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Political Families and Support for Democracy in Pakistan

Article  in  Asian Survey · December 2020

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Vineeta Yadav
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By

Vineeta Yadav1

Abstract

Political families are common across many countries in Asia including in Pakistan. Politicians

from political families (PPFs) make decisions with the goal of maximizing the political prospects of

their entire families in contrast to non-PPFs who maximize their individual political self-interest.

This difference changes the impact they have on their countries. Scholars find that the presence of

PPFs is associated with significantly worse development and governance outcomes, including in

Pakistan. However, we know much less about their impact on political outcomes. In this paper, we

use original data from a 2018 systematic national survey of about 150 Pakistani politicians to

investigate PPFs’ support for key democratic institutions and practices. We find that compared to

non-PPFs, Pakistani PPFs are significantly more supportive of instrumentally useful institutions and

practices such as free and fair elections, an independent judiciary, and a free media but no different

in their low levels of support for human rights.

1
VINEETA YADAV is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science, Penn State
University, State College, USA. She is the author of Religious Parties and the Politics of Civil Liberties
(Oxford University Press, 2021), and Political Parties, Business Groups and Corruption in Developing
Countries (Oxford University Press, 2011), and coauthor (with Bumba Mukherjee) of The Politics of
Corruption in Dictatorships (Cambridge University Press, 2016). She gratefully acknowledges support
from Penn State, which funded this research, and two anonymous reviewers for their constructive
feedback. She also extends her deepest thanks to the scholars and staff at the Pakistan Institute of
Peace Studies who fielded this challenging survey for her. Email: [email protected]
1
 Political families are common across many countries in Asia.2 Political families are defined as

extended families where multiple family members potentially including parents, spouses, children,

siblings, cousins, nephews and nieces, and various in-laws hold office, often simultaneously (Besley

and Reynal-Queroz 2017; Chandra 2016; Tadem and Tadem 2016). While some political families

may be strictly dynastic, only passing office down generations, political families where multiple

members hold office simultaneously are more common in local, state and national level politics in

many developing countries and can be found in parties spanning the entire ideological spectrum. 3

They are particularly prominent in Pakistan.

Research shows that only 597 political families dominated parliamentary and provincial

assembly seats from 1988 to 2008 in Pakistan (Herald 2013:27) and more than 51% of members of

the national parliament in 2002, 2008 and 2013 belonged to political families (Ahmad and Rahman

2019). Across countries, politicians from political families (PPFs) share key characteristics including

the goal of benefitting multiple members of their family rather than just their individual political self-

interest, and this difference in turn influences how they impact the politics and policies of their

countries (Chhibber 2011; Braganca et al 2015; Geys and Martin 2017; George and Ponattu 2019).

Scholars find that in order to promote the political prospects of their family, PPFs make decisions

that lead to significantly worse development and governance outcomes (Braganca et al 2015; George

and Ponattu 2019; Dar 2019). This is also the case with PPFs in Pakistan (Ali 2016; Zahid 2013).

2
There is no global database which records the presence of political families across countries. Scholars have
focused on individual countries. In Asia, scholars have studied Pakistan (Herald 2013), India (Chandra 2016;
Chhibber 2011), Bangladesh (Amundsen 2016), Philippines (Tadem and Tadem 2016), Japan (Muraoka 2017;
Smith 2018), Thailand (Kongkirati 2016) and Indonesia (Purdey 2016).
3 Dynasties have most often been the focus of quantitative studies which have attempted to systematically
code all dynasties in a country for example George and Ponattu (2019) in India and Braganca et al (2015) in
Brazil. See studies in footnote #1 for discussions showing that PMPFs have successfully penetrated every
level of politics in these countries and are present in parties of all ideological stripes.

2
 Surprisingly, much less is known about how their goal of maximizing their family’s political

prospects and welfare influences PPFs’ preferences and behaviors when it comes to political

outcomes. Amundsen (2016) and Chhibber (2011) find PPFs are less supportive of intra-party

democracy. Rivera (2015) and Ahmad and Rehman (2019) find their presence is associated with

lower levels of political competition. However, the relationships between membership in a political

family and other important democratic values, practices and institutions remain unknown. Do PPFs

differ from non-PPFs when it comes to support for a democratic regime, vital institutions of

democratic accountability such as an independent judiciary and media and, strong civil liberties? If

their support is systematically different from non-PPFs, are they more or less supportive of these

democratic values, practices and institutions? While these questions are important for many

countries across the world, they are particularly important for Pakistan, because of the sheer number

and success of PPFs present and, its chequered history of democracy.

In this paper, we use original data from a survey of about 150 Pakistani politicians, who were

candidates for the 2018 parliamentary elections, to investigate some of these questions. We find

evidence that suggests that compared to non-PPFs, Pakistani PPFs are significantly more supportive

of those democratic institutions and practices that are instrumentally important to their goals but no

different in their support for normative and aspirational democratic values. Specifically, compared

to non-PPFs, PPFs are significantly more supportive of national institutions that mediate political

competition and access to political and policy power -- free and fair elections, an independent

judiciary, and a free media but no different in their low levels of support for their citizens’ human

rights. Collectively, these findings suggest that the presence and success of high numbers of PPFs in

Pakistan may bode well for the survival and operation of key procedural aspects of democracy but

bode poorly for many normative aspects of democracy.

