Introduction

A common argument in favour of decentralisation is that it brings a state closer to its citizens through public participation (Manor 1995; Andrews et al. 2008). However, scholars argue that it is a slippery concept and that local government does not necessarily produce the expected results in developing countries (Gaynor 2014; Clausen 2020; Prud'Homme 1995), particularly those where society has accepted informal rules and corruption, what can be called the ‘unrule of law’, and the dominancy of elites (Helmke and Levitsky 2006; Pickering and Jusić 2018; Rose-Ackerman and Palifka 2016). They therefore ask, and we agree, how nascent local government reforms can be democratic and participatory in the presence of incongruent and hostile, self-reinforcing, informal institutions which have long been practised in the absence of the rule of law (Chemouni 2014; Mattingly 2016). We agree with those scholars (Pretty 1995; Gaynor 2014; Plessing 2017; Clausen 2020) who have argued that the mere introduction of decentralisation will not be sufficient to produce the expected institutional or individual change. This is because developing countries such as Pakistan are experiencing institutional frailties—in other words, de facto military rule, feudal lords and religious elites are running vast areas of society and there is no formal justice system—which are historically self-reinforcing informal institutions. Elites (military, landlords and political Islam) are the real powerholders who are the reinforcing actors in Sindh, and the formal normative rules sponsored by international funding organisations cannot give the expected outcomes. Thus decentralisation cannot create genuine public participation in third-world countries such as Pakistan. The result of this unsuccessful decentralisation can be that the marginalised masses will have to accept the informal rules simply to meet their basic needs. This paper reports on an empirical research project in two districts of Sindh under two separate local government systems to answer questions about what happened to public participation and the reduction of corruption.

The principal research question guiding this study was: How do old informal rules impede decentralisation and community participation in developing countries?

This paper is structured as follows. First, the literature on decentralisation and the scope of public participation will be discussed and then the theoretical framework and the theoretical concepts employed in the context will be introduced. Second, the political context of Pakistan will be described. Third, using the data gathered, the results of two decentralisation systems introduced in Sindh and their consequences will be explained in some detail. Finally, a summary of the findings will be provided and relevant conclusions will be reached.

Literature review

Decentralisation and constraints of informal institutions

Decentralisation is an elusive concept which depends on various factors, and without the full agreement of the state actors, the desired results of any system are not guaranteed (Clausen 2020). This view is based on the assumption that decentralisation does not necessarily bring the expected outcomes, particularly when there are informal institutions which are deep-rooted and incongruent to the formal local government reforms sponsored by the international funding organisations (Zenger et al. 2000; Pickering and Jusić 2018). This is because the informal institutions must not be contradictory to the nascent formal normative institutions of the local governance (Zenger et al. 2000).

In this context, institutions are understood as the rules or norms of any state and its society. Formal institutions are openly codified and guaranteed by state laws whereas informal institutions are based solely on the fact of their existence and their effectiveness. The power of sanction involved with informal institutions is mainly linked to the social mechanism of exclusion or is based quite simply on the condition that its non-utilization minimises the chances of gaining access to goods and services. Informal institutions are equally known and recognisable publicly (Lauth 2000, p. 24). When informal reinforcing rules such as kinship, nepotism and patronage are deep-rooted, there could be a collision of interests between formal rules and informal ones. Ultimately, the old actors of the informal rules will be more powerful despite the introduction of the local governments (Mattingly 2016; Lockwood et al. 2017; Lauth 2000).

Several scholars (Zenger et al. 2000; Cerami 2009; Chemouni 2014; Mattingly 2016) have argued that if the informal rules and norms practised and enforced by social actors are contradictory to the newly introduced local government rules, the decentralisation will be more dangerous. This is particularly noticeable where the formal state institutions are weak and the social organisations have developed their informal institutions to protect the interests of their local actors (Ostrom et al. 1993; Ostrom 2019; Plessing 2017), such as feudal lords (landed elites), pirs (religious and political figurere) and local elites who are active in informal institutions of the society. Even though some elected mayors might expect the formal rules to improve the performance of local government, an improvement in performance cannot be guaranteed because there are other actors who are part of kinship, nepotism and patronage, active members of informal institutions which are incongruent with the previous one (Johnson 2001; Pickering and Jusić 2018). If the elected mayors are feudal lords who are also the main actors in the informal institutions, the formal local government rules will contribute negatively instead of being neutral. When informal reinforcing rules are deep-rooted, there could be a collision of interests between formal rules and informal ones. Ultimately, the old actors of the informal rules will be more powerful despite the introduction of the local governments (Mattingly 2016; Lockwood et al. 2017).

