The Governance Game: Contradictory Discourses of Power, Politics, and Change in Pakistan

This study is an ethnographic exploration of the Pakistani state as it implemented a number of reforms aimed at achieving conditions of good-governance and development. Based on fieldwork conducted from January to December 2006 in Islamabad city and district Kohat of the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) my research explored the field of political contention that I term the governance game in Pakistan. Through this exploration I map, track, and trace how imaginings of the state are manifested into concreteness of effects and spatializations through multiple performances of various stakeholders in the governance game.;One aspect of the reforms that my study focused on was the devolution of power to the grassroots. This grassroots centric reform got implemented through the local government initiative in all the districts of Pakistan. As I followed this trajectory from the state capital of Islamabad to district Kohat I encountered a number of organizations, individuals, and collectives that were actively participating in the governance game.;In my field encounters I explored how and under what conditions various stakeholders in the governance game engage with each other. What logics of participation are reflected in these engagements? How does the citizen, imagined as the grassroots, experience these reform based interventions of the state? Through these encounters this study aims to understand the political nature of the Pakistani state and its citizens.