State Under Trial An Institutional Analysis of a Policy Decision in the Pakistani Electricity Sector

Abstract

This thesis uses institutional theory to study state – (private) organization relationship in a postcolonial context. The thesis analyzes a policy decision of the Government of Pakistan to employ rental power plants (RPPs) in large numbers as a short term measure to address the acute electricity shortage in the country in 2008-09. This decision was challenged in the country’s Supreme Court (SC) by two parliamentarians. The state ended up defending its policy before the court between September 2009 and March 2012. The research deploys a qualitative case study method which primarily relies on the following sources of information: participant observation of the proceedings of the RPPs case in the SC and of a legal firm involved in it; documentary evidence presented by various parties in the court; interviews with some of the key people in the RPPs case; and secondary data related to the case. Analyzing this data allows answering the thesis’ research questions. These questions pertain to the reasons leading to the state relinquishment of power to private organizations in a postcolonial context and the key elements of a legitimating narrative constructed by a state to legitimate such a surrender. Addressing these questions enables the thesis to make several contributions to institutional theory’s conversation on state-organization dynamics in postcolonial contexts. This thesis identifies a subservient state, one that surrenders its interests to private organizations. This is an important contribution to that literature for it challenges the current understandings of the state in that literature which portrays it playing a dominating role in relation to private organizations when creating, maintaining or changing institutions. Other main contributions of the thesis to that conversation lie in elaborating an institutional account for a state’s surrender to private organizations, documenting the key elements of state’s narrative that legitimates such a surrender, and highlighting the role of mainly Western multilateral funding agencies in shaping institutional environments in postcolonial contexts.