3
 Political Families in Pakistan

Pakistan’s political history since 1947 has included both autocratic regimes run by the

military supported by the bureaucracy and the courts and, democratically elected multi-party

parliamentary governments (Jalal 2017; Lieven 2011). PPFs have been common in both types of

regimes. The most prominent political parties in Pakistan -- the PPP and the PML-N -- have always

been led by the Bhutto and the Sharif families. Several smaller parties have always been led by

regionally prominent families such as the Awami National Party in KPK by the Wali Khans and the

Jamhoori Watan Party in Balochistan by Bugti family members (Lieven 2011). Beyond these visible

and high-profile PPFs, systematic empirical studies confirm that Pakistani politics has been

thoroughly penetrated by politicians belonging to political families at every level. A comprehensive

study of all members elected to the national and provincial assemblies between 1970 and 2008 by

the Herald newspaper (2013: 27) identified 597 distinct families that had been active in Pakistani

politics over this period. in rural and urban constituencies. 64 percent of these families were based in

Punjab, 18 percent in Sindh, 8 percent in Balochistan and 9 percent in Khyber Pakhtunwa (Herald

2013: 28). They held 43 percent of the total of 7600 seats available at national and provincial levels,

50 percent of the national and provincial assembly seats in Punjab, 44 percent in Balochistan, 41

percent in Sindh and 28 percent in KPK over this period (Herald 2013: 27-29). The lowest share of

seats they have held was 37 percent in 1977 (Herald 2013:28). More recently, Ahmad and Rehman

(2019) find that more than 51 percent of national MPs elected to the 2002, 2008 and 2013

parliaments were PPFs. Thus, they are highly successful in winning office.

Studies by Ahmad and Rehman (2019) and Cheema et al (2013) suggest that even these

numbers may underestimate their true presence. Analyzing the 2002, 2008 and 2013 parliamentary

elections, Ahmad and Rehman (2019) find that 20 percent of candidates in every constituency were

PPFs and that the top three contestant positions were dominated by PPFs. Cheema et al (2013)

4
analyzed the top three legislative contestants for national and assembly elections between 1985 and

2008 for all electoral districts in Punjab, the largest province. They found that 50 percent of the top

three contestants were PPFs and, in one-third of all races the real competition was between two

PPFs (page 2). Furthermore, two-thirds of electoral contests between a PPF and a non-PPF were

won by the PPFs (page 3). Finally, two -thirds of the elected national and Punjab assembly

legislators were PPFs confirming that the number of political families has gone up over time (page

3). Cheema et al (2013:4) explain this trend by pointing out that, “…since the 1985 elections,

business-owning, trading, and professional elites have been as successful as their landowning

counterparts, if not more, in forming dynastic families, and that the power of capital appears to be as

potent as the power of land.” Thus, new families have continued to enter the pool of PPFs over

time and have done so in urban as well as rural areas (Herald 2013; Cheema et al 2013).

All military regimes in Pakistan have held elections, sometimes with and sometimes without

political parties (Jalal 2017). Given their desire to project the popular legitimacy gained through

elections, the Zia ul-Haq and Pervez Musharaff regimes cultivated specific parties and politicians to

support them (Jalal 2017; Jaffrelot 2015). As part of this strategy, they also courted Pakistan’s

political families. More than a third of the political families currently politically active in Punjab

began their careers with the 1985 partyless elections held by Zia (Cheema et al 2013:5). Similarly,

Musharaff successfully induced so many prominent PPFs to join the regime-supported Pakistan

Muslim League – Quaid party that 50% of PML-Q contestants in the 2002 and 2008 elections were

PPFs (Cheema et al 2013: 6). Most tellingly, even family members of military dictators, including

Ayub Khan, Zia ul Haq and Musharaff, have joined politics (Jalal 2017; Lieven 2011). Importantly,

PPFs are also found in religious parties and the Jamaat-e-Islami, Jamiat Ulema-e-Pakistan and the

Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazlur have all selected PPFs as election candidates and/or party leaders

5
(Herald 2013; Jalal 2017). Next, we discuss what we know so far about the differences between PPFs

and non-PPFs in the general and Pakistani context.

Political Family Politicians: Goals and Assets

Emerging research shows that, in general, there are important differences between the assets

and goals of PPFs and non-PPFs. PPFs command at least three valuable assets that few non-PPFs

do. First, PPFs can count on high levels of name recognition for themselves among voters based on

the prior reputations of their families (Tadem and Tadem 2016; Geys and Martin 2017; Smith 2018).

These reputations can stem from many different sources. In Pakistan, we see various types of

reputational legacies -- for example, the Makhdooms of Hala are hereditary religious leaders, the

Khars of Muzaffargarh are landed feudal aristocrats, the Sharifs are a political family with

reputations in business while the Hashmis of Multan benefit from their family’s reputation as

freedom fighters in Pakistan’s independence struggle (Malik and Malik 2017; Ahmad and Rehman

2019). Voters recognize the family brand, associate that brand with the various members of that

family, and can be very loyal to these families for reasons of religious piety, tradition, or patronage

(Cheema et al 2013; Jalal 2017; Sabat and Shoaib 2019). Consequently, as in other countries,

Pakistani PPFs are able to command their own loyal family-based vote banks.

