International Journal of Policy Studies

THE NEW WORLD ORDER AND FUTURE OF ASIA

2026-07-07T18:38:55+00:00

Asia is the largest geographical economy in the world, and its importance will grow as its economic levels of trade, innovation, cultural interaction, and population movement rise. The next phase of globalization will be driven and shaped by Asia in what has been aptly named the Asian Century. Policymakers need to be ready to succeed in the Asian Century despite the hazards and challenges that Asia is currently experiencing. To be relevant in Asia, they must address environmental issues, bridge skill gaps, and improve institutional capabilities. They also need to reevaluate the Asian operating model and begin constructing a better framework for intraregional cooperation, such as a successful dispute resolution system and increased facilitation of non-trade flows. Through the prism of the 21st century, this study tries to analyze the age of Asia's emergence while taking into account its causes, its consequences on world order, and the problems that this entails for Asia, in addition to other international actors.

INSTITUTIONAL DECAY AND DEMOCRATIC EROSION IN A DELEGATIVE DEMOCRACY

2026-07-07T19:13:31+00:00

The research investigates Pakistan's institutional collapse and democratic breakdown through Guillermo O’Donnell's (1994) delegative democracy theory during 2018-2025. The Imran Khan administration which ruled from 2018 to 2022 followed by the PDM coalition that governed from 2022 to 2023 and the difficult period following the 2024 election represent a critical juncture for Pakistan's democratic progress. The research shows that political instability developed through a feedback system which started with institutional failure which caused democratic breakdown which then destroyed institutional trust from the public. The research employs qualitative document analysis together with critical discourse analysis to demonstrate how three vital democratic institutions lost their authority which resulted in Pakistan's democratic system depending on delegation instead of citizen involvement. The research determines Pakistan's position through its analysis of hybrid regimes according to Adeney (2017) and judicial dual-survivalism theory from Abbas & Patro (2024). The research indicates that democratic backsliding requires more than electoral modifications because it needs a full transformation of military-civilian relations and institutional protection systems and increased citizen participation in political activities.

ALGORITHMIC AMPLIFICATION OF GENDERED CONTENT ON SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS

2026-07-09T14:01:40+00:00

The present paper discusses the multifaceted and two-way relationship between social media platforms and the reconfiguration of gender norms in modern society. It builds on the theory of gendered performativity presented by Butler and Foucaultian analytics of disciplinary power, and critical platform studies to assert that social media both deconstructs the gender binary and produces novel and commodified modes of normative femininity and masculinity. This paper is an analysis of Instagram, TikTok, Twitter/X and YouTube as the locations of gendered self-representation, community organizing and political struggle. It takes into account future opportunities of queer and feminist online communities and reactionary gender politics of the manosphere and algorithmic prioritization of gender-normative media. Social media is not a place of gender liberation or even blatant patriarchal reinscription, but a battlefield upon which contrary gender projects are played out, negotiated and monetised.

HOUSEHOLD-LEVEL TARGETING UNDER WATER RATIONING POLICY

2026-07-09T14:12:43+00:00

Uniform water rationing remains a dominant policy response to groundwater scarcity in Punjab’s agricultural sector. While administratively simple, such policies overlook substantial heterogeneity in farm structure, crop choice, and realized productivity across households, leading to misallocation and avoidable output losses. This paper develops a household-level matching framework that ranks agricultural households for priority access to irrigation under rationing regimes using a small set of observable characteristics. Drawing on microdata from the 77th Round of the Situation Assessment of Agricultural Households (2019), restricted to Punjab, the study constructs a composite heterogeneity score combining realized crop output, cropping intensity, and land fragmentation. Households are classified into priority tiers that can be directly mapped onto differentiated rationing rules, such as variations in pumping hours. Rather than offering causal identification, the framework provides a transparent, low-cost screening tool that can improve allocative efficiency without increasing total water extraction. The approach highlights how modest reallocation within existing rationing regimes can recover productivity gains while preserving equity objectives.