Challenge, Continuity, and Change in Pakistan

Introduction  

Amit Ranjan and Ian Talbot

Part One: The Political Landscape: Continuity and Change

Chapter 1 The Military at a Political Crossroad?: Pakistan 2018-Present

Ejaz Hussain

Chapter 2 Hybrid Regime Management in Pakistan 1947–2022

Sten Widmalm

Chapter 3 Mapping Federalism in Pakistan

Asma Faiz

Chapter 4 Governance and Resistance in Pakistan’s Peripheries: The Cases of Pakistan-administered Kashmir, Balochistan and Gilgit-Baltistan

Samee Lashari, Sohaib Khaliq, and Hadaiqa Sardar

Chapter 5 Politics of Extremism and the Emergence of the Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan

Tahir Kamran

Chapter 6 Geopolitics, Security and Imbalance in Pakistan’s Foreign Policy: A Historical Perspective

Rasul Baksh Rais and S. Rashid Munir

Chapter 7 Political Economy of Crisis

Fatima Malik and Hafsa Tanveer

Part Two: The Changing Social Landscape

Chapter 8 Navigating through the Black Hole of Crises in the Post-Truth Era: A Curious Case of Pakistan's Middle-Class Youth

Farasat Rasool and Shiza Ishtiaq

Chapter 9 Media and Election in Pakistan

 Kiran Hassan

Chapter 10 New Social Movements in Pakistan: Dynamics and Politics of Aurat March

Mazhar Abbas and Imran Wakil

Chapter 11 Homo-Islamicus: Piety, Populism and Post-Feminism in Pakistan

Afiya Shehrbano Zia

Chapter 12 Pakistan and Its Diaspora(s): An Exploration of Economic and Political Mobilization for the Homeland

Tania Saeed

Chapter 13 Finding Contemporary Pakistan on Screen: The Case of The Legend of Maula Jatt and Joyland    

Zebunnisa Hamid

Chapter 14 Sport in Pakistan: Highs and Lows amidst Structural Decline

Ali Khan & Ali Ahmad Nobil

Part Three: Environmental Challenges and Responses

Chapter 15 Pakistan's Water Resources: Availability Concerns, Inter-Provincial Disputes and Sub-Nationalism 

Amit Ranjan

Chapter 16 Forests, Climate Change and Politics in Pakistan: The PTI Tree Tsunami in North-West Pakistan

Ian Talbot

Chapter 17 Pakistan in the Face of Climate Change: Current State of Risks, Resilience and Sustainability

Muhammad Sajjad, Adnan Bashir and Wajiha Haq   

Biography

Amit Ranjan is a Research Fellow at the Institute of South Asian Studies, National University of Singapore. His latest book is The Aftermath of the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971: Enduring Impacts (edited with Taj Hashmi and Mazhar Abbas, Routledge, 2025). He has also edited Migration, Memories and “Unfinished” Partition (TISS-Routledge series on Migration Studies, 2024) and is the author of Federalism and Inter-State River Water Disputes in India (Routledge, London and New Delhi, 2023), and Contested Waters: India’s Transboundary River Water Disputes in South Asia (Routledge, Oxon and New Delhi, 2021).

 Ian Talbot is a Professor Emeritus in the History of Modern South Asia at the University of Southampton. He holds a BA at Royal Holloway College, an MA from Oxford University and a PhD from Royal Holloway College. He is a Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and was formerly the Head of History at the University of Southampton.