Second, PPFs build, use and share time and experience-tested family networks that are

exclusive to the family for dispensing patronage, services and goods to their supporters and, for

mobilizing supporters. Cruz et al (2017) and Fafchamps (2016) find family networks are more

effective at these key political tasks than party networks because they are built on bonds of kinship

and kinship bonds motivate political brokers within the network to exert more effort and honesty in

their work for candidates. In contrast, they find that ordinary party workers may defect to other

candidates, embezzle campaign funds and, fail to sincerely deliver on the candidate’s patronage

6
promises undermining a candidate. Muraoka (2017), Cruz et al (2017) and Chandra (2016) find that

the ability to use their family’s networks makes PPFs less dependent on their party’s organizational

machine in Japan, Philippines and India.

In Pakistan, PPFs’ boast extensive family networks and use them to dispense patronage and,

mobilize voters and supporters (Sabat and Shoaib 2019; Jalal 2017; Malik and Malik 2017; Jaffrelot

2015). This capacity has earned Pakistani PPFs the moniker of “electables” since it allows them to

cultivate their personal vote banks largely independent of their parties and to be highly successfully

in elections (Sabat and Shoaib 2019; Jalal 2017; Malik and Malik 2017). Their networks and their

electability also allow them to form privileged connections to higher level party leaders as these

assets motivate political parties to court them to join them in hopes of benefitting from these scarce

and valuable assets (Jalal 2017; Malik and Malik 2017; Ahmad and Rehman 2019; Jaffrelot 2015).

Pakistani PPFs therefore include electables who opportunistically switch parties to strengthen their

family’s position in politics and families who remain loyal to the same party due to their family’s

direct leadership of the party or due to loyalty to the party leaders (Jalal 2017; Jaffrelot 2015). The

differences between the tactics and performance of these two types of PPFs are still open research

questions.

Scholars find that PPFs and non-PPFs also differ significantly in their political goals. PPFs

care deeply about and work to promote the success of their entire families, not just their personal

political fortunes4 and this difference incentivizes PPFs to create very different relationships with

their voters, supporters and their party. Cruz et al (2017) and Fafchamps (2016) argue and find that

PPFs invest in building family networks that are used to maintain their family reputations and

deliver patronage to and mobilize supporters. Patrikios and Chatzikonstantinou (2015) and Smith

4
Chhibber 2011, Smith and Martin 2017, George and Ponattu 2019, Amundsen 2016, Fafchamps
2016.

7
and Martin (2017) argue and find that PPFs work to build and bequeath party leadership positions

and valuable connections with other high-level party leaders in their political parties to family

members and that these relationships in turn provide the entire political family with access to

valuable political resources and positions and with some insurance against being fired for poor

performance. Collectively, scholars find, these differences in goals and assets affect the tactics and

strategies PPFs use to promote their family’s career and, consequently, their political and policy

choices.

Impact of Family Politicians

The presence of an elected representative who is a PPF in a constituency has been associated

with less welfare spending (Tantri and Thota 2017; George and Ponattu 2019), lower development

spending (Tantri and Thota 2017; George and Ponattu 2019), lower delivery of public services

(Braganca et al 2015; Tantri and Thota 2017), higher crime rates (Tantri and Thota 2017), higher

poverty (Mendoza et al 2016) but lower (Tantri and Thota 2017; Dar 2019) and higher (Besley and

Reynal-Querol 2011) economic growth. A handful of studies analyzing Pakistan find that PPFs have

many similar negative effects on economic and governance outcomes. Zahid (2013) finds that

constituencies with elected representatives who were PPFs in Pakistan have lower levels of literacy,

higher gender differences in literacy, lower levels of electrification and lower provision of running

water. Ali (2016) finds that Pakistani constituencies with PPF representatives saw almost 10% less

spending on post-disaster relief and reconstruction than non-PPF led districts after the 2010 floods.

These results are therefore consistent with findings about the impact of PPFs in other countries.

However, we have fewer insights about the effects PPFs have on political outcomes in

Pakistan or in general. In Turkey, (Yadav and Fidalgo 2019), India (Chhibber 2011; Chandra 2016)

and Bangladesh (Amundsen 2016), PPFs demonstrate strong preferences for undemocratic intra-

8
party practices including in the selection of organizational leaders and election candidates. Rahman

(2013) finds that PPFs have poorer records of attending parliamentary sessions in Bangladesh and

Tantri and Thota (2017) find the same in India. Rivera (2015) finds that the presence of PPFs was

associated with lower levels of political competition in Victorian Britain and Ahmad and Rehman

(2019) find the same in Pakistan. Finally, LaBonne et al (2019) find that the prominence of political

families facilitates the entry of more women into politics, a positive outcome. Bari (2010) finds that

that in Pakistan as well family connections have enabled more women to run for open and reserved

seats. However, to date, there has been little work examining how the presence of PPFs may

influence the quality and durability of democracy by influencing elite political support for important

democratic institutions and practices. Since politicians are the very people who design these

institutions and use them to democratic or autocratic effect, this is an important research agenda.

The rest of this paper addresses a small part of this agenda for the case of Pakistan.

Family Politicians and Support for Democratic Values, Practices and Institutions

How might we expect PPFs to influence the political culture and institutions in Pakistan and

elsewhere? Do PPFs differ significantly from non-PPFs in their support for all or some democratic

values, practices or institutions? If different, are they more or less democratically inclined than other

politicians? Current research suggests that PPFs could be more, less or equally supportive of

democratic values, practices and institutions compared to non-PPFs.

