Winning ‘friends’ and ‘influencing’ people: democratic consolidation and authoritarianism in Punjab

This paper examines how, since the country's transition to democracy in 2008, Pakistan's ruling parties have used the apparatuses of the state to try and build autocratic systems of single-party rule. Focusing on the 2008-2018 PML-N government in Punjab, the paper examines how the party used its control of the bureaucracy and police to influence electoral outcomes in 2013. The paper also analyzes the findings of the official Judicial Commission investigating rigging in 2013 to argue that bureaucratic inefficiency and the opacity of formal electoral procedures introduced uncertainty into the electoral process that potentially created the space for systematic fraud.