From environmental governance to climate citizenship
Rethinking state authority, climate vulnerability and conflict dynamics in Pakistan
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.35295/osls.iisl.2556Keywords:
environmental governance, Climate Citizenship, Environmental policy, Pakistan, institutional fragmentationAbstract
This article reconceptualizes climate change in Pakistan not merely as an environmental issue but as a profound challenge to state authority, citizenship, and political belonging. It addresses the gap between Pakistan’s extensive climate policy framework and the state’s limited capacity to protect vulnerable populations due to fragmented governance, weak enforcement, and the absence of a rights-based approach. Using doctrinal legal analysis, policy review, institutional mapping, and interviews with key informants, the study examines the interaction between constitutional provisions, environmental laws, disaster management regimes, and social protection systems. The findings show that climate-induced displacement, resource insecurity, and livelihood disruption are generating new forms of precarious citizenship largely unrecognized within Pakistan’s legal and administrative structure. The article argues that effective climate resilience requires institutional reform and constitutional recognition of climate-vulnerable populations as full political subjects, contributing to global debates on climate change, rights, and state-society relations in the Global South more broadly.
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