Madiha Afzal
David M. Rubenstein Fellow - Foreign Policy, Center for Security, Strategy, and Technology, Center for Middle East Policy
Madiha Afzal is a David M. Rubenstein Fellow in the Foreign Policy program. Her research lies at the intersection of political economy, development, and security, with a focus on Pakistan. She previously worked as an assistant professor of public policy at the University of Maryland, College Park.
Afzal is the author of “Pakistan Under Siege: Extremism, Society, and the State,” published by the Brookings Institution Press in 2018 (the book was also published in South Asia and Afghanistan by Penguin India). Afzal has also published several journal articles, book chapters, policy reports, and essays. In addition, she writes for publications including Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, the Washington Post, Dawn, and Newsweek. She is regularly interviewed by media outlets including BBC, NPR, and PBS. In addition, she has consulted for international organizations including the World Bank and UK’s Department for International Development. For her writing on education in Pakistan, she was named to Lo Spazio della Politica's list of “Top 100 Global Thinkers of 2013.” Afzal received her doctorate in economics from Yale University in 2008, specializing in development economics and political economy.
Affiliations:
Center for Economic Research in Pakistan (CERP), fellow
Institute for Economic and Development Alternatives, Pakistan (IDEAS), fellow
Madiha Afzal is a David M. Rubenstein Fellow in the Foreign Policy program. Her research lies at the intersection of political economy, development, and security, with a focus on Pakistan. She previously worked as an assistant professor of public policy at the University of Maryland, College Park.
Afzal is the author of “Pakistan Under Siege: Extremism, Society, and the State,” published by the Brookings Institution Press in 2018 (the book was also published in South Asia and Afghanistan by Penguin India). Afzal has also published several journal articles, book chapters, policy reports, and essays. In addition, she writes for publications including Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, the Washington Post, Dawn, and Newsweek. She is regularly interviewed by media outlets including BBC, NPR, and PBS. In addition, she has consulted for international organizations including the World Bank and UK’s Department for International Development. For her writing on education in Pakistan, she was named to Lo Spazio della Politica’s list of “Top 100 Global Thinkers of 2013.” Afzal received her doctorate in economics from Yale University in 2008, specializing in development economics and political economy.
Affiliations:
Center for Economic Research in Pakistan (CERP), fellow
Institute for Economic and Development Alternatives, Pakistan (IDEAS), fellow
Pakistan Under Siege
The book details the rise of religious extremism and explains how the state has been both complicit in extremist violence and victimized by it. . . . Afzal’s book offers a useful survey of the many pressures—cultural, religious, economic—that add to social and political instability in Pakistan.
—Mohammed Hanif, Foreign Affairs
Pakistan Under Siege: Extremism, Society, and the State.. is a remarkably clear, concise, and accessible attempt to dismantle assumptions common among Westerners about public opinion in Pakistan. . . Afzal not only gives the lie to Western stereotypes about the prevalence of extremist beliefs in Muslim countries; she also looks closely and critically at the ways in which the Pakistani government has encouraged the country’s militarization and what she refers to as its "Islamization."
—Ahmed Rashid, The New York Review of Books
The military partnership with Pakistan is important to Saudi Arabia... [Given the close ties, Pakistan Foreign Minister Qureshi's initial remarks were] very out of character for Pakistan... [The threat to convene a meeting bypassing the OIC] would directly undermine Saudi Arabia's posture, and position, of leadership in the Muslim world... I think that [FO] statement, more than anything, suggests that Pakistan will not take the actions [the foreign minister] hinted at in his remarks and it suggests that the Saudi reaction - including on the [Pakistani army chief's] trip - has led Pakistan to delicately walk back Qureshi's comments. [The walk-back indicated Pakistan] does not have the option of [turning away from Saudi Arabia] in any significant way... Pakistan's expectations from the OIC and Saudi Arabia on Kashmir have now been tempered, and realism has set in on that front for Islamabad. This ties Pakistan's hands a bit on the issue of Kashmir's autonomy. As long as Pakistan doesn't push Saudi Arabia where it doesn't want to be pushed [on Kashmir], the two countries can get past the spat.
The Pakistani state does not have the ability to be authoritarian in terms of religion. It is the Islamic republic, but it is not a theocracy. It's a democracy with a very [...] complicated relationship with religion.
The clerics see people not going into the mosques physically as a manifestation of weakened power. [Their defiance of government orders was saying] look, our domain of control is the mosque and you cannot take this domain of control away from us.