Thought Behind Things · May 7, 2021 · 59:01
Peace, Polarization, and Pakistan's Turning Point: A Conversation with Dr. Adnan Rafiq
Dr. Adnan Rafiq, country director for the United States Institute of Peace, joins Muzamil to discuss how inequality, information access, and political polarization shape the prospects for peace in Pakistan.
with Dr. Adnan Rafiq
6 min read
From IT to Oxford: How Dr. Adnan Rafiq Found His Way to Peacebuilding
The episode opens with Muzamil introducing his guest as a doctorate from the University of Oxford in politics, with a focus spanning political economy, governance, security, peacebuilding, international relations, and strategy. At the time of recording, Dr. Adnan Rafiq was serving as country director for the United States Institute of Peace - a role that sits at the intersection of scholarship and applied policy.
Muzamil opens by asking a simple but pointed question: how does someone end up working in peacebuilding? Dr. Adnan Rafiq’s answer is candid. He began as an information technology undergraduate, but found himself drawn away from programming and coding toward something he found far more compelling. “I found organizational change way more fascinating,” he explains. “Rather than programming, coding, and hardcore technology, I got more interested in organizational culture and organizational politics.” From there, his academic route took him through higher education in the UK, a gradual shift toward politics, and eventually to a doctorate completed around 2017.
He describes the years between his bachelor’s degree and his PhD as formative - running summer programs, hosting students from around the world, and beginning to engage seriously with questions of social change in Pakistan. One of his early contributions, he notes, was a policy document that became the strategic national internal security document for the Pakistani police - a document that, as he puts it, “steers in general the direction in which your security is internally.”
What Peace Actually Means
Later in the discussion, Dr. Adnan Rafiq pushes back against a simplified understanding of peace. The common assumption, he suggests, is that peace is simply the opposite of war - that it exists wherever open conflict does not. He challenges this framing directly. Peace is not a passive state. It requires active construction through governance, inclusion, and the delivery of basic services to citizens.
This reframing matters because it shifts the question from “is Pakistan at war?” to “is Pakistan building the conditions for stability?” By that measure, the conversation becomes considerably more complex.
Muzamil also asks about Dr. Adnan Rafiq’s earlier research on judicial behavior in Pakistan - a topic that connects directly to questions of institutional trust. While the conversation does not go deep into the specifics of that research, Dr. Adnan Rafiq’s framing suggests that the judiciary, like other institutions, is part of the broader security and governance architecture that either supports or undermines social peace.
The Internet, Social Media, and the Democratization of Information
One of the more textured exchanges in the conversation concerns what Dr. Adnan Rafiq calls the democratization of information. He describes a moment of personal enlightenment - reading widely, encountering different thought processes, and realizing the importance of exposing oneself to a range of perspectives. That experience, he says, shaped how he thinks about knowledge and access.
The internet, in his telling, was transformative. “The access to information has now been put on steroids effectively,” he says, describing how social media and the broader web broke the monopoly that a small elite once held over public discourse. “The access to information was controlled by the top one percent - suddenly people started talking.”
But he is careful not to romanticize this shift. The same forces that opened up information also opened up space for extremism and polarization. Pakistan’s political conversation, he argues, has suffered as a result. Rather than functioning as a space for problem-solving, public discourse has become “a contest between two parties rather than a movement towards solving a problem.” Ideas, beliefs, and lifestyles have all become battlegrounds.
Inequality as a Driver of Radicalization
The conversation takes a sharper turn when the discussion moves to inequality. Muzamil references a guest from a previous episode who worked with the European Union on infrastructure projects - someone who described communities with no access to electricity. Dr. Adnan Rafiq builds on this to articulate what he sees as one of the root causes of extremism in Pakistan.
The image he uses is stark: a woman in a remote rural area, far from any hospital or urban center, with no infrastructure around her, opens Instagram and sees an influencer traveling the world and marketing products. The gap between her reality and what she sees on screen is not just economic - it is psychological and political. “Maybe,” Dr. Adnan Rafiq suggests, this kind of extreme inequality “is fueling a lot of this extremism.” When people have no legitimate path to dignity or resources, ideology - including religious ideology - can become “a means to an end.” As he puts it directly: “You’re using religion to fight essentially inequality.”