First, political families often have multiple members active in politics and, are more

successful in winning elected office (Geys and Martin 2017; Martin and Smith 2018; George and

Ponattu 2019). This gives more opportunity and more capacity to PPFs to capture political

institutions in order to serve their family’s interests giving them the means and the motives to

undermine democratic institutions. Analyzing parties in India, Chandra (2016) and Chhibber (2011)

9
argue that PPFs use this advantage to implement undemocratic practices within their parties in order

to capture it while Uysal and Topak (2010) find the same is true in Turkey. Tadem and Tadem

(2016) find that PPFs use the presence of multiple family members to take control of local and state

governments in the Philippines while (2009) and Uysal and Topak (2010) find that PPFs use similar

tactics with similar results in Turkey. However, Besley and Reynal-Querol (2017) argue that

nurturing a political dynasty increases the time horizons of PPFs compared to non-PPFs, making

them more willing thannon-PPFs to invest in decisions that may have short term costs but yield long

term benefits. This suggests the possibility that PPFs may be more willing than non-PPFs to accept

some individual-level and short-term costs in order to realize the family-wide, long term benefits

that strengthening democratic practices, institutions and liberal civil liberties could bring them.

Second, as discussed above, political families with multiple family members in office, have

the ability to and are better positioned to deploy their family’s patronage and coercion capacities to

capture state institutions in an attempt to perpetuate their own families in office. However, the

higher the number of political families in a country, the more likely it is that the real political

competition takes place between rival political families. In such contexts, PPFs are more likely to

face the real prospect that the key political institutions that regulate their access to political office

and regulate the benefits and costs they can realize from holding office can be effectively captured

by a rival family potentially locking them out of these opportunities for the foreseeable future.

For example, the freeness and fairness of elections influences whether family members

genuinely stand a chance of winning political office and gaining access to the influence and

patronage opportunities it provides. The ability to appeal to independent, empowered courts allows

politicians to challenge various government decisions -- for example banning parties, changing the

qualifications for candidacy, policies such as privatization, free trade, and regulation, the curbing of

civil rights – which affect politicians’ ability to access office and their influence over policies and

10
politics. A free media allows politicians to build up their public visibility among voters, campaign

effectively during elections, expose and criticize governments and rivals’ decisions and behaviors

and, highlight violation of rights. In contexts where high numbers of rival families dominate political

competition, PPFs may decide that rather than capturing institutions, creating and protecting neutral

institutions which can act as impartial referees between competing families serve the strategic needs

of their own families better. Thus, it is possible that even if PPFs are not inherently democratically

inclined, they may be motivated by these strategic benefits to support strong democratic institutions

to enable their families to flourish.

This scenario however raises an additional important possibility – that PPFs may differ in

how strongly they support democratic institutions versus democratic values. On the one hand, PPFs

must rely on their freedom of assembly and association, speech, movement and, their human rights

to build their careers. After all the ability to join or form a party, mobilize protests and rallies,

campaign freely and criticize governments without fear of persecution – are the very bread and

butter of political careers. This suggests that PPFs should be as or more supportive of these civil

liberties as non-PPF politicians. Conversely, PPFs may feel, correctly or incorrectly, that as members

of privileged, influential, elite families, their rights and safety will not be threatened even as the rights

and liberties of ordinary citizens can be violated with impunity. Collectively, existing scholarship

suggests four distinct possibilities: (i) PPFs are highly supportive of democratic institutions and civil

liberties, (ii) PPFs are highly supportive of democratic institutions but not supportive of civil

liberties and, (iii) that PPFs are highly supportive of civil liberties but not of democratic institutions

and (iv) PPF are less supportive of both democratic institutions and civil liberties compared to non-

PPFs. All four of these patterns seem likely a prior in Pakistan.

It is common among Pakistani political families to have family members competing from

different often rival parties (Malik and Malik 2017; Ahmad and Rehman 2019). This party

11
diversification strategy allows Pakistani PPFs to retain access to and voice in policymaking and

patronage no matter which party wins (Malik and Malik 2017; Ahmad and Rehman 2019). This

suggests that Pakistani PPFs could be less concerned about threats to their family’s future prospects

since they are highly likely to always have a family representative in office with access and influence.

Hence, they could be less likely to support democratic institutions and practices.

Furthermore, Pakistani elections are highly competitive and, most of the substantively

relevant competition takes place between different political families (Herald 2013; Cheema et al

2013; Malik and Malik 2017; Ahmad and Rehman 2019). Recall Ahmad and Rehman (2019) find that

at least 20% of the candidates in every constituency, the top three contestants in parliamentary

elections and, more than 51% of MPs were PPFs. Trends in provincial elections and legislatures are

similar (Herald 2013; Cheema et al 2013). Thus, Pakistan represents a case where the real electoral,

political and policy competition that most PPFs face is from other PPFs. The question therefore is

whether this highly competitive inter-PPF environment shapes Pakistani PPFs into sincere or

instrumental supporters of democratic institutions and values or whether the capacity for higher

state capture through the family and the assurance of having some family member in office at most

times turns them into opponents of genuine, strong democracy. This is the question the empirical

analysis now begins to address.

