The political economy of pragmatic paranoia : the strange case of Pakistan

Pakistan's political economy has been characterized by some interesting and arguably unique features in recent decades. The combination of two stands out, in particular: (1) lifetime uncertainty for elected governments, and (2) a high degree of certainty that, due to reasons that are largely extraneous to popularity and policy performance, the incumbent party will not form the government in the next term. This paper argues, employing modified formal frameworks developed for other con- texts, that these features go a significant way in explaining why the economy has experienced dramatic cyclical fluctuations in internal and external macroeconomic indicators, especially official foreign exchange reserve stocks. In addition, the analysis helps explain the consistent underinvestment in tax revenue-generation capacity. The existing "partisan" and "opportunistic" varieties of political business cycle models do not satisfactorily capture these features. The analysis, thus, extends this literature in new directions.