Madiha Afzal
Fellow - Foreign Policy, Center for Middle East Policy, Center for Security, Strategy, and Technology
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
While some argued that the Taliban's victory in Afghanistan would be a victory for Pakistan, it was not going to be an uncomplicated victory. We're seeing that playing out. It was obvious when the Doha deal was signed, nearly two years ago now, that this would embolden all stripes of Islamists/extremists in Pakistan.
[The emergence of state-backed armed groups and the Taliban's influence] are dangerous developments, and portend a return to the way things were a decade ago in that area. Foot soldiers from the ‘surrendered’ Taliban can easily cross back over to the [Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan] TTP – or facilitate them, provide them logistical support and assistance. [On whether the Afghan Taliban would act in any concrete way against the TTP], I don’t see it happening, The Taliban care greatly about maintaining unity in their ranks – action against the TTP would undermine that and threaten to send defectors over to Islamic State-Khorasan (ISIL’s affiliate in the region), something the Taliban really don’t want. That motivation trumps any desire to appease Pakistan.
[Pakistan's blasphemy laws] have become fully internalised by and ingrained in the population; that is the sentiment that the TLP [Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan party] uses to draw support.
Once the Pakistani military decided to take action against [extremist group Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, TTP], it was able to, to a great degree, at least drive it out of the tribal areas.
[Over the next few years the number of attacks fell, but the TTP was not gone. Its foot soldiers and commanders had melted away or slipped across the notoriously porous border.] Many of them, turns out, were in prison in Afghanistan.
Since the TLP’s inception, the Pakistani state has dithered in front of the group and has appeased it, never countering it ideologically. Given that blasphemy is such a hot-button issue and is instituted in Pakistan’s laws, the state seems to be fearful of taking on the TLP. And the TLP understands this and the fact that it has street power, and uses it ruthlessly to its advantage to gain ground each time it protests.
The Pakistani state defeated the group militarily in 2015, and while the TTP [Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan] has been resurgent in recent months, the Pakistani army clearly has the ability to tackle them again. The terms of negotiations would have the terrorists granted amnesty in exchange for laying down arms. This means they will not be held accountable for killing tens of thousands of Pakistanis and for terrorizing a nation for the better part of a decade. It would also set a terrible precedent for other militant and terrorist groups in the country, as well as would-be terrorists.
In some ways, the takeover of the Taliban makes it even more vulnerable to defections away from it to ISIS-K. [She also noted that over-the-horizon counterterrorism operations can only do so much saying,] killing a target doesn’t do anything to the ideology of the group. It doesn’t target extremism.
[Pakistan's alarm over the bill] falls into a long narrative in Pakistan of its relationship with America, where it feels that the U.S. uses it when it needs to, only to abandon it or turn against it in the aftermath.
[The Pakistan civilian government and the military] seem to be working very well together, essentially as one unit, in this government.