The Significance of the Shift in Hegemonic Influence from U.K. to U.S.
According to Jalal, the “Polite British and American rivalry in South Asia” began in the early 1950s and was accompanied by the declining prestige of the U.K. in the Middle East and South Asia with the increasing influence of the Soviet Union.[244] According to Bhutto, initially Pakistan gave considerable importance to the Commonwealth, without considering the waning British influence in the world.
Upon realizing the change in the global power structure, it began to lean towards U.S. influence.[245] It was clear to Ayub that the situation had changed and the United Kingdom could no longer give military and economic cover to the members of the Commonwealth.[246] Soon, the military was replacing Sand hurst-trained generals with American-trained ones. This continued throughout the 1950s and 1960s under the auspices of the American Military Assistance Program (MAP).[247] Similarly, a substantial U.S. intellectual and financial investment was allocated to train the bureaucracy.[248]The transition from the U.K. to the U.S. tutelage was tricky and the tension could be seen in the connection of the upper brass of the civil and military bureaucracy. The first Commander-in-Chief of Pakistan was British General Gracy. When he was leaving, Liaqat Ali Khan decided to appoint a Pakistani General as Commander-in-Chief, but not the senior most one. General Iftikhar was backed by the British,[249] however, it was General Ayub Khan who was appointed the first Pakistani Commander-in-Chief on 16 January 1951. Ayesha Jalal notes the detail of this “subtle but significant British-American rivalry”. By early 1951, it was decided by American policy makers to bypass the British and directly contact the Pakistani establishment, for the defense of the Gulf.[250]
The transition away from under the influence of the U.K.
was also tricky in terms of legal and constitutional arrangements. Dr. S.M. Haider (1988) has elaborated on the process of assimilation of ‘modern’ U.S. legal norms in Pakistan. In the beginning, the judges relied on British court decisions, but they also relied upon U.S. precedents. After the 1956 constitution, the court decisions began to reflect the U.S. Supreme Court, regarding arbitrary use of administrative powers against fundamental rights. Another factor, which made this task easy, was the already present legal institutional arrangement of the British.[251] Braibanti found a shift from the U.K. to U.S. precedents due to the change to the presidential system and federalism,[252] as well as the written constitution and a chapter on Fundamental Rights. English courts do not have a written constitution and their fundamental rights were assured through Common Law and legislators. The quickly growing appreciation of U.S. tradition, with the help of academics, can be explained as part of an active modernization project and an understanding of the role of law in this project.[253] Thus, judicial approaches started tilting more toward the U.S. judicial system.[254] Thejudiciary at that point was led by Indian Civil Services judges, who were not only aware of the ongoing modernization project led by the civil bureaucracy, but were bringing interpretation to help the project and at the same time to reduce its excesses. The judiciary was the point of permeation of American norms of administrative techniques but also of its review and future reforms.[255] So until the end of the Cold War, the impact of American law was pronounced on the Pakistani legal system.[256] Ayesha Jalal explained, it as a presidential form of government based on the American pattern, the framers of the constitution had ingeniously superimposed it on a distorted version of the British’s parliamentary system. She explained how it veered but could not deviate from a U.K. or U.S. model.[257] In my view, Jalal correctly pointed out the form, but does not adequately account for the content of this move from the U.K. to the U.S. legal system. It is the objective of my analysis in this dissertation to demonstrate how it was that the law took on a central role in this transition, from modernization to the failing of the modernization project and a rising participatory popular democracy. I will briefly elaborate on the U.S. modernization school alluded to above. The political dimensions of the modernization project, according to Michael Adas, were felt in China, the Philippines, Caribbean and Latin America even before World War I. The focus was to create a middle class committed to both democracy and supportive of continuing ties with the United States.[258] There was a consensus on some version of social democracy as the only way to organize society[259] and a basic political liberalism. Democracy was to follow, ‘the elite theory of democracy’ led by a rational, coherent, self-confident elite, as stated by political scientists David Easton and Robert Dahl.[260] Morris Janowitz appreciated the role of third world militaries in the managing of the affairs of the countries.[261] A concrete and decisive step towards this U.S. type political and constitutional system in Pakistan was the 1958 coup.2.9