Once again, the civilian military relationship in Pakistan is on the rocks. The newspaper columns and the TV studios are conjecturing the friction between the establishment and the elected government, while some venturing as far as to speculate the possibility of a repetition of the events of October 1999 . Though every nation experiences a different course of institutional development, some traits are common among many. Weak democracies overshadowed by strong establishments is a story not just unique to Pakistan, but many nations have struggled hard to achieve political civility and maturity.
In many parts of the world, hard-won freedoms are in jeopardy. The Arab spring, once blossomed in the heart of Cairo, has been crushed under the tracks of General Sisi's tanks. In Thailand, the democratic process has twice stalled in the last eight years. And in Pakistan, the establishment has once again flexed its muscles, demonstrating its street power and re-establishing its preponderance over the country's security and foreign policy.
This raises the question as to what causes democracies to fail and revert back to the old order?  The answer perhaps lies with the explanation presented by the German Sociologist Robert Michels. In 1911, Michels published his work "Political Parties" , espousing his famous "Iron law of oligarchy", according to which, all organizations, including the democratic ones, eventually fall victim to elite rule. In other words, the structure of modern organizations, determined by its institutional setup, makes them susceptible to oligarchic rule. Even when nations make a transition to self rule, the institutional framework persists, turning democratically elected leaders into autocrats, eventually overthrown by other oligarchs.
Egypt is the most stark example of this principle. George Orwell aptly said, "One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes a revolution in order to establish a dictatorship." The revolution of Tahrir square was bound to end either under the ideological tyranny of the Muslim Brotherhood or under the iron fist of General Sisi. Revolutionaries removed a regime but left those levers and cogs in place that resulted in the abomination at the first place.
 Since 1952, Egypt has only witnessed dictatorship. Gamal Abdel Naser inherited institutions of King Farouk, which were bequeathed to Sadat and Mubarak. Against this backdrop, when President Morsi of the Muslim brotherhood took over, like his predecessors, he tried to increase his powers through constitutional changes, precipitating a crisis, ending with the bloodshed and military takeover.
Similarly in Thailand, since 1932, the country has witnessed twelve military coups. Traditionally Thailand has been ruled by a small urban elite (royalists) supported by the urban middle class.  This class has dominated the political and economic systems of the country. The status quo was challenged by Thaksin Shinawatra in 2001, who took over on the basis of popular rural support.
Thaksin opened up economic avenues, earlier closed to the marginalized rural Thai majority. However, he also inherited a set of institutions, favoring an autocratic government, a style his leadership largely assumed, embroiling in corruption and human rights abuses and triggering a backlash culminating in  his ouster. The relations between military and Shinawatra's never improved and last month, the distrust cost them another government.
In the case of Pakistan, we inherited a centralized colonial institutional structure, requiring a specialized civil-military elite. The leadership crisis and the democratic deficit during the early days, led civil military elite to strengthen its hold onto the state, and this setup has persisted to date. Nearly every civilian leader has used some sort of establishment's support to obtain power.
Because our democratically elected leaders owe their power to colonial institutions, no democratic regime has ever tried reforming the fundamentals of statehood. The autocratic style of governance, dynastic politics, lack of consensus on a national level, concentration of power, are all symptomatic of the oligarchy, be it with or without uniform.
No country can reap the democratic dividends unless it undertakes serious institutional reform. For a strong democracy, power has to be distributed broadly. When many stakeholders are involved, the size of each piece of the pie shrinks, but eventually the pie becomes larger and everyone defends the game, when it is threatened. We might spend billions on motorways or metro bus services, but it would amount to little if we don't address the institutional weaknesses.
Our politicians will never reform institutions, which are better suited for a colony rather than for a democratic nation. It will only happen when voters demand such reforms, holding their leaders to account. As long as we vote for multi-billion showcase projects, with dubious utility, this is all we will get. We suffer from institutional malaise, and without such reforms, one cannot hope Pakistan will become a functional democracy.

The writer is a freelance columnist and has worked as a broadcast journalist.