The Merger Paradox: Administrative Integration and the Stalled Economic Empowerment of Women in Tehsil Darra Adam Khel

Abstract

This study investigates the merger of ex-EX-FATA and its impact on the economic empowerment of women conducted in Tehsil Sub Division Darra Adam Khel.  On 31 May 2018, Pakistan's Parliament passed the 25th Constitutional Amendment, formally merging the Federally Administered Tribal Areas into Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and ending more than seven decades of semi-autonomous governance under the Frontier Crimes Regulation. The reform was celebrated as a historic turning point that would extend constitutional rights, judicial protection, and development funds to a long-neglected borderland. This study examines a narrower but consequential question: has the legal integration of ex-EX-FATA translated into economic agency for women in Tehsil Darra Adam Khel, a sub-district historically defined by its illicit arms economy, military operations, and rigid Pashtunwali norms? Drawing on a qualitative case-study design, semi-structured interviews with fourteen working women from diverse sectors, and one focus group discussion, this research identifies mobility constraints, the persistence of localized patriarchy, financial exclusion, digital illiteracy, and a pronounced "policy paradox" in which post-merger state interventions remain symbolic rather than transformative. The findings are interpreted through Douglas North's New Institutionalism, which clarifies why formal legal change cannot, on its own, dislodge culturally embedded informal constraints. The study concludes that administrative integration is a necessary but insufficient condition for women's economic empowerment in Darra Adam Khel, and recommends place-based, culturally negotiated reforms.