Why the Pakistan army is here to stay: prospects for civilian governance

This article explores the prospects for civilian governance over Pakistan's military in the policy‐relevant future. After reviewing the Pakistan army's past interference in the country's judicial and political affairs, it turns to the ongoing political maneuvering of the current Chief of Army Staff, General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, despite Pakistan's ostensible democratic dispensation. The article dilates on the impact of US engagement on the robustness of the Pakistan army's dominance and questions the newfound US commitment to promoting democratization and civilian control. The article argues that while conventional wisdom places the onus disproportionately upon the military's penchant for interventionism, the army has intervened only with the active assistance of civilian institutions, which are subsequently further eroded with every military takeover. It concludes with a consideration of whether or not genuine civilian control would result in a significant change in Pakistan's foreign and domestic policies, particularly Pakistan's well‐known utilization of Islamist militants in India and Afghanistan.     

SEALED SILVER IN IRON AGE CISJORDAN AND THE 'INVENTION' OF COINAGE

Summary. Recent finds of hoarded silver in Cisjordan present new material for the consideration of the conceptual history of coined metals. When the fundamental concepts associated with coinage are abstracted from the various objects that express them, it is possible to see that a kind of coined metal existed in Cisjordan and other parts of the Near East prior to the traditional 'invention' of coinage by the Lydians and Greeks c. 600 BC. ¹ Both hoards and written sources indicate that seals affixed to precious metals at times qualified them in a numismatic sense by guaranteeing weights set to standards as well as controlled composition. What has been characterized as the 'invention' of coinage was rather an adaptation of these same principal concepts. The frequency and size of silver hoards from Cisjordan point to a proliferation in the 'monetary' use of silver in that region during the Iron Age and suggest a relationship to the overwhelming preference for silver coinages among the Greeks.