Global literature on democracy likes to visualise democratisation as successive waves that swept away militaristic regimes and authoritarian one-party dictatorships especially since 1970s. The euphoria on the triumph of democracy reached a climax in the famous end-of-history thesis.
In essence it meant that the world had evolved to a point where neo-liberal economics and electoral determination of popular will had emerged as the pillars of future governance which the nations of the world must emulate regardless of historical and cultural diversity.
More recently, this boundless faith in this political and economic engineering has been tampered with greater realism. Since it was attempted with bloody invasions as in Iraq and Afghanistan the democracy project lost its moral appeal and threatened states such as Syria and Iran fell back upon consolidation of existing institutions even it meant a willing abridgement of civil liberties.
The Iraq war helped Iranian conservatives to reassert themselves vis-a-vis the so-called reformers. As ambassador to Boris Yeltsin's post-communist Russia I came across much heady stuff on Western-style democracy only to see within a couple of years a creeping disquiet that Western multinationals were using it as a camouflage for an aggressive control of the vast natural resources of what was still a rich country.
The result was a popular reaction that Vladimir Putin harnessed politically to curtail Western influence. No wonder it now invites carping criticism that democracy is on the wane in the Russian Federation.
A well-researched article in the latest issue of Foreign Affairs calls the present trends as a "democratic roll back" that is producing a resurgence of the predatory state. Examples of backsliding include Russia, Nigeria, Thailand, Venezuela, Bangladesh and the Philippines. Rather surprisingly, the article does not devote much space to the curtailment of civil rights in the Western countries because of the war against terrorism.
More to the point for this piece, the essay does not go beyond a perfunctory reference to Pakistan where a dramatic increase in American influence since the invasion of Afghanistan has consistently worked against democratic forces.
Even in its chequered history, Pakistan has never known such grave violations of the Constitution and time-honoured legal processes as during this period. An extraordinary convergence of interests between President General (retired) Pervez Musharraf and the United States gave short shrift to the democratic aspirations of the people.
Musharraf convinced Washington that he alone - and not his nation - was supporting the new Afghan war. On its part, Washington forgot all about people and human rights as it found it convenient to see Pakistan's policy concentrated in one decisive pair of hands.
Pakistan has just witnessed the first material manifestations of the transformation of the political landscape on that fateful day. The coalition of forces that acted as opposition during Musharraf's eight-year long absolute rule first elected a woman parliamentarian as the Speaker of the new National assembly and then went on to elect Syed Yousuf Raza Gillani as prime minister. It was a stunning vindication for Gillani who had suffered a long period of incarceration during Musharraf's military rule.
Different
Pakistan has not undergone anything like a colour revolution of the type seen in Ukraine and Georgia. But the people have used the typical weapon of secret ballot to create dramatic new realities. Once again, domestic anxieties are very different from the concerns of the international community.
Just when Pakistan needs to focus hard on a strategy of survival and recovery the national debate is overshadowed by the extended visit of American diplomats John Negroponte and Richard Boucher that began on the day the National Assembly elected the new prime minister.
Their insistence on arriving now has led to adverse speculation about their mission. They are being widely accused of trying to perpetuate Musharraf's power, influencing government formation, preventing an overdue review of Pakistan's participation in the war on terror and dissuading the new leadership from initiating even exploratory talks with the extremists battling the Pakistan army.
Resentment at this alleged manipulation by an outside power does not make things easier for the ruling coalition.
Building democratic institutions in the Arab-Islamic world is inhibited not just by intrinsic social and cultural factors that Western theorists of democracy never tire of repeating but also by external constraints imposed because of the assessment that democracy in Muslim states would impede the Western project for the 21st century.
Pakistan has become an interesting case study in the annals of democratisation in Muslim lands. It is instructive to follow it.
Tanvir Ahmad Khan is a former ambassador and foreign secretary of Pakistan.