Muzamil presses on this point, and Dr. Adnan Rafiq agrees that a more equal society would reduce the appeal of radical movements. The argument is structural: it is not primarily about ideology in the abstract, but about the material conditions that make extreme ideologies attractive.
Pakistan’s Political System: Between Dictatorship and Democracy
In this conversation, Muzamil raises the question of Pakistan’s political trajectory - a country that has moved back and forth between military rule and civilian government without fully resolving the underlying tensions of either. Dr. Adnan Rafiq acknowledges this instability but does not treat it as a permanent condition.
He notes that the lawyers’ movement and the end of the last dictatorship around 2007 marked a shift, and that subsequent years - however imperfect - have seen democratic processes continue. The challenge, as he frames it, is that political competition has not translated into genuine problem-solving. Parties compete for power, but the structural issues - service delivery, infrastructure, inclusion - remain inadequately addressed.
He also touches on the question of privilege and realignment. Some of those who benefit from the current system, he suggests, need to reckon with the fact that genuine inclusion may require letting go of certain advantages. The discomfort that platforms like TikTok provoke in some quarters, he implies, is itself a signal of how disconnected certain segments of society have become from the lived reality of most Pakistanis.
A Cautious Optimism About Where Pakistan Is Headed
By the end of the conversation, Muzamil asks directly: does Dr. Adnan Rafiq sound hopeful? The answer is yes - but carefully so. “We’re at a sort of a turning point,” Dr. Adnan Rafiq says, “in terms of how we’re evolving.” He sees signs that Pakistani society is beginning to reflect more seriously on its institutions, its governance, and its place in the world.
Part of his optimism rests on the possibility of economic reorientation. Rather than competing internally - a zero-sum dynamic that has historically fueled conflict - Pakistan could compete globally, trade with the world, and generate wealth through productivity rather than extraction. “Maybe we don’t have to compete with ourselves,” he says. The shift he is describing is as much psychological as it is economic: stop measuring yourself against your neighbor and start focusing on what you are building.
Muzamil closes the hour-long conversation by noting he would welcome Dr. Adnan Rafiq back for a deeper exploration of these themes. The topics - peace, polarization, inequality, institutional reform - are large enough to sustain many more conversations. For now, the episode offers a grounded, structurally honest account of where Pakistan stands and what it would take to move toward something more stable.
Full transcript
[Music] he's a doctorate from university of oxford on uh you know politics doctorate in politics so that's very very interesting he's focused on political economy governance security peace building uh international relations and strategy and he's also the country director for united states institute of peace dr adnan fix up thank you so much for joining us thank you so much to extremism to polarization to a lot of problems now we see arising right and um unfortunately society your social fabric of the society have completely helped you guys um you know where a little more into that but i just want to understand okay how did you get into this entire uh you know direction of peace building like meredith politicians but to be working in the private sector or development sector per se you know that you actually got into this i followed a very uh academic route into this while i was studying in uk for my higher education and gradually shifted towards politics organizational change and from there onwards to social change right what are the key uh drivers for social change in pakistan to us foreign [Music] i started as an uh information technology undergrad but even during that process itself i found america selective right organizational change so i found that way more fascinating so rather than programming coding and hardcore technology i got more interested in organizational culture organizational politics technology is is is a tool so you you did your bachelor's from uk lifestyle and then [Music] is phd itself year 2017 were you working what were the interesting things that you were doing throughout the interesting things now i look back on my social 15 to 18 years age group uncle oxford access dj through summer programs right we we started hosting a group of students from all over the world foreign [Music] or as we speak this remains the uh strategic national internal security document of pakistani police this is a is a policy document that steers in general the direction in which your security is internally right we're here now in 2021 you're doing you know usip um zahira pura uh academic as well as you know experience fires upgrades you have experience security related your peace building i want to understand peace building in itself simply simplistic understanding right but now uh peace just it's not just cake war time situation may he oppose that peace but peace be power sorry no one says it uh but before understanding that upcoming thesis uh that was on uh judicial uh behavior