Muhammad Aftab Khan and Dr. Muhammad Asim

Islamabad — The research collective Rehmat and Maryam Researches Islamabad, in collaboration with political scholar Muhammad Aftab Khan, has extended the application of its newly developed framework, Militarised Constructivist Institutionalism (MCI), to a range of conflict-affected states including Afghanistan, Iran, Sudan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Myanmar, South Sudan and Sri Lanka. This conceptual advancement, first designed to explain Pakistan’s borderland governance, now provides a broader analytical tool for understanding how military institutions across diverse contexts shape political identity, control narratives of legitimacy, and institutionalise securitised governance under the pretext of stability and national unity.

In Afghanistan, the MCI framework illustrates how decades of militarisation and external intervention have embedded security logic into every layer of governance. Military actors, whether state-affiliated or non-state, have transformed the idea of nationhood into a battlefield narrative centred on loyalty, threat, and religious legitimacy. Through this model, Afghan politics appear less as a contest between civilian and militant forces and more as a process where institutions normalise conflict as part of daily governance. MCI explains how security-driven governance has eroded community autonomy, turning development, education, and humanitarian aid into instruments of control, ensuring the continuation of a militarised political order even after international withdrawal.

In Iran, MCI highlights how the Revolutionary Guard’s influence transcends the boundaries of conventional defence. The framework interprets the Guard’s control over economic enterprises, education, and political appointments as part of a deliberate institutionalisation of securitised nationalism. The state’s ability to merge ideological loyalty with military discipline aligns directly with MCI’s principle that identity and governance are co-constructed through security structures. It demonstrates that Iran’s governance operates through a fusion of ideological constructivism and structural militarisation, producing a durable political order where dissent is reframed as a threat to divine and national integrity.

The situation in Sudan further validates the explanatory reach of MCI. The alternating cycles of civilian and military rule reveal how security institutions sustain legitimacy through repeated reconstruction of political identity. Each phase of transition, rather than dissolving military power, has reinforced its structural permanence. MCI interprets the Sudanese state as one where security institutions have redefined nationalism through control of religion, ethnicity, and regional identity, effectively creating a governance pattern that substitutes democratic transition with militarised continuity. Development initiatives, peace talks, and resource-sharing mechanisms are all viewed through securitised narratives that prioritise control over reconciliation.

In Iraq, the framework demonstrates how post-2003 state-building entrenched militarisation as an organising principle of governance. Competing militias and security forces have produced fragmented yet interdependent structures of authority. Through MCI’s lens, Iraq’s reconstruction becomes an institutionalisation of insecurity, where governance operates through militarised patronage networks rather than civilian legitimacy. The framework explains how identity politics — sectarian, ethnic and regional — are not spontaneous social outcomes but products of deliberate security engineering aimed at maintaining fragmented stability. Iraq thereby exemplifies how militarised institutions shape political order under the guise of rebuilding the state.

Libya’s post-Gaddafi turmoil also aligns closely with MCI’s theoretical foundations. The disintegration of central authority gave rise to competing military blocs that embedded security narratives into local governance. The framework explains how each militia redefines political belonging, transforming identity into a weapon of legitimacy. MCI shows that in Libya, governance no longer depends on ideology but on the institutional capacity to securitise space and control economic flows. It captures the ongoing cycle in which reconstruction efforts and peace processes are manipulated by armed actors to reinforce militarised authority rather than replace it.

In Syria, MCI provides a clear understanding of how state survival has been ensured through the fusion of security apparatus and social engineering. The Assad government’s endurance is explained not simply by force but by the institutionalisation of loyalty, where security services regulate identity, religion, and even humanitarian access. MCI reveals that the Syrian conflict evolved from a rebellion into a system of governance that normalises perpetual emergency. This approach demonstrates how the militarised state can reconstruct legitimacy through control of discourse and institutional endurance, turning survival into a form of governance.

In Myanmar, the MCI framework dissects how the military junta converts nationalist discourse into a structural foundation for continued dominance. It interprets the Army’s portrayal of ethnic insurgencies as existential threats as part of a long-standing institutional logic that equates national unity with military authority. By integrating propaganda, development policy, and constitutional control, the Myanmar state has embedded militarisation into civic identity. MCI therefore identifies a self-perpetuating governance cycle in which democratic gestures exist only to legitimise the permanence of military control.

The case of South Sudan presents another striking validation. Despite independence being framed as liberation, the ruling elite’s reliance on military structures has converted sovereignty into a continuation of armed governance. MCI captures how leadership legitimacy is constructed through narratives of security and sacrifice rather than political consensus. Development funds, peace agreements, and tribal representation are absorbed into the institutional logic of militarisation, ensuring that governance remains dependent on control through force and loyalty.

Finally, Sri Lanka serves as a model for post-conflict militarisation analysed through MCI. After the end of the civil war, the expansion of the military into civilian sectors redefined development, culture, and national identity. The framework reveals how the government converted victory into a legitimising myth, merging security and governance into one apparatus of control. Through MCI’s lens, post-war reconstruction becomes less about recovery and more about the consolidation of a securitised national order, where the military’s role in politics, economy, and education becomes a permanent feature of statehood.

Hence, these examples show how Militarised Constructivist Institutionalism, first exhibited by Rehmat and Maryam Researches Islamabad in partnership with Muhammad Aftab Khan, transcends national boundaries. It now stands as a global analytical model for understanding how military institutions construct, maintain and legitimise power across diverse societies. From the deserts of Sudan to the mountains of Afghanistan, and from the streets of Baghdad to the coasts of Colombo, this Islamabad-born theory redefines how the world perceives militarisation — not as a response to insecurity, but as a deliberate architecture of governance and identity.