In this book review, Dr. João Ferreira Dias examines Lars Erik L. Gjerde’s forthcoming “Hegemony and Woke Strategy: A Study of Cultural Warfare”, highlighting its contribution to debates on culture wars, hegemony, identity politics, and liberal democracy. While crediting Gjerde for moving beyond polemical treatments of “wokeism” and for illuminating how cultural norms acquire institutional force, Dr. Ferreira Dias questions whether the language of “strategy” can be sustained when agency, coordination, and intentionality remain analytically bracketed. Drawing on his own concept of “identity grammars,” he argues for a framework that preserves the relationship between structure and agency. The review concludes with a sharp distinction: cultural warfare may produce hegemonic effects without centralized direction—“hegemony does not require a strategist. Strategy does.”
Culture wars are often treated as political noise: symbolic disputes distracting attention from economics, institutions, inequality or public policy. Lars Erik L. Gjerde’s Hegemony and Woke Strategy: A Study of Cultural Warfare starts from the opposite premise. Culture is not peripheral to politics. It helps make political order possible.
That premise is difficult to dispute. Political systems do not survive through institutions and coercion alone. They depend on legitimacy, shared meanings and a sufficient degree of agreement about what society considers normal, acceptable and just. This is where Gramsci remains useful well beyond Marxism. Hegemony is also about making a particular understanding of the world appear natural.
Gjerde takes this insight seriously. Drawing on Gramsci, Marxist theory and, especially, Laclau and Mouffe’s post-structuralism, he examines what he calls wokeism as an identitarian force engaged in a struggle over language, morality, identity and institutional norms. His concern is not simply to define wokeism, but to ask what it does: how identity politics, cancel culture, language politics and woke capitalism operate within a wider struggle for cultural hegemony. This is, indeed, one of the book’s central contributions.
Culture as a Struggle for Hegemony
Gjerde is also careful not to reduce the culture war to a mechanical opposition between left and right. The identitarian left is shown to clash not only with conservatism but also with liberalism, socialism, universalist anti-racism and earlier forms of feminism. This matters. Contemporary culture wars frequently cut through political families rather than simply separating them. A Marxist, a liberal and a conservative may object to the same form of identity politics, although for entirely different reasons.
This is particularly relevant because Gjerde does not equate every progressive cultural victory with wokeism. His account distinguishes the historical expansion of anti-racist, feminist and gay-rights norms from what he sees as a later identitarian turn. Wokeism is therefore treated not as the established Western hegemony, but rather as a counter-hegemonic challenger to an older liberal-progressive order still anchored, however imperfectly, in Enlightenment universalism.
That distinction is important. The struggle for recognition and the extension of equal citizenship should not be retrospectively collapsed into contemporary identitarian ideology. One may defend anti-discrimination, minority rights or affirmative measures without accepting that identity should become the primary unit through which society distributes moral authority, political legitimacy or epistemic standing.
Here Gjerde comes close to Yascha Mounk’s notion of identity synthesis, even though he retains the term wokeism. He is also explicit that the phenomenon is internally contradictory, heterogeneous and unstable. This makes the book considerably more interesting than the usual polemical literature surrounding “woke culture.” It also opens what I consider one of its most productive theoretical questions. The difficulty lies in the word strategy.
Can There Be Strategy Without Agency?
Gjerde repeatedly describes identity politics, cancel culture, ideological subversion and linguistic change as tactics belonging to a wider strategy. Yet, for analytical purposes, he deliberately brackets the agency of the actors involved. Individuals are described as “pieces on the ideological chessboard” and treated primarily as vehicles of ideas rather than as actors in their own right. Whether they understand themselves as woke, or consciously intend to participate in the ideological process under examination, is analytically secondary.
The same question emerges in his analysis of cultural guerrilla warfare. Gjerde acknowledges that some actors consciously engage in ideological practices while others genuinely understand the norms they reproduce as common sense. For his analytical purposes, however, this distinction does not substantially alter the broader pattern. The politics of concealment may therefore be examined structurally regardless of whether particular actors participate willingly or unwillingly.
The methodological choice is understandable. Indeed, it is one of the reasons why the book succeeds in making broad ideological patterns visible across institutions, actors and national settings. But it also raises a question about how far the language of strategy can be stretched.
Strategy and agency are not synonymous. Yet strategy normally presupposes at least a minimal theory of agency: an actor pursuing an objective through a selection of means. If different actors in different institutions reproduce similar vocabularies for different reasons and without coordination, we may certainly have a pattern. We may even have a powerful hegemonic effect. But it is less clear that we have demonstrated an overarching strategy.
