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    ISAS Working Papers

    Long-term studies on trends and issues in South Asia

    216 : A Tortured History : Federalism and Democracy in Pakistan

    Aasim Sajjad Akhtar, Visiting Research Fellow at the Institute of South Asian Studies (ISAS)

    19 November 2015

    The Pakistan Army's ideological hegemony, especially in the country's Punjabi-speaking heartland, the continuing focus on the state's narrative of a religion-based unitary identity which is under a constant external threat, and the failures of the political parties to rein in the military and address ethno-nationalist sentiments impede the growth of democracy and federalism in this key South Asian nation-state.