Data Collection

In order to evaluate which of these outcomes occurs in Pakistan, we need to have data on

the family backgrounds of individual politicians and, on their support for specific democratic

institutions and values. In the rest of this paper, we discuss how we collected such data, discuss key

features of the sample and then analyze the evidence. The population of interest in this study is that

of Pakistani politicians who are active in professional politics. Since PPFs are prominent among

12
winners and losers, electoral volatility is high in Pakistan and election losers can be important in

undermining democratic values, institutions and regimes by cooperating with undemocratic forces

such as the military, it is important to analyze the preferences of election winners and losers.

Therefore, the population surveyed in this study was that of politicians who were competing for the

national parliament and the four provincial assemblies as candidates of political parties in 2018.

Pakistan routinely has tens of parties which never win a single seat. Given financial

constraints and the goal of obtaining a nationally representative sample, we focused only on

candidates from the most politically relevant parties -- the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI), the Jamiat Ulema-e-

Islam – Fazlur (JUI-F), the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI), the Pakistan People’s Party (PPPP) and,

the Pakistan Muslim League – Nawaz (PML-N). While this covers all nationally prominent parties, it

does not include a few parties which are prominent in particular regions (for example the

Balochistan National Party in Balochistan or the Muttahida Qaumi Movement in the city of

Karachi). We used a stratified, clustered, random sampling design to obtain a nationally

representative sample from all four provinces (Sindh, Punjab, KPK and Balochistan).5 Each

province was defined as a stratum, individual electoral districts within each province were then

randomly selected as clusters and individual candidates from these parties were then randomly

selected as respondents within each cluster. Respondents were interviewed after the candidate lists

had been announced by these parties but before the elections were actually held. The survey was

conducted by a local Islamabad-based research institute using face-to-face interviews during June-

July 2018. The overall response rate was 62 percent. The final sample realized was 154 politicians.

The realized sample distribution across provinces is as follows: 30.7 percent from Punjab,

26.1 percent from Sindh, 24.2 percent from KPK and 18.9 percent from Balochistan. 20.2 percent

5
The JI and JUI-F competed as part of a religious coalition the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) in 2018.

13
of the sample belonged to the JI, 17 percent to JUI-F, 18.3 percent to PTI, 21.6 percent to PPPP

and 22.9 percent to PML-N. The average age of sample respondents was 48.6 years, 55 percent had

a college education and, only 6 percent were women. In terms of professional backgrounds, 18.3

percent identified as landlords, 39.2 percent as business with the rest being a mix of lawyers,

religious clerics, teachers and retired government officials.

Of the 154 respondents, we have data on the family background for 151 respondents. We

coded a politician as being a PPF if they (i) self-reported they had other family members who had

run for elections or had won elected office at the state or national level, and in addition to that (ii)

we were able to subsequently confirm that they belonged to a political family by consulting the

comprehensive list of political families compiled by Herald (2013) and/or by consulting newspaper

sources that could decisively identify them as belonging to a political family or not. Of these 151, 52

respondents -- 34.4 percent -- came from families which had other members active in politics and 50

of these or 33.1 percent had family members who had previously held elected office. Only 2

respondents came from political families which had competed in elections without winning elected

office. Of these PPFs, 48.3 percent were contesting elections from Balochistan, 27 percent from

KPK, 28.9 percent from Punjab and 37.5 percent from Sindh. 20.7 percent of PPFs in the sample

belonged to the JI, 30.8 percent to the JUI-F, 46.4 percent to the PTI, 27.3 percent to the PPP and

45.7 percent to the PML-N.6

Comparing PPF and non-PPF sub-samples of politicians, there were no significant

differences in their mean age, education, and religiosity levels. However, compared to non-PPFs,

6
The number from the PPP is lower than one might intuitively expect. In 2018, the PPP was not expected to
do well in national elections and evidence shows that high numbers of politicians, particularly PPFs, switched
parties from the PPP to other parties in anticipation of poor performance (Dunya New, June 6, 2018). This is
consistent with previous party-switching behaviors by PPFs (Malik and Malik 2017; Afzal 2019). Additionally,
field reports do not indicate that PPP politicians were declining interviews at higher rates than others.

14
higher shares of PPFs had been members of multiple parties (15.3 percent vs. 32.7 percent

respectively) and held elected state or national office (30.3 percent vs. 54.9 percent) and these

differences were statistically significant at the 5 percent level. These patterns are consistent with the

higher levels of party switching and electoral success reported for PPFs in Pakistan by other scholars

(Herald 2013; Cheema et al 2013; Ahmad and Rehman 2019).

Since politicians’ attitudes towards institutions and rights are likely to be influenced by their

perceptions of the best ways to protect their political interests, we examine the perceptions that

PPFs and non-PPFs hold about what it takes to succeed in elections in Pakistan and the relative

importance of their party and personal characteristics in obtaining political success. To do this, we

asked politicians (1) how important they believed a selected list of candidate qualities was to voters

in their own constituency, and (2) how important did the respondent think some common factors

were in determining their personal electoral performance. The scales used for these questions ranged

from no influence (1), moderate influence (2), high influence (3) to decisive influence (4).

There were no statistically significant differences in the beliefs that PPFs and non-PPFs held

regarding the importance voters placed on their elected representative fulfilling the party’s program,

getting resources for their constituency, legislating policy bills to benefit their constituency, resolving

practical problems specific to the constituency, resolving personal problems that voters brought to

the elected representative, and legislating policies and laws promoting an Islamic way of life.

