WHEN PROCEDURE BECOMES PARTISAN: INSTITUTIONAL DISTRUST, AFFECTIVE POLARIZATION, AND DEMOCRATIC RESILIENCE IN PAKISTAN, 2008-2024

Abstract

Ordinary political competition can take on a new face when trust is lacking in the institutions. This is particularly crucial in Pakistan, where in recent years, no longer is an election, a court verdict, a parliamentary vote, an accountability process considered 'business as usual' but as a tool for one political side against the other. This article looks at the change in three key moments since 2008 – the proceedings and disqualification controversy linked to the Panama Papers, the 2022 vote of no confidence and the general elections of 2024. An historical-institutional interpretation, together with process-tracing logic, identifies five patterns of processes: procedural ambiguity, selective institutional legitimacy, moralized leadership language, media acceleration and citizen-level identity sorting. Just because they are there, does not mean that all the charges of bias are baseless. That is not the most important point; the more important is that until the uncertainty about the matter is resolved, partisan interpretations can take time to crystallize before it is given full play in the public arena in the light of the evidence. This analysis thus distinguishes between ideological, affective and institutional polarization and will suggest that democracy's resilience in Pakistan should not be based on the elimination of political conflict, but on the maintenance of conflict within the framework of rules that all parties can deem palatable to continue using. An increased level of transparency in the procedures, communication between institutions, better quality of parliamentary practice, more responsible politicians, professional media behavior and civic education can all contribute to minimizing the "humiliation/exclusion" dimension. Depolarization in this way is not a matter of consensus, but of rules that are credible and democratic restraint.