Some scholars (Zenger et al. 2000; March and Olsen 2008; Mattingly 2016) have pointed out that old informal rules do matter in the sense of expectations from the new formal rules. For example, if the long-established informal rules are congruent with the new formal rules, the outcomes of the local government institutions will be positive and merit-based. However, if the informal rules are antagonistic towards the formal rules, the performance and outcomes will show little or no improvement (Pickering and Jusić 2018).

Research scholars (Zenger et al. 2000; March and Olsen 2008) contended that if informal institutions are deep-rooted, they could define the actual behaviour of players. The problem is that many of the existing informal patterns of human interactions have not been highlighted in the formal organisations at all (Zenger et al. 2000). For example, before funding decentralisation reforms in developing countries such as Pakistan, where the institutional frailties such as military, landlord and religious elites maintain an unequal social class structure, local governance not only expands recentralisation opportunities but also strengthens the local elites (Bardhan 2002; Chemouni 2014; Tunio and Nabi 2021).

The failure of formal rules occurs when strong informal institutions are not addressed before launching decentralisation reforms and local elites can use their powerful position to capture public resources (Mattingly 2016). This can have grave repercussions for third-world countries. When the formal local government rules are ineffective because of the presence of informal reinforcing rules of feudal lords, local elites and authoritarian regimes, moral grounds will be ignored (Mattingly 2016). Consequently, the powerless citizens will have the impression that benefits are only possible with the consent of the entrenched, powerful, localized political order (Dickovick 2014), so they will have to accept that it will be the elite class which can continue to dominate, influence local politics and maintain its hold on local government power (Lima 2019).

Another unsuccessful outcome for decentralisation reforms can be when corruption is rampant throughout the informal institutions, such as bribery in the bureaucracy and favouritism and nepotism within local government budgeting systems, because decentralisation can actually increase corruption-ridden behaviour (Chang 2018). For example, Pickering and Jusić (2018) explored how the local government capacity was constrained by the presence of informal institutions in Bosnia and Herzegovina and found that the informal institutionalism of patronage clashed with and undermined the implementation of the internationally supported norms of accountability and equity (Pickering and Jusić 2018, p. 677). An issue to be considered is that even a single existing pattern of informal institution can block the potential of local government formal rules.

There are other instances where problems of incongruity between informal rules and the formal institutions of the local government have been explored in other countries (Crook and Manor 1998; Véron et al. 2006; Andrews and Bategeka 2013). For example, in Uganda, Andrews and Bategeka (2013) found that the local government suffered from corruption in the revenue department and because of deep-rooted practices of corruption, the laws of the local government were not implemented. Furthermore, when Crook and Manor (1998) also investigated themes such as political participation, accountability and democratic development in four countries (India, Bangladesh, Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire) of South Asia and Africa, they (Crook and Manor 1998, p. 271) found that in those four countries, popular participation, electoral or non-electoral, was considerably enhanced. However, decentralisation reforms still suffered from institutional factors which were happening informally. For example, in the case of Ghana, the performance of local government was constrained by various institutional factors such as the centralised tendency of military regimes, whereas the poor performance of decentralisation in Bangladesh was exacerbated by the worst cases of corruption and ineffectiveness.

Zenger et al. (2000) pointed out that formal normative institutions are more vulnerable due to the presence of informal institutions which define the behaviour of influential actors. For example, when the inhabitants of a small village of underprivileged voters know that those local elites who are in power today or tomorrow are connected with central politicians at the higher level (Ishii 2017), they have no choice but to resign themselves to showing loyalty and commitment and sticking to the old rules. This happens because there can be a psychological or socio-cultural discourse among the marginalized voters that they could not bring these all-powerful local officials to justice because the latter have connections with the central authorities. And in this case, the ultimate winner will be the local feudal lord. The voters therefore have no choice but to support the local officialdom and benefit illegally from it, as it has been stated that some factions are ready to build a nexus between bureaucrats and politicians and become willing participants in corrupt networks (Véron et al. 2006, p. 1936).

