The Open City: Social Networks and Violence in Karachi [pdf], The London School of Economics // Crisis States Research Centre, March 2010
EXCERPT: "The very features of Pakistani society that are represented so prominently in Karachi - ethnic and sectarian heterogeneity, political fragmentation, economic disparity, demographic pressures, steady erosion of the state's institutional capacity and the footprint of international conflict - are the ones that challenge the stability of the nation state. From being the national political pulse, the city withdrew into its own violent politics in the 1980s - development that paralleled a wider process of political disarticulation in Pakistan. This paper provides a perspective on institutional breakdown, using political violence as an index. The analysis of conflict and violence in Karachi presented here focuses on the processes that made Karachi an open city - openness to migration and informality. The informalisation of public provisioning, which was often aided and abetted by state organisations, was premised on the legitimisation of private non-state arrangements for contract enforcement, and the strengthening of social networks based on kinship, ethnicity and sectarian identity. Qualitative accounts of the histories of land use in six very different types of localities are interpreted using this approach, which offers an understanding of breakdown as well as recovery and the prospect of political negotiation."
Read the full paper [pdf].
Related articles:
200 lives lost to targeted killings in over one year, DAWN, 8 February 2010
Mix of politics and crime, DAWN, 17 January 2010
Related academic articles and reports:
Urban safety and poverty in Asia and the Pacific [pdf], United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific and United Nations Human Settlements Programme, 2009
Tactical cities: Negotiating violence in Karachi, Pakistan, Massachusetts Institute of Technology // Department of Comparative Media Studies, 2008. Master's thesis.
Cities, terrorism and urban wars of 21st century [pdf], The London School of Economics // Crisis States Research Centre, February 2007
Related posts:
Karachi grinds to a halt amidst fatal attacks, political turmoil, 8 February 2010
Karachi bomb blasts kill Shiite worshipers, 5 February 2010
Targeted killings, ethnic violence plague Karachi, 25 January 2010
Karachi seen as key to Pakistan's future, 22 January 2010
Anti-terrorism act invoked after 256 target killings, 5 January 2010
