When the British dismantled their Raj in 1947 India, as the 'successor' state, inherited the colonial unitary central apparatus whereas Pakistan, as the 'seceding' state, had no semblance of a central government. In The State of Martial Rule Ayesha Jalal analyses the dialectic between state construction and political processes in Pakistan in the first decade of the country's independence and convincingly demonstrates how the imperatives of the international system in the 'cold war' era combined with regional and domestic factors to mould the structure of the Pakistani state. The study concludes by placing the state and political developments in Pakistan since 1958 within a conceptual framework. It will be read by historians of South Asia and by students and specialists of comparative politics and political economy.

当英国人在1947年解散他们的统治时，印度作为 "继承国 "继承了殖民主义的单一中央机器，而巴基斯坦作为 "分离国"，没有中央政府的影子。在《戒严状态》中，Ayesha Jalal分析了巴基斯坦独立后头十年的国家建设和政治进程之间的辩证关系，并令人信服地证明了 "冷战 "时代国际体系的要求是如何与地区和国内因素相结合，塑造巴基斯坦的国家结构的。该研究的结论是将1958年以来巴基斯坦的国家和政治发展置于一个概念性框架内。南亚历史学家以及比较政治和政治经济学的学生和专家将阅读此书。