Thus, the expected outcomes of public participation will depend on how the feudal lords, pirs and military regime interact with the internationally sponsored public participation in the development process (Pickering and Jusić 2018).

For example, Khan and Anjum (2013) reported that Citizen Community boards (CCBs) were regarded as low priority by the local government officials in Pakistan primarily because of corruption and the misuse of power by local elites. Khan and Anjum (2013) carried out 94 detailed case studies based on interviews and concluded that only local powerholders are likely to benefit from decentralised systems and thus to dominate the decision-making process in Pakistan. Kurosaki (2006) surveyed 42 union councils in the district of Hafizabad and found that the quality of the leadership and the establishment of appropriate rules in CCBs were key determinants to the success of the CCB initiative. In Sindh, however, the Pakistani state has lacked such a will and determination to empower the underprivileged masses. This is because even publicly elected local governments introduced by the government of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) in 2013 and implemented in 2016 did not mandate organisations below union councils which could be a good meduim to represent the down-trodden communities (Rid and Murtaza 2018; Ali 2022). For example, Ali (2020, p. 240) found that “in both periods (the local governments of 2001–2009 and 2013), the public was kept away from the decision-making process”. Thus the marginalised communities were ignored by the failure to introduce an effective mechanism for CCBs. In other words, if the deep-rooted governing informal rules are incongruent with the formal participatory development within the local government system, the outcome may not be pro-marginalised communities (Gaynor 2014).

Implicit theoretical context

Helmke and Levitsky (2006, p. 2) argued that informal institutions, or rules and procedures which are created, communicated and enforced outside the officially sanctioned channels, are often as important as their formal counterparts in structuring the ‘rules of the game’. Institutions can be defined as “rules, structures and norms that create and enforce cooperative behaviour among individuals and groups” (Davies and Imbroscio 2009, p. 52) and thus have an impact on the outcome of reforms. We took the theoretical approach of new institutionalism which explains that institutions, whether formal or informal, are “coercive structures that mould our acting, thinking and feeling” (McCormick et al. 2019, p. 23). The concept of rules as March and Olsen (2008) defined them are also used more informally to include the rules, interactions and practices. We therefore agree with March and Olsen (2008, cited in McCormick et al. 2019, p. 23) that institutions “could be informal to include the rules, interactions, and practices such as the family, marriage, religion, money law and even language”, and Zenger et al. (2000, p. 5) stressed that informal institutions play a central role in defining how work is performed and tasks are accomplished within firms; although formal institutions are defined as a “normative system designed by management”, informal institutions enforce the actual behaviour of the players.

Now, their purposive behaviour matters in terms of local government participation and public empowerment. We therefore need to understand the actors and their interactions with the institutions in order to consider the process of institutional change (Pickering and Jusić 2018; Schedler 2009). For example, in the case of Pakistan, society has been ruled through informal rules imposed by many elites: military elites, landlord elites and religious elites (Tunio and Nabi 2021) who were dominant before the arrival of the British Raj. Furthermore, after 1947, these elites became more subtle and more deeply rooted in society (ibid.). Most of time, the Pakistani military has ruled the country either directly or indirectly, and feudal lords have large numbers of cronies in every community, so even when they lose an election, they are still communities’ front runners as a final authority in Sindh (ibid.).

The supporting informal elites to the landlord elites are the religious elites, the culture of ‘political Islam’, who run religious institutions known as Madressah or Darsgah. These religious elites exploit their position as their committed political constituencies and source of strength and power (Tunio and Nabi 2021). The existing informal rules have developed such structures, rules and operating standards through which they have managed the society (March and Olsen 2008).

We therefore need to understand the nature of the interaction between actors and institutions’ rules and norms which influence each other’s behaviour (Davies and Imbroscio 2009; Davies and Trounstine 2012).

Table 1 shows the interaction between the new decentralisation rules and the old informal rules. We are implicitly employing only (lower-left in Table 1) interaction between informal and formal decentralised rules to interpret our thesis.

