Politics of Defection in Struggling Democracies

Abstract

Politics of defection has remained one of the major constituents of struggling democracies like Pakistan, rendering it impossible to indoctrinate democratic values in political fabric of society. This article attempts to study the phenomenon of defection in order to understand the effects that it can have on political parties. Being an exploratory study, grounded theory was employed using fifteen extensive interviews in addition to data from ten newspapers to study the process. The findings highlighted that the politics of defection triggers a process of identity-change in political parties that are striving to challenge the status quo. This practice of identity-switch results in fragmentation within the political parties thereby obstructing the process of democratization. The analysis yielded that effective decision making in political parties by reducing the gap between their stated intentions and pursued goals can be a viable tool for democratization to be successful. ______