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In southern Punjab with no protocol – Javed Chaudhry

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Flight of the flamingos

ACCORDING to the ‘standard’ theory on state formation and development, usually the first step in the emergence of a nascent ‘state’ historically has been when a ruler, more often than not the thug-in-chief, has managed to impose some degree of centralised authority over a territory by employing scale economies of violence. The next step has been to impose and collect taxes (okay, we missed this one) and promote commerce. The next big step in the stylised evolution comes when the ruler wanted to borrow to protect the kingdom or go to war, and the elites demanded a share of power. Depending on factors such as the size of the ruling elite class, the broad routes that have been chosen next include historically: setting up an ‘extractive’ state that redistributes resources from the masses to the elites, or grow the economy and partially share the benefits (but not power). The first has been dubbed a redistributive state by Professor Tim Besley of LSE (quite opposite to the way the term i...
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