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Fighting to the End: The Pakistan Army's Way of War by C. Christine Fair.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014. 368pp., £20.99, ISBN 978 0 1998 9270 9

Article  in  Political Studies Review · November 2015

DOI: 10.1111/1478-9302.12101_97

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BOOK REVIEWS
summarisation emerges at the end. However, one
underlying understanding that seems to prevail among
all the contributions is that evaluating democracy in
East Asia requires keeping an eye on the emerging
scenario in the twenty-first century.
Sangit Sarita Dwivedi
(University of Delhi)
The Global Political Economy of the Household
in Asia by Juanita Elias and Samanthi J.
Gunawardana (eds). Basingstoke: Palgrave
Macmillan, 2013. 270pp., £65.00, ISBN 978 1 1373
3889 1
This edited collection offers an innovative and origi-
nal contribution to debates on Asian and global
political economy. The central organising theme of
the book is the importance of the household to
understanding Asia’s ‘economic transformation and its
incorporation into the global market economy’ (p. 1).
Collectively, the chapters in this collection demon-
strate the ways in which the household in Asia is
implicated in global economic processes and transfor-
mations, and the broader implications of this for the
analysis of global political economy. The substantive
chapters are presented in three key sections: the state
and the household economy; the household as a site
of economic transformation; and the household and
the gendered workplace. There is an impressive geo-
graphical spread in the case studies, including Malay-
sia, India, Japan and Sri Lanka, among others, as well
as significant diversity in the subject matter of the
chapters. The themes of the book will be of interest
to scholars and students of Asian political economy,
global political economy and, notably, feminist politi-
cal economy.
This book makes an important contribution both
theoretically and empirically. In theoretical terms, it
builds on debates in global political economy around
‘the everyday’ as well as making a substantive con-
tribution to debates about social reproduction and the
global household in feminist political economy. As
noted in the conclusion, challenges remain in
acknowledging the fundamental importance of the
household within the study of all aspects of global
political economy, such as ‘finance, global economic
governance, trade and production’ (p. 231). Never-
© 2015 The Authors. Political Studies Review © 2015 Political Studies Association
Political Studies Review: 2015, 13(4)
623
theless, this book can claim to be leading the way in
such a theoretical endeavour. In empirical terms, the
collection offers a rich contribution to the existing
research on these topics. The chapters incorporate
‘snapshots’ – drawing on everyday life experiences of
household members – to establish links to wider
theoretical points and debates, which is an approach
that works well in this context and adds to the
richness of the volume. Particularly strong chapters
include Juanita Elias on the role of domestic work in
foreign policy debates in Malaysia; Laura Dale’s study
of the lives of single women in Japan; Elizabeth
Hill’s analysis of the impact of ‘extreme jobs’ on the
household in New India; and the study of the Pune
waste-pickers in India by Patrick Kilby. Combining
these theoretical and empirical aspects, the book
makes a strong overarching argument for the ‘con-
tinuing blindness and gap in policy making when it
comes to the domestic economy’ (p. 228). This
matters for our understandings of Asian and global
political economy and the book deserves to be read
widely.
Lucy Ferguson
(Universidad Complutense de Madrid)
Fighting to the End: The Pakistan Army’s Way
of War by C. Christine Fair. Oxford: Oxford Uni-
versity Press, 2014. 368pp., £20.99, ISBN 978 0 1998
9270 9
Christine Fair’s incredibly well-researched book, the
product of decades of engagement with Pakistan,
pulls no punches. She analyses the role of the Paki-
stani army in the internal politics of Pakistan, but
unlike Ayesha Siddiqa’s similarly excellent work Mili-
tary Inc.: Inside Pakistan’s Military Economy (Pluto
Press, 2007), she concentrates on the international
dimensions of the policies pursued by the Pakistani
army and the implications that this has for regional
and international security. Her argument, backed up
by documents produced by the Pakistani army and an
extensive number of interviews, is that after the par-
tition of the subcontinent in 1947, Pakistan has
always been an insecure and a revisionist state. It
seeks to be on a position of parity with what it terms
‘Hindu’ India, despite the vast discrepancies in power