Table 1 Interaction between new rules promoted by international donors and informal, locally distinct old rules and its impact on reform outcomes.
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We are implicitly trying to interpret our results in the approach of the lower left section of Table 1 in which the old rules are incongruent. In the case of Sindh, persistent corruption, clientelism, feudal lord elites and religious elites are hugely incongruent with the new formal rules which were supposed to be supported by the central state and local government authorities. As far as the actors of the local government institutions are concerned, they were local Sindhi elites (pirs, mirs and feudal landlords) and their yes-men. It is clear that the outcomes of the introduction of local government depend on the interaction between informal and formal rules (Ostrom 2019). In this circumstance, the deserving communities which were supposed to be supported by the new rules remained unaddressed.

Pakistani local governments in this context

Thus historically, the various local government reforms have frequently been exploited by these elites in Sindh. For example, whenever there has been a military coup in Pakistan, a military general has introduced local government under the guise of democracy (Cheema et al. 2005; Mohmand and Cheema 2007) and these local governments have been captured by the local elites to form a patron/client relationship with successive military dictators (Aslam 2019).

General Musharraf’s local government plan 2000

The Local Government Plan (2000) established a three-tier local government structure with Union Councils (UCs) at the lowest level, tehsil/town administration at the middle level and district government at the top level. Musharraf’s 2000 LGO created 6000 UCs, 334 tehsil councils, 62 town councils and 110 district governments, of which eight were recognised as city district governments.

For the first time in Pakistan, 33% of the seats were reserved for women, 5% for the marginalised classes (workers and peasants), and 5% for minority communities (Malik and Anjum 2006; Malik 2009; Nadeem 2016).

The tehsil and town councils were comprised of one tehsil nazim (mayor) and a tehsil naib nazim (deputy mayor) and 33% of the seats were reserved for women, 5% for peasants and workers and 5% for minorities. There were 21 seats in each UC divided into one nazim, one naib nazim, eight general Muslim seats for men and women, four seats specifically for Muslim women, four for peasants and workers (men and women), two seats specifically for male and for female peasants and workers, and one seat for minorities (Haider and Badami 2010; Malik and Anjum 2006; Malik 2009; Nadeem 2016).

Musharraf's government had asked three international donors, the Asian Development Bank, the World Bank and the UK’s Department for International Development, to review the Devolution Power Plan and offer advice on how it could contribute to improving service delivery throughout the country (Abbasi 2006, p. 71). The donor agencies expressed positive views of the proposed change in the country under the decentralisation reforms (Abbasi 2006). However, the fact of the matter was that the new local governments actually emboldened the local elites even more (Danquah et al. 2018).

Civilian local governments of 2013 and 2016

The main characteristic of this system is that it was the first time that local governments had been introduced under a civilian government in Pakistan (Rid and Murtaza 2018). The 2013 local government structure was implemented in 2016 with the purpose of enhancing local service delivery in Sindh. As a result of the Sindh Local Government Act 2013, one metropolitan corporation, ten municipal corporations, 23 district councils, 40 municipal committees, 139 town committees, 434 union committees (for urban areas) and 1064 UCs (for rural areas) were created (Azfar-ul-Ashfaque 2013; Murtaza 2017). In this system, the key functions which the 2001 system had devolved to the district governments were reassigned to the provincial governments and the taluka (sub-district) councils were missing, possibly because it might have been difficult for district councils to deal with so many rural councils spread all over the district (Azfar-ul-Ashfaque 2013; Rid and Murtaza 2018).

A single-tier system of town and municipal committees replaced the taluka councils in rural Sindh (Azfar-ul-Ashfaque 2013; Murtaza 2017; Rid and Murtaza 2018).

In the Sindh Local Government Act 2013, a new tier of union committees was added and the metropolitan and municipal corporations had these union committees as their lowest units of administration (Rid and Murtaza 2018). The system of local administration was divided into urban and rural regions. Urban local administration was allocated to union committees, town committees and municipal committees, and the UCs and district councils were in the rural regions (Kalia 2016; Government of Sindh 2013). The Sindh local government was criticised on many fronts. For example, it was regarded as a direct copy of the SLGO of 1979, which had been introduced by the previous military dictator, General Ziaul Haq (Murtaza 2017; Tambulasi 2011). The local bodies’ law was regarded as a sharp divide between the urban and the rural areas of Sindh. The current local government since 2016 has bypassed the mechanism of community-led groups which can mobilise poor communities to apply strong upward accountability pressure on the UCs and the higher tiers of the government (Murtaza 2017).

