A 2018 Pakistan Study Helps Explain Other Post-Colonial Failures

Institutions that should deliver services instead serve rent-seeking. Tax authorities, utilities and the police used their discretion for private gain (pp. 70–72). Elites blocked reforms because they benefited from dysfunction. Even when reforms began, they were quickly undone.

Ungovernable thus means institutions exist in name but not in substance.

Husain identifies coalitions that benefit from weakness and resist reform.

• Political dynasties dominate parties without internal democracy, using legislatures as platforms for patronage (p. 134).
• The military intervened in 1958, 1977 and 1999, stunting civilian institutions (pp. 140–144).
• Bureaucrats exploited their powers for rent extraction (p. 155).
• Business and landed elites resisted taxation and defended subsidies (pp. 160–165).
• Law enforcement was crippled by bribery and political appointments:

Together, these groups made Pakistan ungovernable in practice.

Husain points to several interlocking causes: the vacuum after the death of Mohammed Ali Jinnah, Pakistan's first governor-general (1947–48) (pp. 22–24), repeated military dominance (pp. 140–144), weak dynastic parties (p. 134), corruption across key sectors (pp. 70–80), cycles of reform and reversal (pp. 112–115), entrenched patronage networks (pp. 180–182), and a systemic governance deficit undermining taxation, energy, law and service delivery (pp. 200–210).

South Africa's political and economic stagnation can be defined as a prolonged period in which the state struggles to generate growth, reduce inequality and renew governance capacity, despite the presence of democratic institutions and economic potential. This challenges the theory of South African exceptionalism, as we witness the same trend of political and economic elites whose decisions result in the capture of institutions and the destruction of public value.

In South Africa, the role of economic and political elites is central to understanding institutional fragility. The Zondo Commission of Inquiry into State Capture (2018–2022) revealed how networks of political leaders, senior bureaucrats and business elites colluded to systematically weaken public institutions for private gain.

State-owned enterprises such as Eskom, Transnet and South African Airways were targeted through corrupt procurement, inflated contracts and political patronage, undermining their ability to deliver services and support economic development. The commission showed that elite capture distorted the functioning of key accountability institutions including the National Prosecuting Authority and law enforcement agencies, which were compromised to shield powerful individuals from scrutiny.

These practices eroded public trust, drained fiscal resources and entrenched political stagnation. Testimonies from the ongoing commission led by retired judge Mbuyiseli Madlanga are echoing stories told at the Zondo Commission, and now, like in Pakistan, showing the“ungovernability” of the criminal justice system.

Like in Pakistan, the police and the National Prosecuting Authority are politicized and weakened. The army, once a regional force, has declined under shrinking budgets and skills shortages. Immigration is compromised by incoherent policy, corruption at the Home Affairs department and porous borders. Local government is the weakest link, condemned by poor leadership, incompetence and failing services.

Therefore, in the South African case, ungovernability or institutional weakness cannot be explained solely by colonial legacies or structural constraints, although those do matter – the apartheid regime was corrupt. Ungovernability has been actively produced and perpetuated by elites who hollowed out institutions designed to safeguard democracy and development. Those institutions became machines of rent-seeking instead of agents of national development. They subverted the will of the people for the will of the elites who undermine accountability.

As in Pakistan, the institutions exist but fail. They are captured by elites. Reforms begin – but those reforms rarely last. Why?

The comparison is instructive. Ghana fell into coups. Malaysia survived but with uneven governance. Pakistan allowed patronage to corrode its foundations. South Africa shows the same symptoms: revenue shortfalls, energy collapse, transport paralysis, policing failures, weakened defense, porous borders and failing municipalities.

Singapore deliberately built strong institutions and prospered.

Husain warns against“sweeping reforms that collapse at each election cycle” (p. 245). Instead, he calls for“selective, sequenced and incremental reforms that enjoy broad consensus” (p. 246). The implication for South Africa is clear.

Political settlements must be reset so that institutions serve citizens rather than factions. Core institutions must be restored: courts, revenue authorities, utilities, police and prosecutors. Coalitions must be built around national goals of security, growth and fairness (p. 252).

Comparative lessons are instructive. Singapore shows the rewards of disciplined governance, while Malaysia illustrates the limits of partial reform. Above all, renewal will take decades, as decay did (p. 260).

From Pakistan's partition in 1947 to Ghana's independence in 1957, from the separation of Malaysia and Singapore in 1965 to South Africa's democratic transition in 1994, post-colonial states have combined early promise with the test of institution-building. Some passed, others faltered.

Husain's book shows that ungovernability is not chaos but the hollowing out of institutions until they exist only on paper. South Africa mirrors this reality.

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The case of Pakistan also defies the idea that cultural or religious homogeneity guarantees cohesion and growth. Despite possessing greater uniformity than many of its neighbors, Pakistan has struggled to sustain unity and development. Cohesion and growth, as Husain's analysis confirms, are not products of identity but of politics. They depend on the presence of a developmental elite able to mobilize all productive forces in society, on effective institutions that secure delivery and accountability and on coalitions that bring legitimacy to the national project while managing contradictions. Without these, even homogeneous nations fragment.

For South Africa, the lesson is clear. The future will not be saved by appeals to“organizational renewal” that leading political parties speak about, cultural unity or new slogans about reforms. It will be built through the deliberate reconstruction of institutions, the cultivation of developmental leadership and the forging of coalitions that sustain legitimacy across political cycles. And it requires stronger instruments of accountability and consequence management.

Only through such long and patient work can the country move from being ungovernable in practice to governable in fact.

Busani Ngcaweni, is director of the Center for Public Policy and African Studies and a visiting professor at the China Foreign Affairs University, University of Johannesburg.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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