CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2018
| Author | Hassan, Muhammad Ahmad |
|---|---|
| Title | Protesting on the Streets while in Parliament? Exploring Extra-Parliamentary Activity of a Within-System Political Party in Pakistan |
| Summary | The extra-parliamentary activity of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) presents the paradox of a within-system political party that has a substantial stake in the system engaging in disruptive protests that endanger that very system. This M.A thesis attempts to answer this paradox and generate hypotheses for this phenomenon for the broader population of cases through a qualitative case study of the PTI. This M.A thesis also attempts to bridge the gap between literature on political parties and social movements by showing the utility of borrowing certain concepts from social movement literature in explaining the disruptive character of political parties. Building on Katz and Mair’s (1993) three faces of political parties, this M.A thesis theorises a new face of the party, party on the street, to explain the protest character of the PTI and the costs associated with it. Through an examination of the political structure of Pakistan, this M.A thesis reveals an incentive structure for opposition parties to engage in extra-parliamentary activity. By comparing the PTI with the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) in opposition, political learning by the PPP and party agency in shunning extra-parliamentary activity from 2013 onwards is illustrated. This comparison generates two hypotheses towards the end: 1) where structural incentives exist for engaging in extra-parliamentary activity for opposition parties, past central government experience acts as an intervening variable and moderates party behaviour and 2) volatility of political allegiances and reliance of party leadership on local political bosses increases the likelihood of extra-parliamentary activity by within-system opposition parties as it creates the incentive to create a crisis-like situation. |
| Supervisor | Bogaards, Matthijs |
| Department | Political Science MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2018/hassan_muhammad.pdf |
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