History, structure and conjuncture: Imperialism and the polity in Pakistan

This paper develops Antonio Gramsci’s distinction between organic and conjunctural terrains to delineate the relationship between imperialism and the polity in Pakistan. A political-economic analysis of the mechanisms and magnitude of unequal exchange and economic drain over the last three and a half decades is carried out through domestic and international data sources. This imperial-economic mooring is then brought into conversation with Pakistan’s contemporary history. It is through this intersection of structure and history that the specific structuring of the political terrain in Pakistan may be elucidated. A Gramscian understanding of passive revolution, conjunctures and their articulation of organic processes helps understand how imperialism conditions punctual shifts in the polity. Such a Gramscian framework also helps move beyond some of the polarised debates in critical social theory when it comes to understanding imperialism and its internality to peripheral social formations.