State and Civil Society in Pakistan analyses the enduring problems of governance as experienced in the predominantly Muslim polity of Pakistan in the context of an unequal relationship between the elitist state structure and weak civic institutions. The predicament is largely rooted in the unclear and mutually antagonistic relationship among the forces of authority, ideology and ethnicity.

Whereas manipulation of Islamic symbols by various regimes has exacerbated sectarianism, their own specific regionalist preferences (Muhajir and Punjabi earlier, and now with a visible Punjabi and Pushtun dispensation) have only politicized ethnicity. Volatile ethnic pluralism in Sindh and its criminalization in Karachi are the latest spectre of uneven politics in this country where successive governments have insisted on administrative rather than compact and consensus-based politico-economic measures.

Pakistan's difficulties with India help rationalize the continuity of an enormous defence establishment while significant areas like the judiciary, women's progress, education, health and press remain neglected, hampering the empowerment of civil society.