SMOKERS’ CORNER: REVOLUTION TO NOWHERE?

In 2007, the so-called ‘Lawyers’ Movement’ in Pakistan mobilised immense pressure against then military ruler Gen Pervez Musharraf to reinstate Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, whom Musharraf had arbitrarily dismissed. Backed by opposition parties, these protests catalysed a somewhat ‘fair’ 2008 general election, which brought the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) to power, closely followed by the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N).

Leveraging their combined parliamentary majority, the two major parties threatened impeachment unless Musharraf relinquished power and retired. He complied, signalling a victory for the protest movement. However, this success was short-lived. What followed was the reinstatement of a judge who began to practice overt judicial populism and hound the fragile PPP ruling coalition, alongside a military establishment led by Gen Pervez Kayani.

In fact, some political commentators have suggested that Kayani had quietly allowed the Lawyers’ Movement to mushroom as a way to force Musharraf to hand over the post of army chief to him. The PPP coalition faced severe judicial populism from Chaudhry, constant bullying from Kayani’s military establishment, unprecedented terror attacks from Islamist militants and an opposition that jumped on these bandwagons. It was a chaotic period.

This episode illustrates a classic example of how ‘horizontal movements’ are capable of removing a powerful political figure and even a government, yet almost always fail to produce structural change. Musharraf’s fall actually worsened matters because the problematic political and economic structures not only remained intact but deepened.

Decentralised movements can mobilise millions without a central command, but their greatest strength can also become their greatest weakness. Once the common enemy disappears, what holds the movement together?

Horizontal movements are decentralised forms of social and political activism that operate without a traditional hierarchical leadership. Unlike top-down organisations with a central command system, horizontal movements rely on spontaneous mobilisation, peer-to-peer collaboration and consensus-based decision-making.

These movements often bring together diverse groups, ranging from professional associations and student outfits to ordinary citizens and opposition parties, united by a common grievance against an authority figure or regime. Their lack of a single leader makes them difficult to suppress, as there is no single figurehead to arrest or negotiate with.

But according to the American sociologists F. Fox Piven and Richard Cloward, while horizontal movements can become effective catalysts for challenging authority and dismantling regimes, their decentralised nature introduces several disadvantages. These vulnerabilities often explain why such movements succeed in disruption but fail in reconstruction.

In 2017, the political theorists Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri wrote that horizontal movements suffer from a lack of unified vision. Due to the fact that participants unite against a common grievance rather than a shared ideology, internal cracks quickly emerge once the shared enemy is removed, leaving groups deeply divided on how to govern. Such movements lack institutional depth. Mainstream political parties have chains of command and administrative experience, whereas horizontal movements struggle to transition from street-level protest to sustainable governance. This vacuum is often exploited by entrenched state institutions and governments.

Yet, ever since the 1990s, horizontal movements have overtaken the concept of ‘vertical movements’ that rely on hierarchies, central party leadership and top-down command structures to effect social and political change.

Historically, vertical movements have a better record of enforcing structural changes. Some general examples in this regard include anti-colonial independence struggles led by disciplined party structures and organised labour movements backed by union hierarchies. These demonstrated a much stronger capacity to build institutional machinery, seize state power and enforce lasting structural and legal changes..

Most political scientists posit that vertical movements have largely fallen out of favour due to a widespread disillusionment with traditional political parties, governments and labour unions, making people deeply sceptical of top-down leadership. The Spanish sociologist Manuel Castells believes that the rise of the internet, social media and encrypted communication platforms enables swift, decentralised coordination without requiring a central committee or formal organisation.

Recent research suggests that horizontal structures are valued for being faster to form and more welcoming to diverse groups, as participants do not need to submit to party discipline or ideological doctrines. The barrier to participation is lower, making it much easier for individuals to join a spontaneous, decentralised protest or online campaign than to commit to the long-term, disciplined membership required by traditional vertical structures.

Over the past two decades, nearly all major uprisings have been organised along horizontal lines. On the surface, these movements are frequently deemed successful and their impact receives sensationalist coverage in both mainstream and social media. Yet, the failure of horizontally organised movements to enact structural change is rarely scrutinised.

While these movements have succeeded in removing unpopular leaders and, in some cases, entire governments, these victories merely create vacuums that are swiftly filled by entrenched powers, particularly when these powers successfully replicate and co-opt the tenor, slogans and even participants of the original movements.

The Arab Spring uprisings are a case in point. Across several countries in the Middle East and North Africa, decentralised horizontal networks successfully toppled long-standing authoritarian rulers, such as in Tunisia and Egypt. However, because these movements lacked well-thought-out alternatives, apart from abstract demands and slogans, the ensuing political vacuums were initially filled by organised Islamist groups and then by entrenched military institutions that co-opted the rhetoric of the uprisings.

In the United States, the left-leaning ‘Occupy Wall Street’ movement captured global attention and mainstream media coverage regarding economic inequality following the 2008 financial crisis. According to the American political scientist John Ehrenberg, since the movement was horizontal, it struggled to translate street-level momentum into lasting legislative policy, leaving existing financial and political structures entirely intact, while mainstream political parties later absorbed parts of its populist rhetoric for electoral campaigns. In the early 2010s, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in India and the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) in Pakistan also did exactly that.

In developing countries, the expansion of the middle class is another factor that has popularised the growth of horizontal movements. Rising educational attainment, urbanisation and access to digital technology have created a population with higher expectations for governance, transparency and personal autonomy.

Unlike traditional working-class movements tied to union hierarchies or rural-agrarian networks, this growing urban middle class in developing countries often feels alienated by supposedly fossilised political parties and state institutions. They prefer flexible, decentralised networks that reflect their modern interconnected lifestyles and allow them to mobilise around specific grievances without submitting to traditional party discipline.

Their initiatives in this regard are as much political endeavours as they are performative and aesthetic. While these movements can, and often do, succeed in removing ministers and governments, when their participants are basking in the glow of victory, entrenched state institutions are often already filling the vacuum left unaddressed by horizontal movements.

Structural and sustained institutional reconstruction demands a lot more energy and (offline) effort.  Middle-class horizontal movements seem to be hesitant in this regard. Perhaps because the overarching desire is to become a part of the entrenched elites in the future?

Published in Dawn, EOS, August 23rd, 2026