Phillip Oldenburg

Solving the Puzzle of why India is a Democracy and Pakistan is not Since the 1977 election in India, India’s democracy has been slowly strengthened; in Pakistan, after Bhutto’s rigged 1977 election, the military has continued to entrench itself in power, even during 13 years of “democratic” rule. These differing trajectories are best explained by the balance of power between the bureaucracy and military versus elected politicians, during the colonial period, in the early years of independence, ending with the 1958 coup in Pakistan and the 1964 death of Nehru. The intermittent alliance with the U.S. plays an important part in Pakistan’s pattern of periods of army rule, but differences in socio-economic structure or religion do not significantly explain the divergent paths.