Navigating Hybrid Governance: Role of Pakistan National Security Committee (NSC) & Constitutional Outlook

Abstract

The governing balance between civilian regime and military leadership has become an important aspect of governance in Pakistan. When military and civilian life are pragmatically in touch with each other, both become an asset, otherwise, they are an aggressor to each other. It is their integration that ensures the convergence of their goals and directions as well as values and ideologies, as both depend on each other. This not only leads to the consolidation of democracy but also fulfills the effective civilian oversight over the military. For this, an efficient governing structure can keep in check the state’s civil-military equation and ensure that the incidence of military intervention or influence is minimized. The theoretical and structural construction of this integration and ideological alignment is particularly relevant to civil-military interaction under the National Security Committee (NSC) in Pakistan. This paper analyzes the civil-military relations in Pakistan under two different models i.e., ‘control theory’ and ‘convergence theory’ to bring a new perspective to the analysis of the topic. The paper begins with a brief review of both theoretical frameworks, followed by the history of civil-military relations under military rule, civilian setup, and NSC governance in Pakistan. The paper then looks into the case of hybrid governance under the NSC in line with the tenets of the 1973 Constitution of Pakistan. It suggests that far-reaching national strategic concerns and governing balance issues can be addressed under NSC, which is currently not being utilized to its full potential; instead it should function as a regular forum of dialogue and consultation, and not as an irregular decision-making entity. A consistently functional consultative NSC can help diffuse the ideological differences between civil and military elements of governance, creating more prospects of integration and decreasing chances of outright interference, as postulated by Janowitz in the convergence theory.