Religion and Populism in the Global South: Islamist Civilisationism of Pakistan’s Imran Khan

Abstract

The fusion of religion and populism has paved the way for civilisationism. However, this significant issue is still unresearched. This paper attempts to address this gap by investigating the Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan’s Islamist populism and civilisationism as an empirical case study. While Islamism has been explored in the context of Pakistan, this paper goes beyond and investigates the amalgamation of Islamist ideals with populism. Using discourse analysis, the paper traces the horizontal and vertical dimensions of Imran Khan’s religious populism. The paper provides an understanding of how “the people”, “the elite”, and “the others” are defined at present in Pakistan from an antagonistic and anti-Western civilisationist perspective. The paper finds that “New Pakistan” is indeed a “homeland” or an idolized society defined by Islamist civilisationism to which extreme emotions, sentimentality and victimhood are attached.

Manufacturing Civilisational Crises: Instrumentalisation of Anti-Western Conspiracy Theories for Populist Authoritarian Resilience in Turkey and Pakistan

“…Khan blamed the latter on Pakistanis turning their backs on Islam. He promised to end corruption and all other problems faced by country by following a model of Riyasat e Medina (Shakil & Yilmaz, 2021). In Khan's words: "Over the last 75 years of Pakistan's history, our country has suffered from elite capture, where powerful and crooked politicians, cartels and mafias have become accustomed to being above the law in order to protect their privileges gained through a corrupt system" .…”

“…His pre-election speeches before 2018 showcased the layers of crisis narrative he'd constructed, including Pakistan's "slavery to the West" enabled by the corrupt elite leadership. He promised a foreign policy free of US influence, no IMF packages and the promise of a Riyasat-e-Medina (Shakil & Yilmaz, 2021). Even though Khan went to the IMF-despite promising that Pakistan would no longer take the "begging bowl" to the West-he maintained his anti-Western rhetoric (The Indian Express, 2019).…”

Political Mobilisation of Religious, Chauvinist, and Technocratic Populists in Indonesia and Their Activities in Cyberspace

“…The group has opted for forceful Salafist ideology implementation, seeking its roots in Saudi Islamist theology (Barton 2021). Similar to other Islamist civilisationists Shakil and Yilmaz 2021), this radical activist religious populism divided 'the pious' ummah and demonised all who did not adhere to its strict codes; this ideology was propagated through its dakwah centres and social welfare activities along with its notorious militia (Barton 2021; Barton et al 2021aBarton et al , 2021bBarton et al , 2021cYilmaz and Barton 2021a). Exploiting a sense of being 'left behind' by the state and its policies, FPI provided its followers with a victimhood identity and agency to 'get back' and 'reform' society with its vigilantism (Barton 2021;Barton et al 2021b): "The FPI demonstrates the manner in which smaller, liminal, political actors can instrumentalise religion and leverage religious rhetoric to reshape political discourse, and in doing so, drive demand for religious populism" (Barton et al 2021b).…”