This article seeks to explore and discuss the complex issues of post-colonial democracy and the role of political brokerage in it. The paper argues that it is highly problematic to explain post-colonial democracy through the prism of western normative theories since the post-colonial state formation and its historical trajectories are entirely different from the history of western state formation. Based on field work in one of the neighbourhoods of Sialkot, Punjab, the article explains that the political broker/mediator plays pivotal role in post-colonial democracies like Pakistan. It explains how a broker negotiates with bureaucracy and government officials on behalf of the common people who do not have an easy access to the government departments by engaging political parties/leaders. The brokers are the key players in democratic process. The arguments does not fit into the normative theoretical grid hence we cannot analytically rely on the normative theorization to explain the post-colonial democracy
