AMERICA’S progress since 1945 has undoubtedly been exceptional. However, American ‘exceptionalism’ is the dubious right-wing idea that the forces of history and international rules do not apply to America and it can do and achieve whatever it wants.

Its recent economic decline and the consequences of its disregard of international rules in Iraq have undermined belief in American exceptionalism.

Pakistan’s accomplishments are miniscule in comparison. On most global rankings, it languishes low due to bad leadership despite the undoubted talent of its citizens. Even so, the idea of Pakistani exceptionalism is espoused by many conservatives. The idea takes two interlinked forms: political and ideological.

Politically, Pakistani exceptionalism is the idea that Pakistan should prioritise security objectives over economic development, and pursue these aims by supporting militants even though this is against global norms.

The justification for this argument put forward by conservatives, is based on Pakistan’s supposedly exceptional situation where it faces existential territorial disputes and threats, and is sandwiched between Afghanistan and India.

However, neither situation is exceptional. India is sandwiched between Pakistan and China, which itself is sandwiched between Russia and India and is encircled by American forces and allies. China’s claims on Taiwan are as deep-seated as Pakistan’s on Kashmir. Globally, there are 100-plus bilateral land disputes.

Yet, few countries sacrifice economic development at the altar of security as lopsidedly as Pakistan. Nor have many nurtured militant groups as avidly as Pakistan.

Admittedly, Pakistan is not alone in pursuing such strategies. Rwanda stands accused of supporting militants in Eastern Congo. But the question is whether Pakistan prefers the company of Rwanda or China?

To be fair, American leaders generally stop short of accusing Pakistan of supporting such groups. The complaint usually is that Pakistan tolerates such groups on its soil. However, even toleration amounts to surrendering parts of a country’s foreign policy to private groups.

The ideological form of Pakistani exceptionalism is even more sweeping. It encompasses the aims advocated by the political version but argues that these security objectives cannot be achieved under a Western-style democratic state.

In fact, it argues that Pakistan cannot even achieve overall progress by focusing on secular economic and democratic development even though many developing, and even Muslim, countries have. Instead, Pakistan’s salvation lies in adopting religion as a public political project, even a Sharia-based caliphate, as the governance system.

If we are to go by surveys alone, an April 2013 British Council report showed Pakistanis preferring Sharia over dictatorship and democracy. But the validity of these findings was challenged by the lacklustre showing by religious parties in the May 2013 elections.

While the right-wing PML-N and Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf did well, both parties support democracy and the current Constitution. PTI lawmakers even argued in parliament for amending the blasphemy law. Sharia and caliphate fans argue that Islamic parties lose because people do not trust them or elections. The first contention may be true. The historically high 2013 elections turnout negates the second.

Furthermore, if support for a caliphate were really strong and people did not consider elections as the right avenue for pursuing it, would they not descend on Islamabad, Tahir-ul-Qadri-style, to demand one?

Ironically, groups like Qadri’s Pakistani Awami Tehreek and the Difa-i-Pakistan Council have mobilised tens of thousands of people for political causes like democratic good governance and drone attacks respectively but not for establishing a caliphate.

These trends suggest that genuine, actionable, support for such a system is still largely confined to a small but vocal section of the far right.

Though vocal, this section is hardly convincing. In debating with such people or going through their literature, one quickly recognises the paucity of their ideas, which fail to even grasp contemporary complexities let alone provide sensible strategies for resolving them.

Still, one sees increasing attempts by such groups in social and even mainstream media to market themselves as the third option beyond democracy and dictatorship.

The continuing poor performance of democratic governments provides them with an opportunity to attract people. This makes it important to challenge their vacuous ideas forcefully before they become popular among the masses.

The biggest challenge to such ideas is the fact that other countries adopting religious laws have hardly succeeded spectacularly. Iran, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Nigeria outpace Pakistan in applying religious laws.

But whatever variable progress each has made relies more on oil money than governance through religious laws. It could be argued that their failures lie in insincere leaders applying religious laws. However, this argument raises the critical question of how Pakistan will find sincere leaders today. Anyone showing some initial sincerity soon becomes controversial in Pakistan.

The foundations of ideological systems and their concrete institutions, policies and practices consist of their basic values. The success of such systems relies on people genuinely following these values.

The ideologically driven USSR collapsed since people never genuinely adopted its underlying values of group solidarity. Capitalism thrives because people practice its values regarding self-interest and materialism, even though in the long term such values are self-evidently problematic.

Even the original caliphate only lasted three decades despite the presence of towering leaders, given the shortcomings of many followers. There were uprisings, and three caliphs were killed — by Muslims.

It is naïve to think that today’s far more impatient populace will live content under imperfect caliphs.

Ideological systems work well with infallible populations. For today’s highly imperfect leaders and followers, the admittedly imperfect democratic system represents the least imperfect option with its checks and balances.

Pakistan’s hope of achieving exceptionalism (performance-wise) lies in following the unexceptional and well-trodden paths of sustainable development and democracy. n

The writer is a political economist at UC Berkeley.

murtazaniaz@yahoo.com