Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Outline:
1. Introduction
2. Politico-economic dynamics of the world
3. Impact of the xenophobia in the West
4. Is diversity or the mere existence of different cultures a threat?
5. Socio-economic justice as a recipe for socio-political stability
End of the 20th century happened to be the severe blow to monarchies
and the military regimes as “number of electoral democracies, from early
1970s onward till 2010, increased from 35 to more than 110” (Francis
Fukuyama; Against Identity politics). The world has witnessed a
phenomenal increase in globalization of economies particularly 1980
onward. This phenomenon also resulted into reduction of poverty to a
great extent. We have observed a substantial increase in the middle class
of China, India, and many other countries of the world. This happened on
account of the shift of investment from the US and Western European
countries towards East Asia due to low labor cost involved. There was
another phenomenon attached to it. It was widening of a rich-poor gap as
benefit of economic and trade globalization flowed more towards already
wealthy, highly educated class, and people holding political power.
The cultural identity crisis in the United States is not that much severe as
the immigrants other than the white Europeans do not constitute more
than 25% of the population. Moreover, after the second generation, most
of the immigrants get assimilated into the American culture. However,
immigrants, who are in high number they do keep their cultural identities
intact and prefer to mix up with their cultural inmates but in no way put
any threat to the American central pillar of governance that is the rule of
law and socio-economic justice. That made America as the most
politically stable country of the world, meaning thereby that constituent
cultures or diverse religious orientations can never pose any threat to
any political entity unless its governance is not partisan or discriminative
to any of its constituent community.
The challenges of governance and
democracy in Pakistan
Written by: Dr. Hasan Askari Rizvi
www.cssexamprep.com
The July 2018 general election and installation of the newly elected
federal and provincial governments in August boosted the prospects of
democracy in Pakistan. This was the fourth general election since 2002,
when General Pervez Musharraf held carefully managed elections to
civilianize his military rule by installing an elected government. The
subsequent polls in February 2008 and May 2013 brought in purely
political governments. On all of these occasions political power shifted
from one set of political leaders to another.
Elections are integral to the democratic process but that is not the only
requirement for democracy. The legitimacy of elections has to be
supplemented by performance legitimacy in terms of governance and
political management on the part of the government, and a continuing
observance of tolerance in society. Pakistan falters on these
counts. The competing political interests have not fully imbibed the
democratic culture and they often display social and religious
intolerance.
The third challenge for the new government relates to the fact that it
has inherited a troubled economy. The problems include a
current-account deficit, a trade imbalance to the disadvantage of
Pakistan, a budget deficit, tax collection issues, and international and
domestic debts. Pakistan is stuck in such a debt trap that it will find it
difficult to manage it unless thoughtful solutions are developed. This is
a difficult but not impossible task. Some state institutions — such as
the steel mill, Pakistan’s national airlines and railways, and projects
such as the new transport system introduced by the previous Pakistan
Muslim League-Nawaz government in Lahore, Multan and
Rawalpindi-Islamabad — have become major financial drains on the
country. How can these be made financially viable?