Hybrid federalism

In popular Arab literature, ‘Al Irhab wal Kabab’ (by Wahid Hamed) is considered quintessentially Kafkaesque – the protagonist Ahmed, a suppressed citizen running pillar to post for his child’s inter-provincial school transfer to Cairo.

The banality of bureaucratic response, red tape and layers of duplicity push him to take the secretariat hostage, and he is pronounced a terrorist. As the plot unfolds further, the bureaucracy-client relationship simultaneously reflects the intense power concentration and multi-level autonomy.

The devolution debate in Pakistan has regained momentum with critics contending that the government is onto undoing the landmark constitutional instrument – the 18th Amendment – that ensured provincial autonomy through parliamentary strengthening. The core of the reform included, inter alia, a transparent and autonomous federal-provincial relationship based on the concept of federalism as enshrined in the 1973 constitution.

Evidently, decentralization is vital to democratic governance. Potential benefits include quality public services, transparency, willingness to pay for services, and expected development at grassroots level. To nurture democratic governance, it is essential to not only strengthen the democratic culture at a sub-national level but also improve public management – principally for quality public service delivery, responsive public policies to local needs, provision of public goods, promotion of transparency and minimizing individual discretion.

In the context of sub-national democracy, it is vital to foster governance structures at provincial, district and sub-district spaces; decentralize to reduce power concentration; devolve central authority into sub-national levels and encourage constructive inter-governmental competitiveness; and create accountable institutions and public participation to make governance more efficient, transparent and responsive.

While it is only natural for any major national level reform to ensue teething challenges and bureaucratic resistance, revisiting the 18th Amendment decision at a decade mark seems just to propose any institutional and structural change as deemed practically necessary.

For over a decade, two parliamentary governments have skirted with the rules on administrative decentralization to de-concentrate, delegate and devolve decision-making and financial management to quasi-autonomous units within the provincial and local government structures. While political and financial decentralization go hand in glove, Pakistan has largely struggled with transferring power to democratically elected sub-national governments that are principally independent of the central government's influence.

In Pakistan, even though legislative instruments on local governments have been in place, they struggle with lack of adequate authority, capacity and financial resources to deliver their responsibilities. While most provinces have reserved seats for women, religious minorities, peasants/workers and youth, political patronage takes over democratic politics in these allocations.

Although the 18th Amendment was considered an achievement to strengthen the federation, provincial governments have hesitated to completely devolve power further to the third tier. More often, higher tier bureaucracy prefers traditionally existing top-down, patronage-based networks fused with parallel tiers of intermediaries at the provincial/municipal levels.

In a decade of fluctuating decision-making, we have witnessed multiple quagmires of unsettled institutional rifts that ping pong the center and provincial governments. For instance, matters of labour welfare have been devolved to provincial governments after the abolition of the Concurrent List under the 18th Amendment. While the provincial assembly of Sindh was the first to promulgate labour laws and restructure subsequent institutional frameworks, red flags on implementation issues continue.

Other provinces have followed suit by mere nomenclature change of the law. Given that the nature of the subject is inherently federal, most vulnerable in this regard are the smaller provinces – Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. With inter-provincial growth inequalities, deprivation and fewer local industries, the labour force of smaller provinces continues to suffer.

The devolution plan has also uncovered institutional incapacities, such as lack of a centralized information system and challenges of trans-provincial migratory workers. After a decade of ruckus, prolonged litigation and rulings of the Supreme Court, bigger provinces have tussled with the centre to devolve the Employees Old Age Benefits Institution (EOBI) and subsequent funds. The ambiguity continues to display sheer bureaucratic resistance and political polarization.

While miscarriage of devolution has continued for a decade in multiple other spheres, a mixed form of policymaking between the centre and provinces – whereby the former ensures minimum inter-provincial variations in quality of service delivery and governance – would allow shared decision-making roles that benefit citizens through institutional arrangements.

Hybrid federalism implies strong federal-based preemptive arrangements with opportunities for labour, employment or health service policies across the country. This essentially has three-fold characters. One, it establishes a unified inter-governmental default standard for all provinces. Two, it preserves diversity while allowing asymmetric policies and differential management to federating units. Three, it gives multi-sectoral space for horizontal and vertical information sharing.

While the core identity of democratic culture through a decentralist approach remains intact, hybrid federalism must not be confused with constitutional centralism. With key regional examples of hybrid form of federalism in China, the Philippines and Indonesia, Western wholesale federalism discourse in Pakistan needs to graduate out of idealistic paper tigers into practical manifestation of governance. The trial balloon of the devolution plan has run its test of time – now it is up to the incumbent government to reform and restructure the status quo ante of machine politics.

While Ahmed’s ordeal magnifies the everyday struggles of a common citizen, as he walks free after wrestling vague inaccuracies and is defeated by the infighting within the system, his school transfer case remains unaltered.

The writer is a development expert and leads the Parliamentary SDGs Secretariat, Islamabad.

Twitter: HassanHakeem87