In Pakistan, election decisions depend on the party’s label or the party’s ideology. Currently, Pakistan’s political parties are facing a number of constraints in influencing the outcomes of voters’ choice during election time. In this episode of Let’s Talk Development, Dr. Asad Liaqat and Dr. Niloufer Siddiqui discuss these constraints, and discuss how the upcoming election outcomes can be influenced by the way parties are structured and the way they interact with voters.
Dr. Asad Liaqat is an Economist, working as an Economic Research Scientist at Meta where he has conducted economics research to answer strategic questions related to the digital economy, small businesses, competition, misinformation among other topics. He is also a political scientist who has been engaged in research on political economy and now the digital economy for over a decade.
Dr. Niloufer Siddiqui is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy, University at Albany-State University of New York (SUNY). She is a Nonresident Fellow at the Stimson Center and a Fellow at the Mahbub ul Haq Centre at Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS). Her research interests include political violence, political behavior, the politics of religion and ethnicity, voters and foreign policy, and the politics of South Asia. Her book manuscript examines why political parties in Pakistan engage in violence or form electoral alliances with violent actors.