Final Year Project

Project Title

Social Capital and Student Unions: The Case of Pakistan's Disenfranchised Youth

Description

This paper adopts the institutional view of social capital to: a) argue that the reason why student unions in Pakistan, specifically Karachi, declined was because of the deteriorating quality of state institutions during that time; b) indicate how Zia's decision to outlaw student unions destroyed the social capital of the country's youth in both academic and non-academic spheres, resulting in their disenfranchisement and deplatforming, which, in hindsight, can be used to explain the political drought that Pakistan is experiencing; and c) analyze the shift that occurred in the social capital of student union members after their activities were rendered illegitimate by the state.