However, PPFs were significantly less likely than non-PPFs to believe that their party’s platform (5

percent significance), policy performance of national party leaders (5 percent significance), loyalty of

district voters to their party (5 percent significance), quality of party candidates (5 percent

significance) and endorsements from influential interest groups (1 percent significance) influenced

their personal electoral success and equally likely to believe that resources transferred by the national

government to the district influenced their personal electoral success.

15
 This evidence suggests that PPFs and non-PPFs share the same view about what voters

value in their electoral representative but hold very different views about the importance of parties

and their personal attributes in driving political success. This suggests that PPFs may be more likely

than non-PPFs to look for extra-party mechanisms to protect their family’s political prospects.

Whether this translates into higher support for democratic institutions and rights is an open

question. Next, we analyze the survey data to investigate whether or not PPFs are different from

non-PPFs in the nature and extent of their support for democratic values and institutions,

specifically for free and fair elections, robust parliament, judicial independence, media freedom, and

human rights.

Support for Democratic Values and Institutions

The outcomes we are interested in are levels of support for democratic institutions and

rights, whether driven by an appreciation for their normative and/or strategic benefits. We examine

these by investigating politicians’ support for (1) a de facto democratic regime, (2) critical ancillary

institutions – independent judiciary and free media, (3) military’s accountability and, (4) civil liberties

including women’s rights.

To evaluate support for a democratic regime, we used two questions commonly used in the

World Values Survey and the Asia Barometer. Respondents were asked to report on a scale from 1

to 5 whether they believed that (a) the ability of people to choose their leaders in free and fair

elections and (b) the active participation of strong, independent, opposition parties in elections and

in parliament were essential features of democracy. Higher scores indicated a belief that the

respondent considered the specific characteristic to be more essential to democracy. Pakistan’s

chequered history of democracy and military interference in elections and the operations of

parliament (Lieven 2011; Jalal 2017; Afzal 2019) attest to the salience of genuinely free and fair

16
elections and a robust parliament as issues that politicians confront. Figure 1 illustrates the

distribution of responses to these two questions for PPFs and non-PPFs.

Figure 1: Support for Key Democratic Institutions and Practices

(b) Support for Robust Opposition Participation in Elections and Parliament

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 56.56 percent of non-PPFs but 73 percent of PPFs believed free and fair elections were

absolutely essential to democracy (scores of 4 or 5). This statistically significant difference (5 percent

significance) indicates higher support for a democratic regime among PPFs. In contrast, while 81.8

percent of non-PPFs believed that the active participation of strong, independent, opposition parties

in elections and in parliament were essential features of democracy (scores of 4 or 5), only 63.5

percent of PPFs shared this belief. This statistically significant difference (5 percent) indicates lower

support for robust parliament among PPFs. Strikingly, politicians express lower support for robust

opposition presence in parliament as essential for democracy even during a period when it was

widely believed that the military was interfering in the 2018 elections to favor the PTI party. These

contrasting levels of support for genuinely open access to parliament receiving but not for the

presence of a robust parliament suggests that PPFs may be more instrumentally motivated to

support democratic institutions.

Next, we consider support for an independent judiciary and an independent media. These

institutions can play a vital role in establishing the quality and durability of democracy in a country

(Gibler and Randazzo 2011; Mainwaring and Perez-Linan 2013; Schudson 2002). Hence, elite

support for them is important for establishing a genuine and stable democracy. Support for an

independent judiciary could be driven by a sincere belief in the role of courts in providing horizontal

accountability of the government and protecting civil freedoms or by an instrumental appreciation

that an independent judiciary can ensure that politicians are able to exercise their personal and

political freedoms, challenge fraudulent electoral practices and have policy influence when they are

in opposition (Gibler and Randazzo 2011; Mainwaring and Perez-Linan 2013).

Pakistan’s judiciary has historically collaborated with the military in legitimizing the

overthrow of multiple democratic regimes (Siddique 2015; Jalal 2017). In 2008, it was seen as critical

in triggering the return to democracy (Afzal 2019; Jalal 2017). Since 2008, the judiciary has interfered

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in multiple ways with the democratic regime disqualifying sitting prime ministers from the PPP in

2012 and the PML-N in 2017 from holding office (Siddique 2015; Afzal 2019). It was accused of

collaborating with the military yet again to undermine the PML-N and boost the PTI in the 2018

elections (Afzal 2019; Shah 2019). Whether PPFs, who were distributed across all parties and switch

parties often, would still support the independence of a judiciary with this history is therefore a

question of considerable interest for Pakistan. To evaluate support for an independent judiciary,

respondents were asked the following question:

“Some people have argued that a judicial system that is independent from political
supervision is absolutely necessary for a well-functioning market economy and strong
protection of rights. Others disagree because they believe that independent judiciary
cannot be held accountable for its decisions by voters or their elected representatives
and want a judiciary that is politically supervised by either parliament or the executive
or both. What do you think?
1. Judiciary should not by supervised by any political branch
2. Judiciary should be supervised only by the executive
3. Judiciary should be supervised only by parliament
4. Judiciary should be supervised by both parliament and the executive.”

