National Ideology vs National Integration

Like other post-colonial South Asian governments, Pakistan's progress toward democracy has been repeatedly thwarted and stalled because successive administrations have perpetuated the centralization of authority and the marginalization of various categories of citizens. Rather than responding to the urgent need to develop and promote common national interests, the ruling elite focused on its own crisis of legitimacy. Military leaders and administrators substituted religious rhetoric for efforts to accommodate plural identities and their diverse needs.