How do you feel the state? Emotional engagement of citizens with development policies in Pakistan

This paper aims to demonstrate how development policies, framed in cost-benefit terms and oblivious to local feelings and emotions, generate negative emotions. To this end, we examine citizens’ emotions in response to three policies: land development, counterterrorism, as well as post-conflict development, and the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. We ask: What emotions do development policies evoke across non-metropolitan Pakistan? How local/regional emotional context generate support for, or resistance to national state’s policies? To answer these questions, we adopt a qualitative research design with an emergentist frame, drawing on data generated in four interactive conferences across Pakistan. Our unique data corpus includes paper presentations with the following Q&A sessions, panel discussions, various thematic art exhibitions, informal conversations, and extensive field notes. We found that Policies framed in rational terms without due consideration for local meanings and feelings generate multiple negative emotions. Moreover, emotions play a central role in citizens’ engagement with and support for development policies in the long run.