) The major change that has taken place over time is that the power and influence of the civilian bureaucracy has increasingly been replaced by the power and influence of the military.

A second colonial legacy that still heavily influences Pakistan's political culture and institutions, as well as its electoral politics, is the institutionalization of patron-client political relationships between the bureaucracy and local elites. In return for patronage--often in the form of land grants, pensions and titles--feudal landlords, religious leaders and tribal and clan leaders were co-opted by colonial administrators to provide political stability and collect revenues. After independence, this direct patron-client relationship between the bureaucracy and local elites strengthened the image of the bureaucracy as the providers of patronage, influence and security and undermined the development of political parties that normally would have played this intermediary role. (7) The bureaucracy's important role as patron also contributed to the desire of every family to have one member employed in government service to serve as a problem-solver and provider of patronage.

CIVIL SERVICE REFORM PRIORITIES

The limited progress on civil service reform in Pakistan has not been due to a lack of knowledge about what needs to be done. Over the course of the past sixty years there have been more than twenty studies on administrative reform prepared by various government committees or commissions (including six since 1996), that have clearly identified the most serious problems. (8) Instead, the lack of progress is due primarily to political factors and ineffective political strategies for pushing through reforms. The following section briefly examines some of the major civil service reform priorities in Pakistan and describes some of the political factors that have contributed to the lack of progress in addressing them.

Reducing the Politicization of the Bureaucracy

From 1947 to 1971 the civilian bureaucracy played the dominant role in Pakistan's policymaking and as such was insufficiently controlled or influenced by elected politicians. During this period, there was limited scope for interference from politicians as the bureaucracy, particularly the elite Civil Service of Pakistan (CSP), maintained control over the selection, training and posting of its members and was therefore able to retain its institutional autonomy. (9) The student demonstrations and political unrest that led to the collapse of General Ayub Khan's regime in 1969, followed by the bloody civil war that resulted in the creation of Bangladesh in 1971, seriously undermined the political strength and legitimacy of both the civil and military bureaucracies. Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto exploited this weakness after coming to power in 1971 and set out to redress the power imbalance between the elected and unelected institutions of the state. As the following quote demonstrates, he was particularly vocal in castigating the civil service and blaming it for many of the country's ills:

No institution in the country has so lowered the quality of our national life as to what is called Naukarshahi [bureaucratic rule]. It has done so by imposing a caste system on our society. It has created a class of 'Brahmins' or mandarins, unrivalled in its snobbery and arrogance, insulated from life of the people and incapable of identifying itself with them. (10) Less than three months after coming to power, Bhutto sent a clear message of who was in charge by compulsorily retiring approximately 1,300 civil service officers. This was followed in 1973 by sweeping administrative reforms designed, in part, to weaken the elite CSP cadre and to increase political influence and control over the powerful bureaucracy. (11) Central to this strategy was the introduction of a policy of "lateral recruitment" as a way to increase political influence over the bureaucracy and to ensure that Bhutto's policies and programs could be implemented in the face of a self-interested bureaucracy that was resistant to change.

The measure promoted by Bhutto that was to have the most far-reaching and damaging consequences for the effectiveness and integrity of the civil service, however, was the 1973 Constitution's redaction of the protection that had been afforded to the civil service in previous constitutions. These protections, which were present in the 1956, 1962 and interim 1972 constitutions, included safeguards against the dismissal, reduction in rank or compulsory retirement of public servants. (12) This measure was deliberately designed to undermine the independence of the civil service. The rapid politicization of the civil service quickly followed. In July 1974, an Urdu daily in Lahore identified one hundred senior civil service political appointees who were close relatives and associates of ministers in Bhutto's cabinet. (13) More recently, this politicization is vividly demonstrated before and after elections when thousands of civil servants are posted or transferred to serve the wishes of their political masters. It has become increasingly difficult for civil servants to get postings, transfers or promotions without the support of a political patron.

The politicization of the bureaucracy as a result of Bhutto's administrative reforms did have the positive result of giving elected representatives more influence over unelected institutions. The frequent misuse of this influence, however, has also resulted in the politicization of the civil service to such an extent that it has all but destroyed the concept of a neutral and competent civil service. (14) Many of the senior government officials interviewed during my field research pointed to the urgent need to address this problem. According to one, "The most important issue...