Pakistan: Identity in Foreign Policy and Anti-Westernism

Abstract

This article aims at dealing with different dimensions of Pakistan’s foreign policy, particularly the challenges to it during and after the Cold War. These challenges were mostly unilateral in the sense that Pakistan was captive to the grand American design in the Middle East and in Western Asia. There is much anti-American and anti-Western rhetoric by right-wing parties, both religious and non-religious, particularly after 9/11. The article attempts on developing an understanding on identity constructions that accompanied the Pakistani foreign policy collaboration with USA., the research seeks to understand what national identity constructions were attempted by the Pakistani foreign policymaking elite in the context of a foreign policy convergence between Pakistan and the USA. Therefore, examines the contradictions in the attempts at identity construction that how Pakistan the pursuit of security and consequent policy is accompanied by certain identity constructions highlighting the conformity non-conformity" of the element of "anti-western.