From Overdeveloped State to Praetorian Pakistan: Tracing the Media's Transformations

In his seminal essay, Hamza Alavi (1972) characterised the state in post-colonial societies as an overdeveloped superstructure, a notion Zaidi (2014) contests for the case of Pakistan. Owing to the huge socio-political transmutations Pakistani society has undergone ever since Alavi penned his thesis, Zaidi argues for reconsidering, if not entirely dismissing, the notion of the ‘overdeveloped state’. Alavi (1972) conceptualises the ‘overdeveloped state’ as a top-down, centralised structure apexed by a triumvirate of feudal lords, the local bourgeoisie and metropolitan capital. According to Alavi, this triumvirate in turn is dominated by the civil–military oligarchy. Alavi's thesis, although perhaps not surprisingly, ignores the role of the media even if the role of ideology and culture is hinted at in passing in his delineation of the overdeveloped state. Zaidi (2014), by contrast, places the media at the centre stage as a key player in understanding the transformed political economy of the Pakistani state. This view is justified in light of the changes to the landscape of the media since the 2000s, though Zaidi is not alone in making this point as demonstrated later. In partial agreement with Zaidi (2014), in this chapter, I will show that in light of the transformations of the state–society nexus in Pakistan since the 1970s, Alavi's thesis is not a cogent framework to explore, in particular, the role of the transformed Pakistani media. However, assigning primacy to the media – despite the rapid growth of the media in output and outreach – is an exaggeration. Therefore, this chapter argues the following. The Pakistani media is commanded and controlled by a mutually accommodating troika consisting of the military, commercial interests and the Urdu-Punjabi middle class.1 In this configuration, the nature of control is hegemonic and manipulative rather than authoritarian, as was the case until the 1990s. Consequently, while the overdeveloped character of state offers a useful framework to analyse the media until the 1990s, the political economy of the new-look media and state-media relations today can be best described through an understanding of Pakistan as a praetorian state. The role of the media can be best explained by what Althusser (2001) called the Ideological State Apparatuses (ISAs). Therefore, this chapter will begin by placing the media at the interstices of state and society. A qualification is in place here.