Manufacturing a ‘Muted Public Reaction’: Pakistani political discourse in the wake of 9/11

Abstract

This article argues that in the wake of 9/11, Pakistan engaged in two policy moves that were highly problematic and controversial from a domestic perspective: the alliance with the United States, and the simultaneous disengagement with the Taliban regime. While realist accounts largely posit these moves as a consequence of US diktat, this article is more interested in exploring how the actions were enabled by a domestic political narrative. Scholarly accounts in the post 9/11 era tend to marginalise the role of indigenous agency and ‘voice’, and overwhelmingly work within frameworks that emphasise the consequential effects of US hegemony. Conversely, in examining official Pakistani political discourses, the article argues that a number of identifiable rhetorical strategies played a performative role in enabling specific Pakistani policy outcomes in the wake of 9/11. In important ways, the analysis moves away from unproblematically assuming Pakistan as simply a passive recipient of American ‘empire’.