Domestic politics is nasty in most countries, especially in poorer countries, including in India and Bangladesh. But those countries who manage smooth transfers of power and/or have long periods of single party rules (yeah, 'authoritarian') generally tend to do better especially when, unlike in case of Pakistan, the external threats are not dire.
We need to really start looking at the political discourse in other countries. The knowledge is out there literally at our fingertips. We need to see that several countries which were 'authoritarians' benefited from the stability, focus, and continuity of policies and also take into account how countries with so much going for them, like Sri Lanka, went into a fiscal default. Sri Lanka is a very good example of 'democracy' in a country where there is no insurgency, no foreign threat, high human capital/education and yet still went belly up. And then there is the example of Bangladesh which, under Hasina's authoritarian but a long rule, marched ahead. Those are two countries in Pakistan's own region.
