Public policy is the principal instrument through which states seek to shape social, economic, and political outcomes. Through policy, governments establish priorities, allocate resources, regulate social relations, and define the relationship between citizens and the state. Yet policy-making remains one of the least understood aspects of governance in Pakistan. Fundamental questions continue to persist. Is there a coherent policy-making process in Pakistan? Who actually makes policy: individuals, institutions, political leaders, bureaucracies, military establishments, or increasingly non-state actors? Are policies grounded in evidence, theory, and social realities, or are they shaped by intuition, ideology, institutional interests, and political expediency? These questions acquire greater significance when examined through the lens of modern social science.
The Relationship Between Social Science and Public Policy
Modern social sciences emerged from attempts to understand the profound transformations unleashed by industrialisation, capitalism, nationalism, urbanisation, and democratisation. Sociology, economics, political science, anthropology, psychology, history, and linguistics developed as different pathways to explain a common subject: human behaviour and social organisation. As George Homans observed, despite disciplinary divisions, they employ many of the same principles in seeking to explain how societies function (The Nature of Social Science, 1967).
The relationship between social science and public policy has, however, always been characterised by tension. Social science seeks explanation, while public policy seeks action or solution. Social scientists often aspire to objectivity and value neutrality; policy makers operate in environments shaped by power, competing interests, and normative judgments. This tension was particularly pronounced in the American intellectual tradition, where, as Lisa Anderson has argued, the pursuit of scientific objectivity encouraged social scientists to separate the search for truth from the exercise of power. The result was an intellectual culture in which social science increasingly claimed neutrality while policy making became the domain of practitioners and political actors (Lisa Anderson, Pursuing Truth, Exercising Power: Social Science and Public Policy in the Twenty-First Century, 2005).
Yet this separation is ultimately artificial. Public policy is not possible without assumptions about how society works. Every educational reform reflects assumptions about learning and social mobility. Every tax policy rests upon assumptions about incentives. Every population policy embodies assumptions about culture, family, and behaviour. In this sense, public policy is inevitably rooted in social-scientific reasoning.
Evolution of Policy-Making in Pakistan
Pakistan inherited a colonial state apparatus designed primarily for administrative control rather than democratic governance. The colonial Indian Civil Service (ICS) occupied a unique position as both policy maker and implementer. It enjoyed considerable autonomy and was not conceived as subordinate to representative political institutions. While post-independence India gradually established clearer distinctions between political leadership and bureaucratic administration, Pakistan followed a different trajectory. In Pakistan, the separation between policy formulation and implementation remained fuzzy. Bureaucratic institutions emerged not merely as executors of policy but as principal participants in defining national priorities. Consequently, policymaking became concentrated within a narrow bureaucratic and political elite. Universities, social scientists, and research institutions remained largely peripheral to this process.
The formative decades of Pakistan were therefore characterised by what may be described as the bureaucratic state (in the eyes of many, it persists). Policy making relied heavily upon bureaucratic judgment or discretion, economic planning, and centralised decision making. Social science received limited state patronage, and universities developed largely outside the policy process. The state viewed academic institutions not as partners in governance but as adversarial and occasionally hostile spaces.
During the 1950s and 1960s, Pakistan achieved notable rates of economic growth, while the military governed and the bureaucracy managed the political order. Yet beneath these achievements, social and political discontent accumulated. The doctrine of "functional inequality," associated with the development strategies of the Ayub era, prioritised growth over distribution. Economic indicators suggested success, but social discontent increasingly challenged official narratives.
The years between the 1965 and 1971 wars exposed the widening gap between state policy and social reality. Political mobilisation, student protests, labour unrest, and regional grievances revealed social transformations that policy makers had failed to anticipate. The breakup of Pakistan in 1971 represented not merely a military or political crisis but also a profound failure of policy understanding. The state lacked the intellectual and institutional mechanisms necessary to comprehend emerging social realities.
The post-1971 period generated renewed interest in questions of citizenship, welfare, and social justice. Under Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, public policy acquired a more explicitly pro-people reformist orientation. Nationalisation, constitutional reform, and pro-poor rhetoric reflected attempts to redefine the relationship between state and society. Yet policy ambitions exceeded institutional capacity. While policy goals changed dramatically, the institutions responsible for policy design and implementation remained largely unchanged. Nor was academia sufficiently trained, equipped, or engaged to comprehend the emerging policy changes. The result was a mismatch between aspiration and execution. Symbolic policy transformation occurred, but sustainable institutional reform remained elusive.