Support for an independent media can be similarly driven by both a sincere appreciation for

the freedom of expression embodied in a free media and/or its instrumental values in allowing

politicians to promote their political careers by campaigning and criticizing rivals without constraints

(Schudson 2002). The Pakistani media has come under considerable pressure from the military and

Islamists in recent years and are widely perceived as favoring specific parties (Yusuf and Schoemaker

2013; Afzal 2019). Whether PPFs who have a longer time horizon are more appreciative of the long-

term benefits of an independent media or a self-censoring partisan media is a substantively relevant

question for Pakistan today. To evaluate support for media freedom, respondents were asked the

following two questions about the professional media and social media:

“How would you describe government oversight of the professional media in the last 5 years:
1. Not enough oversight, government needs to increase it.
2. Just the right amount of government oversight, no changes required

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 3. Too much government interference, Pakistan needs to reduce government
oversight”

“How would you describe government oversight of the social media in the last 5 years:
1. Not enough oversight, government needs to increase it.
2. Just the right amount of government oversight, no changes required
3. Too much government interference, Pakistan needs to reduce government
oversight”

Figures 2 and 3 illustrate the distribution of responses for judicial and, media independence

respectively for PPFs and, non-PPFs. The results are striking. While 44 percent of PPFs support

complete judicial independence from any political supervision, only 25 percent of non-PPF express

such support, a statistically significant difference (5 percent level). On further examination, the data

show that despite the judiciary’s recent decisions against both the PPP and PML-N, support for

judicial independence is relatively higher among the PPFs than non-PPFs in these parties as well.

Furthermore, while only 8 percent of PPFs support supervision by parliament, more than three

times as many, 25 percent of non-PPFs support parliamentary supervision of the judiciary. Thus,

PPFs express much more support for an independent judiciary than non-PPFs. Note that despite

this difference between their levels of support, majorities of both PPFs (66 percent) and non-PPFs

(75 percent) did not support judicial independence in Pakistan. Whether this is the result of the

judiciary’s recent actions or other factors is an interesting question for researchers to explore.

Figures 3 (a) and (b) show similarly strong and statistically significant differences in support

for an independent professional media (5 percent significance level) and independent social media (1

percent significance level) between PPFs and non-PPFs. Among PPFs, support for more

government oversight of the professional media and social media stood at 51 percent and 51.9

percent respectively. Among non-PPFs these numbers were 70.3 percent and 74 percent

respectively. Further examination of the data show that this pattern holds across all parties. Again, it

20
is worth pointing out that these figures show that support for media freedom is not supported by

the majority Pakistani politicians.

Figure 2: Support for Judicial Independence

Figure 3: Attitudes Towards Media Independence

(a) Professional Media

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 (b) Social Media

Next, we turn to evaluating support for human rights and civil liberties among Pakistani

politicians. Strong support for full human rights, for example those defined by the UN charter on

human rights, are believed to be crucial for establishing genuine democracy (Haggard and Kaufmann

2017; Mainwaring and Perez-Linan 2013). While there are many reasons why human rights are

violated in Pakistan, four reasons are particularly salient – military operations, religious beliefs,

promoting economic development and patriarchal values (Jahangir 2001; Iqtidar 2011). Therefore,

we framed questions that asked respondents whether they were willing to support compromising

human rights for these four reasons versus upholding the fundamental rights of their citizens.

To examine support for holding the military accountable for its human rights abuses, we

asked respondents the following two questions: “Using a scale where 1 indicates strongly oppose, 2

moderately oppose, 3 moderately support and 4 strongly support, please tell us (a) Would you

support stopping trials of civilians in military and exceptional courts?, (b) Would you support

allowing military personnel to be tried in civilian courts for offenses committed against civilians?”

22
Figures 4 (a) and (b) illustrate the distributions to the two questions respectively for PPF and non-

PPFs. These figures show that when it comes to holding the military accountable, support for

stopping the trials of civilians in military courts is significantly higher (5 percent significance), among

non-PPFs at 63.4 percent versus among PPFs at 52.2 percent. Encouragingly, majorities of both

types of politicians support stopping this practice. However, when it comes to allowing military

personnel to be tried in civilian courts for crimes committed against civilians, there is no significant

difference between PPF and non-PPFs. 46.7 percent of PPFs and 52.2 percent of non-PPFs support

such a move suggesting that both types of politicians are almost evenly split on this question.

The orthodox religious position on human rights advocated by many in Pakistan is that

Islam has its own conceptualization of human rights, that Islamic human rights are superior to

liberal rights and consequently human rights based on orthodox religious beliefs in Islam should be

adopted by Pakistani governments (Afzal 2019; Iqtidar 2011; Jahangir 2001). Advocates of this

position oppose giving Pakistanis human rights and civil liberties as conceptualized by the UN

chapter on human rights. Pakistan’s state of economic underdevelopment and consequently the

need to promote economic development is also frequently used as a justification to limit the civil

liberties of workers, migrants, and others adversely affected by development policies and projects in

Pakistan (Lieven 2011; Jahangir 2001). We therefore test for support for human rights among

politicians based on both these justifications. The latter is particularly useful for understanding

support for civil liberties among less religiously inclined politicians. Finally, women’s rights in

Pakistan have suffered due to opposition stemming from orthodox religious beliefs as well as

entrenched traditional, patriarchal attitudes (Siddiqui 2019; Weiss 2014; Lieven 2011; Jahangir 2001).

To evaluate support for suppressing women’s rights due to patriarchal bias, we use a question that

taps into a salient social debate in Pakistan – support for the segregation of the sexes in public

spaces outside the home, including in institutions of higher learning. Such gender segregation would

23
 directly limit women’s freedom of movement significantly reducing their access to education,

professional jobs and participation in public life.

