Dictatorship and Democracy in Israel and Pakistan

Foreign Policy & Geopolitics
Published

May 3, 2026

Foreign Policy, Defence & Geopolitics civil-military comparative

The mediating variable between democracy and dictatorship is the status of civil-military relations in the formative years.

Origin

This framework was developed by Pranay Kotasthane in 2017, drawing on Steven Wilkinson’s book Army and Nation, to explain a puzzle: why have Israel and Pakistan — two religious states created for persecuted minorities, with powerful military-security establishments — ended up on such different political trajectories?

What it says

The similarities are well-documented. As Faisal Devji argues in Muslim Zion, both states came into being through the migration of a minority population fearing persecution. Gen Zia-ul-Haq himself said: “Pakistan is like Israel, an ideological state. Take out the Judaism from Israel and it will fall like a house of cards. Take Islam out of Pakistan and make it a secular state; it would collapse.”

And yet: Israel has steadfastly retained electoral democracy while Pakistan has had repeated military dictatorships. The hypothesis is that the difference lies in civil-military relations during the formative years.

Wilkinson identified three factors that explain why India’s and Pakistan’s armies diverged:

  1. Socio-economic, strategic and military inheritance: Partition worsened the ethnic balance in the Pakistan army while improving it in India’s.
  2. Political party institutionalisation: The Congress party had deep roots; the Muslim League did not.
  3. Coup-proofing measures: India carefully managed promotions, tenures and ethnic balances at the top of the military.

Points (2) and (3) were exactly what David Ben-Gurion accomplished in Israel. The result: civilian supremacy over the military in both India and Israel; military intrusion into politics in Pakistan.

Applied

The framework suggests that the formative years of a state set paths that are extremely difficult to reverse. Even if Jinnah had lived longer, he might have installed coup-proofing measures (point 3), but the weakly institutionalised Muslim League and the worsening ethnic balance of the army would have remained intractable.

For contemporary policy, the lesson is sobering: institutional design in the first decade of a state’s life has outsized consequences. Pakistan’s current struggles with democratic consolidation are not merely about present-day leaders; they are partly determined by decisions made — and not made — in 1947–57.

When it falls short

The framework is deterministic about formative-year effects. It understates the scope for later institutional innovation. Taiwan and South Korea, after all, democratised after long periods of authoritarian rule. It also does not explain why Bangladesh — which inherited the same military DNA — has managed a more durable (if flawed) democratic practice than Pakistan.

Further reading

  • Wilkinson, Steven. Army and Nation: The Military and Indian Democracy Since Independence. Harvard University Press, 2015.
  • Devji, Faisal. Muslim Zion: Pakistan as a Political Idea. Harvard University Press, 2013.

Originally explored in A Framework a Week: Dictatorship and Democracy in Israel and Pakistan on Anticipating the Unintended.