The International Monetary Fund (IMF) recently described Pakistan’s system of governance as afflicted by “persistent and widespread corruption . . . in a heavily state-dominated economy that operates with complex regulatory environments . . . and constrained rule of law.” In turn, the development model operative in such a system of governance structurally insulates economic decision-making from those most affected by its results. This phenomenon is part of a broader global trend, documented by scholars of contemporary political economy, of “authoritarian-capitalist” regimes pursuing development and investment strategies that prioritize regime stability and investor confidence over inclusive, participatory, and equitable processes and outcomes.

International research and human rights bodies have warned that these exclusionary models do not operate in isolation. By narrowing civic space and suppressing dissent, such governance models nurture conditions in which serious human rights violations become more likely and, covered by formal legality, more difficult to redress. Pakistan’s experience illustrates how these dynamics unfold in practice. Although it has formally endorsed the Draft Covenant on the Right to Development, which requires public participation and equitable distribution, domestic development governance privileges inaccessibility and elite coordination.

Elites take control

Persistent authoritarian governance has marked Pakistan’s history since independence in 1947. Until 2008, the military exercised direct rule for extended periods, and it continues to maintain decisive influence over civilian governments. In recent decades, military influence has become increasingly institutionalized and its controls over policymaking, security affairs, economic governance, and the election process entrenched.

Power over development governance in Pakistan is narrowly concentrated among military-backed corporate elites, large landowners, and politically connected actors who dominate lawmaking and policy design. A 2021 United Nations Development Programme report documents how development policies systematically endow these groups with preferential access to land, capital, and protected markets. The military reinforces this structure through its dual role as both a governing authority and a major economic actor extensively involved in development projects through its corporate entities. The formation of the Special Investment Facilitation Council (SIFC), a centralized institution with strong military involvement, further consolidates this arrangement by institutionalizing elite control over investment policy and centralizing authority over development.

Rethinking development through the right to development framework

The Right to Development (RtD) fundamentally challenges the understanding of development as just economic growth. Under the RtD framework, development is a comprehensive process encompassing economic, social, cultural, and political progress and its results are inseparable from the manner in which that progress is achieved. Development is not something delivered to people; it is something realized with them.

This framework mandates both the free, active, and meaningful participation of rights holders in shaping development policies and projects and the fair distribution of their benefits. Rights holders here include individuals, peoples, and groups whose lives, resources, and futures are impacted by development processes. And participation is closely tied to the principle of self-determination: Without participation and equitable distribution, development, however lawful and profitable, cannot be rights-based. While Pakistan has endorsed the right to development on the global stage, it has failed to realize its participatory requirements at home.

When participation is blocked: institutional barriers and policy design

Participation in development governance in Pakistan is not merely underdeveloped but also structurally constrained. While formal constitutional reforms have promised decentralization and inclusion, the administrative and legal systems responsible for development decisions continue to marginalize public participation. These constraints are rooted in a legal and bureaucratic architecture inherited from colonial rule and designed for administrative control rather than democratic inclusion. Authority has historically flowed from the center outward, systematically marginalizing local participation. Rather than dismantling this structure, past decentralization efforts have in fact entrenched centralized control and failed to establish durable and participatory institutions at the provincial and local levels.

Restrictions on access to information, a core precondition for active participation under the Right to Development, reinforce this structural exclusion. Those leading Pakistan’s governance framework routinely frame their development decisions as matters of national security, rendering public scrutiny exceptional rather than the norm. While institutions such as the SIFC are presented as mechanisms to facilitate efficient investment, they operate without corresponding obligations to inform or consult affected communities. Although Pakistan’s right to information laws formally guarantee access to official records, expansive exemptions enable authorities to withhold lawfully development-related information, making participation not merely difficult but structurally impossible.

Unequal distribution: who gets what and why

The structurally determined outcome of Pakistan’s established development processes is unequal distribution. While the Constitution allocates natural resources and fiscal authority to federal and provincial institutions, residents of resource-rich regions remain largely excluded from decisions over extraction, revenue allocation, and development priorities. Fiscal mechanisms such as the National Finance Commission Award prioritize intergovernmental bargaining and population share, leaving broader questions of equity, contribution, and local consent unaddressed.

This disconnect is most visible in regions that are rich in land, minerals, and energy but are politically underrepresented and administratively marginalized. Weak or absent local governments leave communities without institutional avenues to exercise self-determination or to challenge legal regimes governing land and resources that facilitate extraction without meaningful consent. As a result, development proceeds without participation, benefits flow outward, and inequalities are entrenched. Such arrangements may comply with formal legal procedures, but they hollow out the principle of self-determination and facilitate development that is extractive rather than equitable and thus structurally incompatible with the RtD.

Conclusion

In many developing autocracies, the RtD has been miscast as an entitlement to growth and international assistance, while its participatory core is neglected. Pakistan illustrates this disjunction vividly. Although the state endorses self-determination and the RtD internationally, at home it organizes development through institutions that exclude the very people in whose name it is purportedly pursued. The result is not development as a human right but rather development as a process of elite consolidation. Reclaiming the RtD requires external actors, including investors and states, to demand the establishment of inclusive legal and institutional frameworks. But it also depends on internal transformation through participatory and accountable governance.