🔸 Pakistan at the Crossroads: Domestic Dynamics and External Pressures :
In Pakistan at the Crossroads, top international scholars assess Pakistan's politics and economics and the challenges faced by its civil and military leaders domestically and diplomatically. Contributors examine the state's handling of internal threats, tensions between civilians and the military, strategies of political parties, police and law enforcement reform, trends in judicial activism, the rise of border conflicts, economic challenges, financial entanglements with foreign powers, and diplomatic relations with India, China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, and the United States.
🔸 Pakistan Under Siege: Extremism, Society, and the State :Â
Over the last fifteen years, Pakistan has come to be defined exclusively in terms of its struggle with terror. But are ordinary Pakistanis extremists? And what explains how Pakistanis think?
The author lays out Pakistanis’ own views on terrorist groups, on jihad, on religious minorities and non-Muslims, on America, and on their place in the world. The views are not radical at first glance, but are riddled with conspiracy theories. Afzal explains how the two pillars that define the Pakistani state—Islam and a paranoia about India—have led to a regressive form of Islamization in Pakistan’s narratives, laws, and curricula. These, in turn, have shaped its citizens’ attitudes.
🔸 A Brief History of Pakistan :
In the course of a few years, Pakistan has assumed strategic importance on the world stage, acting as both a linchpin in the global war on terrorism and a "swing" state in the ideological conflict between democracy and dictatorship, and between Islamic and secular rule. How did this poor country come to occupy such a position in little more than half a century of existence? What are the historical precedents for its present course? And what can we learn from its past that can help us evaluate the prospects for its future?
🔸 Pakistan's Foreign Policy Contemporary Developments and Dynamics :
This book analyses Pakistan's foreign policy and external relations with a focus on contemporary developments, including the impact of the new government of Prime Minister Imran Khan, the powerful military, and the "middle power" status.