between the two.
624
Fair convincingly argues that the Pakistani army has
the ‘ideational and ideological goal’ (p. 13) of resisting
the rise of India. Because of this concern, she notes
that not only is the settlement of the Kashmir dispute
unlikely, but that solving Kashmir would not improve
relations between the two countries as it would not
achieve parity between them. In fact, ‘[d]espite many
‘internal security challenges, the Pakistan Army has
insisted on retaining a conventional force posture that
recognizes India as Pakistan’s primary military chal-
lenge’ (p. 65). The author argues that, rather than the
nuclearisation of the subcontinent making conflict
between India and Pakistan less likely (due to the risks
of escalation), in fact the Pakistan army is confident
that it can pursue low intensity conflict in pursuit of its
revisionist goals.
Fair is pessimistic about any change in this regard,
noting that even if the current civilian democratic
transition maintains itself, the army’s notion of ‘stra-
tegic culture’ is deeply rooted in Pakistan’s civil
society, political culture and bureaucracies (p. 265). A
civilian transition may be necessary for a change, but it
is not sufficient. She is similarly dismissive of the idea
that increased economic ties could bring about a rap-
prochement, noting that any ‘serious rapprochement
with India would weaken the army’s political position
within Pakistan’ (p. 268). She concludes with a
warning to policy makers: ‘It is time to accept the
likely fact that Pakistan will continue to pursue policies
that undermine American interests in the region’ (p.
282). Small wonder then, that her book has been so
controversial in Pakistan.
Katharine Adeney
(University of Nottingham)
Policing Afghanistan: The Politics of the Lame
Leviathan by Antonio Giustozzi and Mohammed
Isaqzadeh. London: C. Hurst, 2013. 240pp., £49.99,
ISBN 978 1 8490 4205 5
The main purpose of this book is to evaluate the
development of policing in Afghanistan. The authors
thus intend to make a contribution to the wider
understanding of ‘police-building’ and to fill the gaps
caused by the inadequacy of works that focus on the
politics of policing and its political economy.
Giustozzi and Isaqzadeh analyse the development of
policing through its different stages since the early
© 2015 The Authors. Political Studies Review © 2015 Political Studies Association
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ASIA AND THE PACIFIC
state formation in Afghanistan. Due to the abundance
of sources and the estimated interest among readers,
the authors focus particularly on the post-2001
period. The book evaluates policing as an instrument
of the monopolisation of force and the maintainence
of security, which are the two main components of
modern states considered in terms of Weberian state
formation.
The data for the analysis were gathered through
interviews in the field. In order to enable a better
understanding of the different perceptions at local
level, the authors examine different case studies, such
as Fray, Kandahar and Herat. They highlight, for
instance, how some local strongmen view the police
as a threat to their self-interests. This is because,
according to a local strongman, an effective police
force, controlled by central government, would chal-
lenge their authority, which is primarily based on
their own local paramilitary forces. Moreover, the
ethnic and tribal client-patron system is also a major
obstacle to building a functioning police institution in
Afghanistan.
Additionally, according to the authors, building a
functioning police system in Afghanistan is further
evidence that international interventions, which
attempted to replace the internal dynamics, are unable
to create a coherent political system in post-conflict
countries. In this sense, the book poses the question:
‘which type of policing – civilian or paramilitary –
would be more suitable for Afghanistan?’, which is the
main debate around Afghan police reform. The most
interesting example of this debate is the neglected
Taliban-era policing, which is evaluated as having been
very successful in maintaining security in its areas, even
by its opponents.
As a law enforcement officer having experience in
Afghanistan, I can say that although policing is not the
profession of either of the authors, their analysis and
observations are precisely accurate in understanding the
constraints of not only police-building, but also the
entire state-building process in Afghanistan. Therefore,
Policing Afghanistan: The Politics of the Lame Leviathan
might be helpful for scholars and professionals trying to
grasp the political dynamics of policing in a post-
conflict country.
Emrah Ozdemir
(Swansea University)
Political Studies Review: 2015, 13(4)