Madiha Afzal is a fellow in the Foreign Policy program at Brookings. She was previously the David M. Rubenstein Fellow in the Foreign Policy program. Her work focuses on the U.S.-Pakistan relationship, U.S. policy toward Afghanistan, Pakistan’s politics and policy, and extremism in South Asia and beyond. 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 fellow in the Foreign Policy program at Brookings. She was previously the David M. Rubenstein Fellow in the Foreign Policy program. Her work focuses on the U.S.-Pakistan relationship, U.S. policy toward Afghanistan, Pakistan’s politics and policy, and extremism in South Asia and beyond. 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
Many will find [military leaders' promises to adhere to a policy of non-interference] difficult to believe because ultimately, the reason that Khan lost power in April is that he had fallen out with the military. The outlook for Pakistan is political instability until the next election, whenever it is held.
[The economic and political turmoil in Pakistan has shifted attention away from the heavy rainfall and delayed the government’s response to the floods.] People weren’t focusing on [the rainfall] so things that should happen in a disaster, like getting the word out for people to evacuate from areas where there was going to be flooding, didn’t happen. [The economic problems are also likely to affect the government’s ability to shelter the displaced and rebuild what was destroyed.]
Pakistan has faced a series of crises this year: economic, political, now, a natural disaster. Running underneath all of this has been the political crisis. As Balochistan was being flooded — scenes and videos were rolling in from Balochistan — the government was basically concerned entirely with politics, and Khan was concerned entirely with politics. The blame in many ways falls on the state for not taking charge of, for instance, its National Disaster Management Authority, not jumping into action right away.
[Pakistan has seen showdowns between civilian leaders and the military before, but nothing like this.] I think we're in an unprecedented moment in terms of the kind of confrontation, the kind of potential turmoil it could generate. That is what we're watching for in the next few weeks.
[The crackdown between the government and Mr. Khan appears to have heightened Mr. Khan’s popularity, bolstering his claims that the military establishment conspired to topple his government in April.] What differentiates this moment from previous moments is the amount of sheer street power Khan has. And street power makes a difference in Pakistan even when it does not translate into electoral votes.
[Khan's support from the masses across the country gives him an edge.] What Khan has at the moment that some of his predecessors did not have when they faced a crackdown is the ability to turn out street power. The increasing crackdown and now censoring of Khan's speeches is likely to backfire for the government — and plays directly into Khan's narrative of victimhood by the state. [Furthermore,] Khan's party has said his potential arrest will be a 'red line.' If it happens, the immediate consequences are likely to be a potentially dangerous confrontation between Khan's supporters and the state. I think the party will rally behind Khan, not find a different leader.
For the past year, you've seen that perhaps no leverage that the US and the West thought it had — aid, sanctions, the freezing of Afghanistan's reserves — has really had an effect on Taliban behavior. The Taliban has essentially done what they had always done. The Afghan people have been in a humanitarian crisis because the Taliban hasn't budged.