The enigma of political security

There is an urgent need to reconceptualize the idea of political security in Pakistan.

Pakistan has marked significant landmarks in its idea of having a ‘better’ democracy. But the lack of political security in this country has forced this system to bleed. As we are struggling to make our democratic system thrive in this environment, this challenging journey brings a mountain of security threats that have the ability to blow one’s mind.

The survey report of World Justice Project (WJP) updated the rule of law index 2024 in which they placed Pakistan at 129^th in the overall score of all 142 countries. This sheds light on the country’s inability to counter issues related to governance, trichotomy of power, and political security in general. All factors that are mentioned in the report, are key components of political security that are essential in deterring such existential threats.

This report highlights the urgent need of having a comprehensive yet a fundamentally realistic ‘plan of action’ to solve issues of national and existential importance. The ranking of Pakistan in that report triggers an alarm regarding the susceptible state of political security in this country. This environment of insecurity, inevitably yields an ‘imperfect’ democracy along with intensifying our existing fault lines that shaped or will continue to shape our dented societal, diplomatic and democratic structure.

The concept of political security arose from the Critical Security Studies (CSS), notably from the security schools that emerged in the late 19^th century. Likewise, Copenhagen Security School also surfaced in the 1980s, particularly during the rise of political populism. As this theory has an overemphasis on the concept of ‘securitization’ and societal security, it views every non-traditional issue as a matter of national survival. Political security, in a securitized environment, is seen as a prerequisite to having a stable individual autonomy, social order, and popular sovereignty, especially in Copenhagen school of security.

As there was a resurgence of democratization in the late 19^th century, this phenomenon saw a significant rise in decolonization as well, especially during its third wave along with a strong emergence of politically reinforced ideologies. The existing concept of political power and authority started wanning, which gave rise to hyper-nationalism and an entirely new idea of how ‘political security’ would look like in the near future.

This security school focused more on introducing the concept of ‘societal security’ and its relation with the evolving dynamics of global political ideologies, besides studying the manifesting socio-political threats that include insurgencies, cyber warfare, militias, hate speech epidemic, and social unrest in general. All of these socially constructed threats have the potential to either transform or force the traditional social order to collapse.

The insights from this security school, and the reciprocal relation of societies with the traditional concept of political security, eventually puzzled intellectuals about this vicious cycle and its ability to inevitably fuel a chaotic socio-political structure.

This debate has surrounded scholars for centuries now, but there is a consensus that it is an interdependent relation which needs a collective yet a comprehensive framework of applying a tsunami of political reforms that would, somehow, reshape our society and recontextualize the idea of political security in Pakistan and across the globe as well.

In Pakistan’s case, this vicious cycle of political insecurity that fuels a chaotic societal order has compelled us to reach a tipping point, where we cannot escape the level of devastation our socio-political fault lines have caused or may cause in the near future. The havoc caused by decades of enduring ‘imperfect’ democracies has directly fanned ‘imperfect’ societies across the globe. The notion regarding the interlinked nature of these two crucial pillars of human life is still under a heated debate, especially in Pakistan. This unsettling situation has become a conundrum because of the multiplicities that both of these sacred concepts have in their ever-evolving nature.

A stable social fabric in a country like Pakistan, is indeed, crucial for its overall survival. The recontextualization of such traditional notions of security is inevitable because our security threats have started to overlap and they continuously evolve overtime.

According to the Frankfurt School of Security, political insecurity is mainly caused by dominant power structures, coercion of polarization, and a constantly preserved status quo. This school focused more on a militarized and a state-centric security, rather than having a more constructivist human-centric approach on such evolving security issues. As this school has an overemphasis on theory and less on practice, this highlights its critical role in security studies. It evidently lacks viable policy recommendations, solution-centric perspectives, and diplomatic flexibility.

Power balance is seen as a cause of stability in this critical theory which reflects a tone of classical realism, historical power dynamics, arms race, and a lack of understanding about evolving security issues. The concept of power balance or threat equalizing weapons has provided relative stability post nuclear age. This school is relatively old and it could not reflect on evolving power dynamics, multifaceted security issues, and the era of modern warfare in general. Therefore, apart from being hypercritical, traditional military threats are the primary concern of the Frankfurt Security School.

In Pakistan’s case, this security school has great significance. As this school does not promote a solution-centric approach, it makes enough room for captious remarks that only highlights the crisis, rather than mitigating it. In this context, Pakistan has been focusing more on the ideology of this hypercritical security school.

If we focus more on practical implementation, then political insecurity can be addressed by taking these following steps:

1. Educate citizens on political security.
2. Invest in security studies.
3. Introduce such topics in the national curriculum of Pakistan, but keep them in a mellow tone to avoid complexities.
4. Reduce polarization by a national political consensus.
5. Discuss these issues in parliament sessions and arrange seminars in educational institutions.

These recommendations have enough scalability to grow when they are done at a national and institutional level.

According to the Frankfurt school, Pakistan and its citizens stand at a critical juncture where they could only identify the root causes of every festering wound without any mitigatory efforts. The overall situation is so entangling that the reconceptualization of certain political insecurities and overall misanthropy of the society has become an uphill battle for Pakistan.

The imaginative idea of having a more politically secured environment, is indeed, what every country dreams of during unsettling conditions.

To sum up, Pakistan must not continue the Frankfurtian way of dealing with issues of national and societal importance. Therefore, there is an urgent need to recontextualize the idea of political security in Pakistan to effectively solve issues related to national, transnational, and regional importance.