right yeah both interesting topic because uh i feel like one of the what was your experience when you were researching all of that in terms of pakistan what did you how did you find the judicial system in pakistan [Music] um is security essentially right i'd like to understand okay pakistan where do you see pakistan standing right now in terms of uh you know [Music] so um the moment of enlightenment was the time when you were you started reading books and through that you were able to find a lot of other opinions a lot of thought processes and you said you know listen i need to go out there and hear all of this so that i can open up my mind right um when i was growing up those are probably absolutely bad your social media digital media journey and i remember at the time i was for me social media was was a very magical world where the access to information has now been put on steroids effectively right and not just social media the internet was uh was a powerful word for fingertips that i get here uh generally life stories the access to information was controlled by the top 1 people suddenly started talking they started it's good it's bad for the question market because it's good in a sense you've got you you're looking at a lot of leadership in different areas of the extreme kitchen it has become a contest between two parties rather than a contest or rather than a movement towards solving a problem issues social is uh in terms of ideas beliefs lifestyles [Music] from a rural area not just an average rural area but from maybe a very uh backward rural area uh you know i had a i had a guest over um he's working with the european union uh these days and they're they're doing some projects infrastructure like my mind was blown because they had no access to electricity infrastructure in the bottom foreign she's dying there is nobody out there is going to save her there is no hospital from miles from her place there is no uh proper urban center buys from her place and then she opens instagram and there is an influencer like me who is marketing some random company and he was going to trips all over the world right so maybe is fueling a lot of this extremism basically there means to an end like you're using using religion to fight essentially inequality exactly equal society didn't so then people wouldn't have that much of an issue and i feel like a grammatical [Music] [Music] [Music] my parents were growing up in a good pakistan and then two generations and everything is just destroyed was it a lot of what was going on in the world was there a okay then i had someone from uh who's an expert on afghan uh history um and definitely he talked a lot about what was going on in terms of you know uh political systems left or right um so a lot of people who they need to realign themselves as well a little bit okay maybe we also need to let go of certain privileges uh for that massive key uh inclusion uh in terms of and again we saw that with tick tock as well if that's something that makes you uncomfortable then you really need to sort of think about okay you know are you that disconnected from your own country um you will end up making more money your children will definitely be much more well off in terms of pure wealth than you know how under the current system is democratization can i want to move the conversation towards that now um as a society or as a political system we sort of you know hopped between this dictatorship democracy khan is it's not completely well defined in in trying to solve the problems which are contextually related to us and and and sorry questions from the last dictatorship we saw in the uh you know ending in 2007 and the lawyers movement and now at the very least three ten years come getting completed maybe again cake pan salute prime minister [Music] so low cost so it's through infrastructure through again service delivery on these particular things absolutely competition element definitely um so you're you sound hopeful then definitely we're at a we're at a sort of a turning point in terms of how we're evolving is that true i think they can governance society reflection organization foreign [Music] maybe we can trade with the world maybe we can be competitive in the world and we can make that money uh so maybe we don't have to compete with ourselves and you have to probably identify pakistan maybe have this sort of innate drive by stop looking at other people and start focusing on what you're doing about this right um so we're at the one hour mark uh i try to end this both my day conversation thing and i know for a fact that i'd love to know more about these i mean yes topics i feel like exploring i would love to have you again sometime uh you know for for further uh exploring these conversations but for now thank you so much uh yes thank you so much i enjoyed a lot or absolutely inshallah thank you so much uh doctor uh for all of you guys watching if you like this conversation uh uh you know please do share it with your friends like about the banking engagement particularly interesting articles coffee interesting uh conversations sharecards so you can definitely join that and be a part of our community but anyways this is amazing you are watching uh thought behind things thank you so much for watching and i'll see you in the next one
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