Reforming practices

Reforming practices

The journal is a fresh entry in Pakistani academia and seeks attention of policy makers, intellectuals, civil society activists, and politicians

By Aamir Riaz
J-SAPS Journal of social & policy
Sciences, Bi-annual
December 2010
Edited by Dr Saman Humayun and Safdar Suhail
Published by Institute of social and policy sciences
Price: Rs750

South Asia is home to 1.4 billion people where half of the world’s poor live. Poverty is not the only problem; apathy is much more than this. If you visit the website of World University Ranking (http://www.university-list.net/rank.htm) there is not a single South Asian University in the first world’s top 100 universities. In South Asian States, public action, research and policy making are usually done in contradiction with one another. In the absence of research-based public action or policy-making one has to depend on alien terminologies and schmaltzy super natural slogans.

Unlike US and Europe, higher education institutions in South Asian democracies are still under privilege to play any role in Public policy. Experts and technocrats love to follow civil military bureaucrats in making a very thin space for politicians and civil society in decision-making processes.

The gap between people’s point of view and policy-making accelerated extremist or reactionary thoughts in society. From movements like Hijrat or Khilafat till Raymond Davis or Osama case, we have plenty of examples of failures where public actions were not based on any clear policy or research.

Another fine example was brilliant education policy of 1959, Sharif Commission. One of the major reasons of its failure was military dictatorship that could not attain public support due to its non-democratic genesis.

Abrupt nationalisation of industries and education in the aftermath of 1971 is also considered a fatal move by technocrat-cum-politician Dr Mubashir Hassan, then federal minister of finance. In early 1990s Nawaz Sharif government came with the agenda of economic liberalisation and yet there was no research-based document which explained up to what extent we needed liberalization.

Ziaul Haq’s Afghan policy and Musharraf’s acceptance in the war against terror still haunting Pakistan’s future; both policies were designed and implemented without consultation with major political parties in Pakistan. Any reform agenda or policy needs two legs, one is its research base and other is public support. Similarly, public action, too, needs both legs, otherwise it will depend on non-democratic forces and slogans.

In these circumstances, Dr Salman Humayun brings a new bi-annual double-blind peer-reviewed research journal J-SAPS published by Institute of Social & Policy Sciences, Islamabad. Peer review is a generic expression for the development of self-regulation by a profession or a process of evaluation relating to qualified individuals within the relevant field. Peer review methods are employed to uphold standards, improve performance and provide credibility. In academia, the term is often used to denote a prepublication review of academic papers; reviewing an academic paper is often called refereeing.

According to Nature, an international weekly, the term Double-blind peer review means a process in which both authors and referees are anonymous, is apparently much revered, if not much practised. The Publishing Research Consortium (PRC) has assessed attitudes towards peer review among 3,000 academics in an international survey across the sciences and humanities.

Editors of this journal are well aware with ground realities regarding research in Pakistan. In the introduction, they wrote: “When it comes to recent intellectual and policy responses to the nature and direction of development and social change in Pakistan, it appears that we have not been attending to a host of critical issues in theory and practice. Our development distortions, evident from differential access to political and economic resources at the individual, group, community and societal levels, point to serious gaps in knowledge production.

There seem to be key assumptions that need to be examined and thought through while producing knowledge in response to Pakistan’s challenges in particular and the region in general. We need to critically appraise changes in the economy, social structures, institutions and values of the society in the backdrop of its pre and post-colonial history and contemporary challenges of ethnic tensions, sectarian and communal violence and struggle for social justice”.

There is a six member editorial board along with two editors. Selection of editorial board members shows commitment of I-SAPS. Names of Ather Maqsood Ahmed, Christophe Jafferlot, Faisal Bari, Frank Henry Healey III, Mahmood Mamdani and Pal Ahluwalia are known in academic circles.

Jaffrelot is a French political scientist who works on South Asia. A graduate of the Institute of Political Studies (IEP) in Paris , the University of Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne, and the National Institute of Oriental Languages and Civilisations (INALCO). He is director of the Center for International Studies and Research (CERI) and research director at CNRS.

Similarly, prior to commencing as Pro Vice Chancellor, Professor Ahluwalia was Research SA Chair and Professor of Post-Colonial Studies in the Hawke Research Institute and Director of the Centre for Post-Colonial Studies. At the same time, he was a Professor in the Department of Ethnic Studies at the University of California.

F. Henry Healey III, PhD, is a senior education scientist in international development at RTI. He works with education systems around the world and across the United States to design and implement policy/reform strategies aimed at widespread and sustainable development. The common themes in these strategies are informed dialogue, democratic deliberation, and the ways and means of institutionalising them so they become the engines of on-going, learning-driven, and widely-owned change. Faisal Bari is senior advisor for Pakistan and leading education economist for South Asia for education Support programme. He is also associate professor for economics in LUMS.

There are four main research articles and a book review in the current issue. Migration and politics of assimilation in Assam written by Udipana Goswami, who is known for her writings regarding conflict, insurgency, militarisation, migration, ethnic reconciliation and displacement. Her current research article deals with the legal settlers alone who migrated in the colonial period from East Bengal. Bengali nationalists, in India and Bangladesh are still reluctant to address the issue of Bengali settlers living traditionally non Bengali lands.

Binh Duong Nguyen and Tran Thi Anh-Dao wrote a paper titled, “Sub-Regional Integration Initiatives in East Asia and their Implication for Vietnam”. Rabia Masood in her article analyses power relations between International Financial Institutions (IFIs), recipient governments, and non-government organisations (NGOs) in the context of Poverty Reduction Strategy (PRS) processes. The next article is jointly written by Mehjabeen Abidi Habib, Emily C.Woodhouse, Ghulam Akbar, Amin U. Khan and Rab Nawaz about Ketti Bandar which was once a prosperous port near the Indus river delta at Thatta (old Debal). It is unfortunate that political parties of Sindh still failed to take the issue of Ketti Bandar on the top of political agenda.

Remittances and Household Welfare: A Case Study of Pakistan is a well-researched article which examines the impact of remittances on economy and household welfare in Pakistan by using a general equilibrium framework and micro-econometric analysis.

Designed in traditional style, relatively smaller font size, J-SAPS journal is a fresh entry in Pakistani academia and seeks attention of policy makers, intellectuals, civil society activists, and politicians.

 it is available at Readings- 12 k gulberg Lhore who is sole distributor of this journal.