Federal political system resolve the problem of premature dissolutions of government in

5.2 
Government Structure – Legislative & Executive 
In this section a functional-institutional comparison is carried out to determine how 
the three branches of government are linked, constituted and operate. 
314
ibid. 

---

79 
According to Locke, consent plays a central role and is the mechanism by which 
political societies are created.
315
The case of Pakistan may be considered as a 
practical implementation of the effect when a federal government fails to perform its 
basic duty i.e. absence of key factors, which then raises the issue of consent or will 
of the people and ultimately causes governments to be overthrown.
316
Locke may well be construed as a reluctant democrat as his theory of consent 
focuses on the issue that a few people actually consent to their governments, so no 
governments are actually legitimate.
317
The government formed by Pakistan if only 
involves majority from one province is not actually a legitimate government in 
Locke's sense. 
Montesquieu goes further in his three classifications of governments: republican 
governments, monarchies and despotisms.
318
The form that is relevant for this 
thesis is republican which is further classified into democratic and aristocratic.
319
As discussed above in Chapter 4, although Pakistan espouses a democratic model, 
in fact, because of the prevalence of military coups, and the readiness of the 
judiciary to retrospectively validate those coups, the model is at least at times, 
despotic. Pakistan is a republican democratic state at least in theory, and in practice 
it does adopt the shape of despotism at times of military rule. This clash between 
the ostensibly democratic but in fact despotic, as shown through the examples in 
Chapter 4, is at the very heart of the problem in this thesis. 
Montesquieu, being a medium democrat, believes that the people are sovereign and 
govern through chosen representatives.
320
In the case of Pakistani politics, self-
interests is also one of the issues indicated in Chapter 4, where representatives 
influence the law to suit their agenda. The researcher argues that the democracy of 
Pakistan is corrupted due to what Montesquieu calls the spirit of inequality,
321
where politicians put their self-interests before the interests of the state.
322
The 
315
John Locke, Second Treatise of Government (Peter Laslett ed, 2nd edn, Cambridge University 
Press 1967) 71. 
316
No government since its inception until that of 2008-13 and 2013-18 have completed its full 
term. 
317
John Locke, Second Treatise of Government (Peter Laslett ed, 2nd edn, Cambridge University 
Press 1967). 
318
Anne M Cohler, Basia C Miller, Harold S Stone (ed), Montesquieu: The Spirit of the Laws (Anne M. 
Cohler, Basia Carolyn Miller, Harold Samuel Stone tr, Cambridge University Press 1989). 
319
ibid 17. 
320
ibid. 
321
ibid 113, 157
322
For example, the 8
th
, 13
th
and 17
th
amendments to the Constitution. 

---

80 
researcher claims that the will of the people also encourages the overthrow of 
governments due to disparity of representation, for example all three martial law 
regimes had the support of the majority of the people at least in the beginning.
The 
practice of premature dissolution is nurtured because these acts are not only 
supported by the judiciary in the name of necessity but also welcomed by the 
people.
323
Unlike Montesquieu, Rousseau takes a more extreme stance towards government, 
which is inline with the two dimensional representation. Rousseau advocates that 
individuals should be assumed to have entered into a social contract where they 
would give up all their rights to the whole community which, like Hobbes, he refers 
to as a sovereign.
324
They then exercise their general will to legislate for the public 
good. 
Rousseau's central doctrine in politics is that a state can be legitimate only if it is 
guided by the general will of its members.
325
Unlike other Enlightenment 
philosophers such as Locke and Montesquieu who developed theories of government 
that had a deep effect on the American revolution,
326
Rousseau's political 
philosophy has extreme democratic views, especially those of the doctrine of 
sovereignty and representation, with his apparent rejection of representative 
government.
327
He believed that the legislature would need to legislate only on the 
areas or issues upon which citizens had not specifically agreed.
328
His hostility to 
the representation of sovereignty extends to the election of representatives to 
sovereign assemblies even where those representatives are subject to periodic re-
election.
329
All three philosophers advocated the concept of representation albeit using different 
terminologies but conveying the same essence of equal representation. According to 
Locke, governments exist by the consent of the people and when they fail to perform 
their basic duty should be resisted and overthrown. This assertion is reflected in 
323
The researcher has personal knowledge that the people of Pakistan have supported martial law at 
least in the beginning. 
324
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract (Christopher Betts tr, Oxford University Press 1994). 
325
ibid. 
326
Armando Navarro, The Cristal Experiment: A Chicano Struggle for Community Control (University of 
Wisconsin Press 1998). 
327
ibid. 
328
ibid. 
329
ibid. 

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81 
the US Bill of Rights.
330
According to Montesquieu, people are sovereign and govern 
through chosen representatives. In relation to Rousseau, the state can be legitimate 
if it is guided by the general will of its members. In the next two subsections, the 
two countries are explored under the philosophical lens as discussed in this section.