Women's legal rights, military regimes, and political legitimacy in Pakistan

This dissertation examines the determinants of women's rights under military regimes. It does so by comparing the policies pursued by two military regimes in Pakistan: the regimes of General Ayub Khan (1958--69) and of General Zia ul-Haq (1977--88). Existing studies indicate that women's rights differed markedly under these two regimes. Whereas the government of General Ayub improved women's legal rights, General Zia moved to restrict them under his Islamization policy. While documenting the different ideological positions adopted by the two military regimes on the issue of women's rights, these studies, however, fail to explain, why such different positions were taken. This dissertation fills this gap by examining the role of elites in directing a government's policies toward women. It argues that the disparity of women's rights between the two military regimes can be optimally explained in terms of inter-elite competition, which in turn was determined by the interplay of national and international political and economic factors.; The methodology employed draws from elite theory, which contends that regimes survive primarily when they meet the interest of elite groups. It also highlights the importance of the changing international context faced by military regimes in Pakistan during the two periods under study. The main finding of the research is that the dominant political party and Army officer corps that Ayub was accountable to in the 1950s favored secularism. This coincided with a close economic and military alliance with the US that reinforced Ayub's secular ideology and encouraged an expansion of women's rights. In contrast, the dominant political party coalition and Army officer corps that Zia was accountable to in the late 1970s favored Islamization. This coincided with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and a stronger economic relationship with Saudi Arabia that supported Zia's Islamization ideology and a more puritanical approach to women's rights.; The dissertation concludes that contrary to the literature on civil-military relations in Pakistan, military regimes were indeed accountable to domestic elites and responsive to international actors. Military regime accountability rather than independent political agendas, therefore, best explains women's rights policies in Pakistan.