It has now become a cycle that whenever there is a local government introduced in Sindh, it is captured by local elites (Mohmand and Cheema 2007), and these local feudal lords offer unconditional support to the ruling military elites who exploit the democratic normative formal rules of decentralisation (Islam 2016).

These elites further consolidate their position by exploiting public resources. Tunio and Nabi (2021) highlighted that Pakistani society has been ruled through informal rules imposed by many elites, not only the military elites, landlord elites and religious elites which were discussed above, but also bureaucratic elites, the media and business class elites. Top-ranking Pakistani military officers have ruled the country either directly or indirectly since the creation of the country.

Research methodology

Research settings

Our priority was to select genuinely representative areas for this study. Despite the time and resource limitations, we selected examples of the urban and rural populations of Sindh, the second-largest province of Pakistan. We selected Larkana as an urban district and Kambar Shahdadkot as a rural district in Sindh. The province of Sindh has 28 districts. These districts’ governments were working under the guidelines of the specific Devolution Power Plan 2001. Across the province of Sindh, the LGO was more or less the same in function and infrastructure in all the districts, so due to financial constraints and a limited time frame, these two distinctly different districts were selected as a case study.Footnote 1

Sample

The rationale which we adopted was to recruit a representative sample in order to find a relevant source of information. Bryman (2016) advised that the logic for identifying an appropriate sample is to decide who is relevant to the topic. We decided that the most appropriate sources of information for this study were union councillors, including former members of CCBs, teachers from different education departments, the staff of organisations in the social development sector (non-governmental organisations), members of trade unions and the local business class, members of labour groups, relevant people from the judiciary, government officials, health-care staff who worked with the local governments, and university students in the two selected districts.

The purpose of employing qualitative data was to generate depth and uniqueness rather than breadth (Neuman 2015) because even a small sample of a population can provide a detailed account of the problem under investigation. Even so, we had more than 70 interviews with people from as many walks of life as possible (see Table 2).

Table 2 Profiles of the respondents.
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The representatives who participated in this study were purposefully selected to reflect the salient characteristics of the relevant populations in the two case study districts because Neuman (2015) and Bryman (2016) suggested that exploring some problems does not necessarily require informants of a particular kind, so there were little if any restrictions on who might participate.

Table 2 gives a detailed overview of the sample.

Data collection

As we were affiliated with the University of Bradford, it was mandatory to seek ethical approval for the study from the University’s Research Ethics Committee. The application for ethical approval was submitted in June 2019 and it was received in September 2019. The data collection was achieved through a questionnaire containing open-ended questions and 300 copies of the questionnaire were distributed. The questionnaire contained seven open-ended, qualitative questions designed to address the research objectives of a doctoral study. The respondents were required to write, describe and answer the questions qualitatively in empty boxes provided. This process was preceded by contacts with relevant potential participants. These contacts consisted of two phases: first by the researchers and then by a number of trained field assistants. The field assistants collected 150 completed questionnaires: a response rate of 50%.

Data analysis

The first stage of the data analysis was searching for recurring significant themes. We applied thematic analysis in three stages: open coding, a second pass of themes and final selective coding (Neuman 2015). In the first stage, we used open coding, in which statements were conceptualized in order to record the consistent sequences of recurring themes related to the research questions and objectives (Miles et al. 2014; Saunders et al. 2019). We then recorded the frequency, keeping the analysis unbiased and rigorous, of significant recurring themes. Table 3 gives a detailed overview of the frequency recording mechanism. Finally, according to the frequency distribution mechanism (Neuman 2015), we generated Table 4 to present the findings of the study.

Table 3 Method of frequency recording.
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Table 4 Key themes and issues identified in order of the volume of responses.
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Findings

Fifty-four respondents out of the seventy recruited reported that the systems in both periods had ignored public interests: Musharraf had recruited local elites to strengthen his military regime. Furthermore, thirty-seven respondents mentioned frequently that the rulers did not want to share power at the grass-roots level. Eleven respondents said that both local governments were corrupt and that public participation was therefore completely ignored.