The military intervention of 1977 marked another decisive turning point. The Zia-ul-Haq era coincided with major regional and international developments, including the Iranian Revolution and the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan. These developments profoundly altered Pakistan's political, social, and intellectual environment, and their lingering effects continue to simmer. During this period, "Islamic ideology" increasingly displaced empirical inquiry as a basis for policy formulation. Religious identity became central to public discourse and policy debates. Questions that required systematic social research were frequently interpreted through ideological frameworks. Education, population policy, culture, and aspects of foreign policy increasingly reflected ideological commitments rather than empirical analysis. The consequences for social science were significant. Universities faced intellectual constraints, critical inquiry further deteriorated, and the gap between policy and evidence widened further.
The decades following 1990 introduced a different set of challenges. Globalisation, market liberalisation, technological change, and the growing influence of international financial institutions (IMF, World Bank, Asian Development Bank) transformed policy-making across the developing world. Simultaneously, developments within social science itself encouraged renewed attention to institutions and governance. The work of Nobel laureate Douglass North played a particularly influential role in this shift. By emphasising institutions, incentives, governance, and historical context, North challenged narrow economic explanations and encouraged interdisciplinary approaches to development. His work helped redirect attention toward the quality of institutions as a central determinant of economic and political outcomes (Douglas North, Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance, 1990).
Current Challenges and Structural Constraints
Despite significant growth in higher education, Pakistan has yet to develop a robust ecosystem connecting research, policy analysis, and governance. The persistence of weak evidence-based policy-making in Pakistan cannot be explained by the absence of talent or intellectual capacity. It reflects deeper structural constraints.
First, the relationship between universities and the state remains underdeveloped. Research findings rarely influence policy decisions in systematic ways. Government agencies often operate independently of academic expertise, while universities frequently remain disconnected from practical policy challenges.
Second, the preponderance of the generalist administrative model continues to constrain specialised knowledge. Complex policy issues increasingly require expertise in economics, sociology, public health, technology, climate change, and urban planning. Yet institutional structures continue to privilege bureaucratic knowledge and experience over substantive specialisation. Experts and specialists are discouraged, marginalised, or given limited access to how the government works.
Third, ideological and political polarisation often undermines evidence-based debate. Policy discussions frequently become contests between competing narratives rather than examinations of empirical evidence.
Fourth, donor-driven research has generated both opportunities and distortions. While external funding has supported important research initiatives, it has also encouraged dependence on external agendas and priorities. Indigenous ownership for local government, gender, human rights, minorities, and vulnerable groups has yet to evolve.
Finally, Pakistan suffers from chronic weaknesses in data collection and policy evaluation. Reliable evidence remains uneven, administrative records are often fragmented, and systematic evaluation of policy outcomes is relatively rare. The recently released Pakistan Economic Survey 2025-26 is a good example of these shortcomings. The result is a policy environment where decisions are frequently made without adequate evidence, institutional learning remains limited, and reforms are repeatedly recycled without rigorous assessment.
Forging New Partnerships for a Better Future
The relationship among social science, public policy, and the state remains one of the central challenges confronting Pakistan. The country's experience since independence demonstrates that neither bureaucracy, ideology, markets, nor donor interventions can substitute for strong institutions that connect knowledge with governance.
A more effective policy regime requires rebuilding this relationship. Universities must become active participants in national policy debates. Civil service reform must encourage specialisation and interdisciplinary expertise. Provincial and local governments must be strengthened as sites of policy innovation. Reliable data systems and transparent evaluation mechanisms must become integral components of governance. Most importantly, political parties must increasingly compete through policy ideas rather than personalities and patronage networks.
The critical challenge is not simply administrative reform but intellectual transformation. Pakistan requires a policy culture in which evidence matters, institutions learn, and public debate is informed by rigorous social inquiry. Such a transformation will not eliminate political conflict or policy disagreement. It will, however, improve the capacity of the state to understand society and respond to its needs. The future of governance in Pakistan depends upon forging a stronger partnership among social science, public policy, bureaucracy, military, and parliamentary institutions. Without such a partnership, policy-making will continue to oscillate between crisis management and political expediency. With it, the state may gradually acquire the capacity to pursue both economic development and social justice more coherently and sustainably.
