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10 - Pakistan

Transnational Repression under Military Tutelage

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  aN Invalid Date NaN

Klaus Brummer
Affiliation:
Catholic University of Eichstatt-Ingolstadt
Šumit Ganguly
Affiliation:
Stanford University, California
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Summary

This chapter examines the Pakistani state’s use of transnational repression against dissidents, journalists, activists, and other critics abroad. It shows how the country’s powerful military, mainly operating through its intelligence arm, the ISI, surveils, intimidates and coerces exiles and other members of the diaspora when they are perceived as ‘national security’ threats. It makes three main claims. First, it argues that decisions of transnational repression are driven by the military leadership’s cost-benefit calculations. Second, transnational repression is typically designed to intimidate or silence those who are able to escape ongoing domestic campaigns of repression, as well as outspoken members of ethnic minorities who expose state violations of human rights. Third, it contends that the Pakistani state has both the capacity to extend its repressive tactics abroad, and the ability to calibrate its use of legal and extra-legal methods depending on host country characteristics, including regime type and the likelihood of cooperation offered by host states. Finally it examines the international implications of the country’s transitional repression.

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