Presentation of respondents’ voices

The findings are presented in three different sections to show how settings of informal institutions impede public involvement and influence decision-making at the community level.

Clientelism and scope of the public participation

This study looks at the scope of community participation in a decentralised system in the presence of persistent informal institutional settings and how these factors fostered the preconditions needed for public empowerment. During our analysis, one issue which we identified was that decentralisation was handed over to local elites by the military regimes and those feudal lords in return promised their loyalty to the central authorities. For example, one respondent spoke about the local government system which was introduced by a military government:

The people who got jobs during Musharraf's period admired the Musharraf system. In other words, some policies were not pro-public. During this period, water supply, streets, drainage and electricity were all the responsibilities of local councils. (CCB member, Kambar Shahdadkot)

This response shows that wadera (Sindhi tribal chiefs) were always looking to support military coups and thus come into and sustain their power. This trend is not formally defined. In other words, it follows unwritten informal rules. This informality gave birth to a patron/client system during local governments introduced by the two authoritarian regimes. This indicates that there was a consistent collision between the interests of the rulers and those of the underprivileged masses in Sindh. The rulers at the state level need the cooperation of other ruling groups at lower levels to remain in power. The following response illustrates the reality of this:

Under Musharraf’s local government system, they [the system] brought one type of class [the elites who act as if they are sacred] which was miles away from the common population. To expect positive support from these feudal lords is like asking for fruits from Acacia plants. I do not think that they would invite public participation. (Employee of the education department, Kambar Shahdadkot)

This shows that military and local elites had close mutual support and cooperation. It is a fact that in a predatory state, even dictators need support from other groups who are interested in power capture for their own purposes. It is interesting that in such a scenario, there was no interaction between the local communities and the state. The majority of the local governments simply strengthened already powerful classes. When the supreme leader (a military general in these two cases) and corrupt politicians are on the same page, the public interest is of the lowest importance. Furthermore, the next response shows that the members of the ruling class who had been exploiting the informal rules would not let the fair rule of law take place.

The Musharraf government was a dictatorship and it was not possible that the public would have been given a voice. The wadera were always ready to come into power. Once they got involved in corruption, they continued to ignore public services; now every village and town appears like a ruined region. (Local government employee, Kambar Shahdadkot)

This shows that if a state develops a big rift between itself and its ordinary citizens, any change of governance is unlikely to improve the lives of the underprivileged class. It seems that such rulers have no intention of serving the citizens.

Hostile informal governmentality and expectations for community participation

Another common theme in the statements of the respondents was that the rulers (landlord elites, religious elites and local political elites) were not happy with the introduction of formal democratic rules of decentralisation which were meant to encourage public participation and community empowerment. This shows the hostility between the expected democratic rule and the deep-rooted informal governmentality where feudal lords and religious elites manipulate communities. The next extract refers to this:

However, in these two periods of local councils, community participation remained the least focus of attention; the common public and common citizens were deliberately kept away from the local councils' activities. (Councillor (2000–2009), Kambar Shahdadkot)

The respondent reported that public participation was deliberately stopped by the local powerholders. The factor behind this discouragement was that the elites wished to continue their dominancy through the old traditional rules. The cancellation of public participation was the process of the marginalisation of the already underprivileged people of Sindh. The respondent quoted above commented that the expectation that decentralisation would bring accountability through public participation would be quite a fool's paradise. Another respondent stated:

Democracy or a public elected government is a showpiece. If there is a public government, there should not be the destruction of the general public. They have no sympathy or sincerity for the poor public. The biggest irony is that there is no system of checks, audits and inquiries in this system. (Teacher, Kambar Shahdadkot)

This respondent pointed out that there is only the ‘unrule of law’. As far as the formal democratic rules are expected to contribute positive accountability, they are only window-dressing for the international funding organisations. The fact is that the rules under which the society operates are those representing the dominance of the military, feudal lords and religious elites who are favoured by the elites of Sindh. This is a prime example showing how old informal rules are hostile to democracy and accountability through decentralisation. For example, the following respondent spoke about how the old rules were being reinforced:

The local governments served the interests of the ruling class. The current system is the continuity of Musharraf's local councils. There is no difference between these systems because the common public is in the same troubles and pains as it had been before. (Teacher, education department, Kambar Shahdadkot)

The local governments merely served the interests of the powerholders. For example, the Sindhi nazims redirected funds to their relatives, friends and supporters. All attempts at introducing local governments have had the same outcomes—serving these elites. This shows that local governments were a source of competition between the democratic normative rules and the already operating old informal traditions of Sindhi society:

Both periods did not provide any participatory developments to the common public. The main formula of the local institutions is that once the public has access to the responsible institutions, the public will be able to make them accountable. This is the main reason why the common public is not allowed to participate in policy implementation. (Businessman, Kambar Shahdadkot)

This is a clear incongruency between the formal normative rules that if the people are empowered, they would demand the rule of law and equity and justice in the allocation of funds, but the ruling elites are against that kind of development, so it is not allowed to happen because of the fear that there could be mass agitation and mass protests. The ruling class therefore prefers to create a distance between itself and the common public:

The reason for saying this is that the people who are in local councils are enemies of the common citizen, and their own interests are more attractive [to them] than serving the common citizen. (Shopkeeper, Kambar Shahdadkot)

This respondent reported that powerholders feel threatened by the common public. This is because once the common masses are empowered, the corrupt administrators might not be able to exploit public funds any more. As far as Asif Ali Zardari's local government system was concerned, it ruined the public order and infrastructure. There was a huge gap between common citizens and local rulers and being in government was seen solely as a means for the rulers to become rich rather than to serve their constituencies.

In all departments, the poor deserving citizens are kept away. The benefits of the governance are given to those who are their own people, and they often try to bring the big men (the rich politicians, feudal lords and local elites) into power. This is because the big men deliberately give benefits only to their supporters and those who are very close to them. Therefore, the deserving poor is given nothing. (University student, District Larkana)

The respondent commented that there were two common practices of the powerholders: first, the ordinary citizens had been kept at a distance and second, people close to the local rulers were brought into the mainstream of the development. This reflects the incongruency between public participation and local informal institutionalism. These are the hidden and unspoken rules of hostility towards public participation.

Corruption: an informal setting of patronage

Patronage meant making their own people rich and giving favours to those who supported the corrupt system because the powerless community did not have the strength to challenge the corrupt system:

During the local civilian government, their conformers were given benefits by the pirs, mirs and feudal lords. So we cannot expect that without being their yes-men (conformers), they will give us any developmental support … our political culture is that it always benefits those who are supporters and part of their corruption. They always try to enrich their life; they have a rare opportunity. (Law student, Larkana)

This respondent said that the local governments were simply practices of favouritism and patronage. Nazims developed supporting networks of those who were their conformers. Thus the normal rules of merit-based allocation of budgets were ignored.

The next respondent described how development projects were not given to deserving citizens but to a corrupt network of feudal lords. It was common among the local government institutions that local officials' support should not be on a basis of need or priority but on favouritism. From this response, it appears that it was the informal, hidden policy of the local elites to support and strengthen their network:

There was only wadera shahee (feudal lordship), meaning the uncontrolled misuse of power, and pahja nawazan (redirecting funds, facilities, development and jobs to their own supporters, relatives, and partners in corruption). (NGO worker, Larkana)

This respondent said that wadera shahee (local elitism) meant that no-one could hold them accountable to the common citizens. This meant that they were completely uncontrolled and that they could redirect the available funds wherever they wanted. The following respondent stated that ordinary citizens were kept at a distance from all public development. Whenever local powerholders captured the decentralised power, they used the funds for their own interests instead of a merit-based distribution of resources:

Common citizens were kept apart from all the services of the local government. But when they came into power, they left no stone unturned to steal the available funds of the local government. It appeared that they would never have the opportunity again and that it was the last chance. The corruption was open to everyone. (Teacher in the education department, Larkana)

This respondent indicated in this response that the local government authorities had been waiting for the opportunity of coming into power as a monster waits for the time to strike. The local government reforms were considered a golden opportunity by the local elites. The available funds were considered fair game as the local representatives would never have a second chance for bribery, corruption, nepotism and favouritism. In this situation, the common people had no option but to work with and support the corrupt nazims and naib nazims:

In this feudal culture, the policy is to enrich those who are the supporters of the corrupt system. This is the commonest policy—to enrich their own people: supporters, yes-men and partners in illegal governance. But the downtrodden citizen is confined to voting and hatred. (Law student, Larkana)

This respondent shed light on the widespread informal rules, the qualifying criterion for local government development which is to be a part of a corrupt network directly or indirectly. The socio-cultural discourse is that if the poor citizens do not have links with the local ruling elites, they are condemned to be ignored. The rule has become part of a corrupt government and supports its illegal activities.

Discussion

In this article, we have empirically explored the potential of formal rules in the presence of the persistent informal settings in which Sindhi society was already engaged. First, it is evident that the local government power was distributed on the basis of patron/client relationships in which local elites offered unconditional support to the non-democratic regimes. Although these decentralisation reforms theoretically promised merit-based participation and development in the local communities, in reality the local elites captured local power in return for giving their loyalty to dictatorship regimes.

Furthermore, our findings are in line with earlier observations (Botes and Rensburg 2000; Rafique and Khoo 2018) that elites thwart the potential of decentralisation to engage deserving communities in the development process. Citizens are forced to join various networks in informal settings simply for their survival because of the prevalence of absolute poverty (Mukherjee 2016).

Due to the pressure of these informal settings (Davies and Trounstine 2012), the findings show that when informal rules are incongruent with new formal rules, the local government outcomes show little improvement. These mechanisms happened in Pakistan, where the common citizens who were supposed to benefit from the new formal rules based on merit and justice were not in a position to challenge the corrupt local elites who had been ruling through the informal old rules, so they had no other options or opportunities.

As far as the role of decentralisation in public participation is concerned, our findings are in line with those of Rafique and Khoo (2018) on CCBs, who similarly found that these organisations are simply handicapped by the reinforcing attitude of elite groups. This is because the elite groups act as an institution amongst the poor communities and continue to use informal settlements to adapt very well to monopolise the information medium between the poverty-ridden masses and the formal agencies (Botes and Rensburg 2000).

The findings also confirm those of Dauti (2017) that local government organisations are political spaces which promote the interests of elites and their conformers who share their ties with them. Therefore, the local dominant class has a great deal of difficulty in sharing power with the ordinary citizens (Kim 2021).

In such a situation where the elite groups are reluctant to share their power with their marginalised citizens, the formal normative expectations which are promoted by development scholars (Pickering and Jusić 2018) provide little improvement.

Therefore, in this context, if the informal institutions are not addressed before supporting the local government reforms, the informal institutions can be stronger because they will be practised more aggressively (Zenger et al. 2000; Mattingly 2016). For example, by the strengthening of these informal rules which are incongruent with the local government’s expectations of the merit-based allocation of funds and genuine public participation, the non-corrupt civil society is condemned to merge into the corrupt networks of the local authorities (Crook and Manor 1998; Gaynor 2014).

Conclusion

This study has shown that due to the continuing existence of old informal rules, public participation cannot be expected. Furthermore, it is very likely that decentralisation will only strengthen the dynamic actors of locally distinct informal rules because when formal rules normatively promote the rule of law and the genuine empowerment of ordinary citizens, it is a warning sign for elites, who consequently make themselves stronger, and more incongruent informal rules can become even more aggressive.

Thus formal rules were theoretically quite threatening to the hegemonies of these exploiting elites in Sindh. The consequences of those structures are that the state institutions were hijacked or controlled by these military, feudal and religious elites, so ordinary citizens have no choice but to join the corrupt networks through the mechanisms of patronage and favouritism.

The implication is that the international donor organizations must establish more effective mechanisms which can overcome informal rules and old entrenched institutions opposed to new reforms. Finally, in order to achieve substantial accountability and democratic participation, it is quite important that international donors who sponsor local government reforms should, before launching or funding the decentralisation reforms, pay careful attention to how the old informal rules are likely to interact with the new rules which they are going to fund in a country such as Pakistan, where there are various antagonistic social and political structures. Further research must examine how these incongruent informal institutions should be converted into congruent ones and how to address each one individually.