KARACHI: THE ADMINISTRATIVE BLACK HOLE OF PAKISTAN

Abstract

This paper attempts to analyze the worsening situation of law and order in the city of Karachi and asses its impact on civic life. Karachi happens to be the pulsating economic hub of Pakistan, with huge economic potential but due to the collapse of administration, it has become an economic melting pot, with horrible social and economic consequences for its inhabitants. The reasons for the collapse of administration are more political.  On the whole, turbulence in Karachi is part of the national enigma that Pakistan is suffering from. Currently, Karachi is bleeding as a result of the ethnification of politics and this, in return, has had a knock-on-effect on the administration, industry, custom and values of the society. The city has been divided in ethnic zones with spiraling violence, killing, kidnapping for ransom and extortion and gunny-dead bodies being dumped by criminals to scare and frighten people. If rulers want to fully utilize the economic potential of the city, then they have to focus on building institutions, separating politics form administration and improving governance to manage the demographic transition of the city and socio-economic transformation being brought about by the winds of globalization. For the analysis of Karachi as an administrative hole of Pakistan, this paper uses the conceptual model developed by two Harvard Professors Daren Acemoglu and James Robinson (2012) in their book “Why Nations Fail’. In the Book, they argue that if politics and political institutions are all-inclusive, then inclusive economic institutions are created and as such they propel societies into the virtuous spiral where cities are developed and people get opportunities to fully utilize their potential for the socioeconomic development. This Paper applies qualitative methodology by applying on secondary sources of data to analyze how institutional collapse and misuse of political power for personal gains have contributed to the deterioration of socioeconomic condition in the largest city of Pakistan – Karachi.