Figure 4: Military Accountability in Human Rights Violations

(a) Support Stopping Civilian Trials in Military Courts

(b) Support Trying Military Personnel for Crimes Against Civilians in Civilian Courts

24
 Theoretically, these five distinct questions allow us to assess support for human rights across

politicians who may be ideologically inclined to be more or less religious, pro or anti-market and

more or less traditional. They are also appropriate to the Pakistani context thus allowing us to

evaluate politicians’ support for human rights and liberties in a substantively relevant and reliable

way. Their exact wording is as follows:

Religious Beliefs: “Some people have argued that certain human rights are universal
and transcend all religions and cultures. Others argue that different religions and
cultures protect human rights according to their own traditions and beliefs. Which of
these two views comes closer to your view:
1. Human Rights are universal
2. Each religion has its own tradition of protecting human rights

Economic Development: “Pakistan was not doing well economically through most of the
1990s and 2000s experiencing high unemployment and inflation. However, for the last two
years, the Pakistani economy has entered a period of solid growth and is doing much better.
Some argue that it is necessary for the government to take rigid measures to restrict
fundamental rights and freedoms so that economic prosperity can be increased again. Others
oppose this idea and believe that such measures will worsen the economy. What are your
thoughts on this?
1. Basic rights and freedoms can be limited when it comes to economic development
2. Under no circumstances should basic rights and freedoms be restricted.

Patriarchal Beliefs: “What is your position regarding the following policies: Please indicate
whether you 1 strongly oppose (1), moderately oppose (2), moderately support (3) or strongly
support the policy:

Men and women should be educated in separate facilities in colleges and universities”

Figure 5 (a), (b) and (c) illustrate the distribution of responses to these three questions

respectively. Among PPFs, support for circumscribing human rights for religious reasons is at 62

percent, to promote development is 61.2 percent and for gender segregation is 84.6%. Among non-

PPFs, support for these positions stands at 64.7 percent for religious human rights, 51.6 percent for

development and 75.8 percent for gender segregation. None of the differences between the two

25
groups are statistically significant at any conventional levels indicating that PPFs and non-PPFs hold

similar views on all these rights issues. These results show that majorities of both PPF and non-

PPFs support limiting the human rights and civil liberties of their own citizens for a variety of

societal and economic reasons despite living through periods of military suppression of these rights

themselves. This finding paints a bleak picture of the prospects for the consolidation of genuine,

high quality democracy in Pakistan.

Figure 5: Support for Human Rights

(a) Universal vs Religiously Defined Human Rights

(b) Compromise Human Rights to Promote Economic Development

26
 (c) Women’s Human Rights: Support for Gender Segregation in Higher Education

Discussion and Conclusion

Collectively, the evidence presented in this paper finds that PPFs and non-PPFs in Pakistan

differ significantly in their support for some democratic practices and institutions but not in their

support for others. While PPFs are significantly more supportive than non-PPFs of vital democratic

institutions such as free and fair elections, a robust parliament, an independent judiciary and a free

media, they are no different when it comes to respecting the human rights and civil liberties of their

citizens. Importantly, membership in a political family was not associated with significantly lower

support for democratic institutions or human rights among politicians. Unlike the many negative

economic and governance outcomes scholars have associated with the phenomenon of political

families in developing countries, it might have some positive consequences for Pakistan. Given the

very high numbers of political families in Pakistan at all levels of Pakistani politics, this is an

encouraging finding. It supports the arguments other scholars such as Lieven (2011) have made that

27
political families are an element of Pakistani society that strengthen the centripetal forces holding

Pakistani democracy together but not in the form of liberal democracy.

One must understand these findings in the political context that Pakistan’s politicians have

faced over the years and found themselves in 2019. Since the first military coup in 1956, Pakistani

politician and parties have operated in environments defined by overt or covert interference by the

military and collaboration between the military, the bureaucracy and the courts (Jalal 2017; Jaffrelot

2015; Lieven 2011). In many ways, the period from 2008 to 2017 was the most democratic period

that Pakistan has enjoyed marked by relatively lower military interference, fairer elections and the

only two transitions of power from democratic governments which served their full terms to

another elected government (Afzal 2019; Shah 2019). The run-up to the 2018 elections

unfortunately marked a return to the typical experience Pakistan had with democracy during the

1970s and 1990s when the military interfered actively to favor its preferred party by manipulating the

courts, the media, the bureaucracy and the elections (Afzal 2019; Jalal 2017; Lieven 2011). This

survey, conducted in 2018, therefore captures elite opinion in a context that is more typical of

Pakistan’s historical experience of democratic institutions and rights under attack. In this familiar

context of fragile democracy, PPFs may be particularly supportive of democratic institutions.

However, whether such support would stay at comparable levels if and when PPFs feel genuinely

confident about the absence of a military threat to Pakistan’s democratic regime and the strength of

its democratic regime, is not a question these data can currently address. That important question

would require a new survey that captures politicians’ preferences in that new political context.

Finally, in evaluating the scope of these findings, these results should be first tested in other

countries with similarly high numbers of political families and high PPF-penetration into politics.

How much penetration by PPFs and how much political competition is necessary for PPFs to

28
support democratic institutions is an open question that needs to be empirically clarified by

examining other countries which vary on both these factors.

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