Assignment 5: Key Political Institutions, Policy, and Regime Stability
Federalism is a type of government system that guarantees the structural
division of power between the central government and its units (Clark et al,
2017). Bednar (2009) says for a state to be classed as federal it must have; a
geopolitical division, independence, and direct governance. Pakistan has an
asymmetric federal system, it was inherited from British India and is the attempt
to deal with ethnic pluralism, making it incongruent in nature (Waseem, 2010).
This origin story allows Pakistan to be described as “holding together”
federalism. It is considered asymmetric because not all provinces have the same
relationship with the central government, the Punjab province is considered to
have more financial support from central government than other provinces
(Chandio, 2014). The nature of the division of powers in Pakistan is articulated
in the Federal Legislative List of the constitution (Pakistan, 2012). In short, the
central government is responsible for defence, foreign policy and trade; the
provincial government controls policies like education and health services.
Some powers do not belong to either government, but are shared between them,
such as criminal law and procedure (Part V, Chapter 1, 142, c.).
Pakistan has incongruent bicameralism because senators are elected by
members of the provincial assemblies and all provinces are allocated an equal
number of seats in the senate, to give equal representation, keeping in the spirit
of true federalism. Conversely, national assembly members are popularly
elected, and seats are allocated to provinces based on population size as of the
last census (Pakistan, 2012). The bicameralism is also asymmetric, because the
senate does not have the power to block all bills that come from the national
assembly (Chandio, 2014).
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