Social Movement Partyism in Authoritarian Regimes: A Case Study of Student Movement against Field Martial Ayub Khan in Pakistan (1968-69)

Abstract

The effect of regime type on emergence, development and outcome of social movements has remained the central theme of the political process approach/political opportunity structure. The structural paradigm focused on relative openness or closure of the system, the availability of elite alliances, elite stability or instability, and the repression capacities of the regime in a given political structure. Almedia gave the concept “Social Movement Partyism” which focused on the coalition of social movements and oppositional political parties. Handful research has been done on social movement partyism in democratic settings but there is a vivid gap in the scholarly literature on this very concept in authoritarian regimes.To fill this research gap, this study has drawn evidences from the student movement of 1968-69 in Pakistan against the authoritarian rule of Ayub Khan and examined the movement-parties coalition and its impact on both movement and opposition political parties. In this qualitative case study, the document analysis method has been used to investigate the phenomena under question. The research finds that the movement-party coalition materialized after cost-benefit analysis and has created strategic opportunities for both, movement and oppositional political parties.