Articulated Imperialism in Pakistan: a Dialectic of ‘Strategic’ and ‘Dependency’ Fixes

Abstract

The role of the internal political economic factors of the peripheral countries tends to remain largely muted in the analysis of imperialism. To redress this the paper put forwards an articulated conceptualization of imperialism in the context of the postcolonial state of Pakistan by underscoring the significance of domestic political economic factors in mediating and regulating an imperialist political settlement. Imperialist political settlement is mediated by a combination of two interrelated processes—strategic fix and dependency fix. ‘Strategic fix’ is about addressing actual or perceived political, economic and militaristic challenges --- encapsulating both territorial and capitalist logics of power --- to core countries of the capitalist world system. Whereas, the ‘dependency fix’ is about preventing a radical progressive restructuring in dominated countries (e.g., Pakistan) to ensure a favorable socio-economic order for the domestic elites. One of the key implications of envisioning imperialist domination as a dialectic of strategic and dependency fixes is that it makes visible the shared interests of Pakistani ruling elites and the imperialist forces of blocking progressive and emancipatory political and socio-economic transformation in Pakistan. Therefore, the paper argues that an effective counter-hegemonic project against imperialism needs to incorporate strategies of progressive radical transformation of a dominated country.