This is not merely a semantic distinction. A university administrator may adopt identitarian language because she is personally committed to it. A corporation may do so because managers perceive reputational or commercial incentives. A journalist may reproduce the same vocabulary because it has become professionally normal. An activist may consciously seek institutional transformation. The resulting discourse may converge. The motives need not. There may, therefore, be strategists without there being one strategy.
Gjerde’s structural perspective makes patterns visible, which is its considerable strength. Yet some of the processes he identifies might also be described through diffusion, institutional imitation, professional incentives, moral conformity or the gradual sedimentation of a common political language. None of these mechanisms makes the phenomenon less politically significant. In some respects, the opposite may be true. The ability of an ideological grammar to reproduce itself without constant conscious mobilization may itself be evidence of cultural power. This is where my own research on culture wars suggests a slightly different analytical route.
From Strategy to Identity Grammars
In my doctoral research on Portuguese culture wars, I use the concept of identity grammars to describe broader systems of categories, narratives, moral assumptions and political distinctions through which actors make sense of disputes over historical memory, racism, immigration and cultural belonging. The concept was developed precisely to preserve the relationship between structure and agency. Individual political sensibilities articulate with wider identity grammars, but actors do not simply disappear inside them. They may reproduce a grammar, radicalize it, combine it with elements of another, resist it or attempt to move beyond it. A grammar structures political speech without writing every sentence in advance.
This distinction helps avoid two opposite temptations. The first is excessive voluntarism: imagining cultural transformation as the execution of a coherent master plan. The second is excessive structuralism: imagining subjects as little more than carriers of discourse.
The latter problem is particularly interesting because it resembles one of the difficulties Gjerde himself identifies in some of the theories he analyses critically. Strong structural accounts of racism, coloniality or identity can grant social structures such causal autonomy that individual dissent risks becoming analytically irrelevant. My own research has therefore insisted on preserving room for agency, even within highly unequal structures, and on resisting approaches in which subjects appear entirely captured by the social systems in which they participate. The same concern appears in my discussion of decolonial theory, particularly where historical continuity risks becoming so strong that the present is read in excessively deterministic terms.
This is less a rebuttal of Gjerde’s framework than an invitation to extend it. A fuller account of agency might make it possible to distinguish more clearly between conscious strategy, institutional convergence and hegemonic effect. That distinction becomes particularly important when the analysis reaches liberal democracy.
When Cultural Conflict Becomes a Liberal-Democratic Question
Gjerde persuasively identifies tensions between identitarian politics and liberal principles such as individualism, universalism and freedom of expression. But disagreement with philosophical liberalism is not in itself identical to a challenge to liberal democracy.
The difference matters.
Liberal democracy is not simply the institutional embodiment of a single comprehensive liberal philosophy. It is a political and constitutional order capable of accommodating social democratic, Christian democratic, conservative and other traditions that do not share identical philosophical premises. From a political-legal perspective, the decisive question is therefore not merely whether identity politics departs from liberal individualism. It is whether particular practices begin to undermine pluralism, equal citizenship, freedom of expression, due process, political competition or other basic guarantees of the liberal-democratic order.
When Cultural Norms Acquire Institutional Force
Here Gjerde is especially persuasive when cultural contestation acquires institutional form. His discussion of cancel culture moves from moral disagreement towards speech codes, administrative procedures, sanctions, chilling effects and, in some settings, attempts to translate cultural norms into legal or bureaucratic mechanisms. At that point, the relationship between culture war and liberal democracy becomes more than metaphorical. Cultural norms acquire institutional force.
The same distinction also helps preserve what was emancipatory in the original politics of recognition. Anti-racism, women’s rights and minority protection are not foreign bodies within liberal democracy. They are among its historical achievements. The problem emerges when recognition hardens into an identity system in which individuals are primarily understood as members of fixed groups and where group position begins to determine moral or epistemic authority.
Hegemony Does Not Require a Strategist
Gjerde’s book is valuable precisely because it takes this debate beyond slogans. It applies analytical instruments associated with critical theory to a political current deeply influenced by critical theory itself. It also takes seriously a field of identitarian politics that academic research has sometimes examined primarily through the discourse of its opponents.
Its central argument also invites further work. If wokeism is, as Gjerde himself insists, decentralized, unstable and internally contradictory, then its hegemonic effects do not by themselves settle the question of strategy. Future research may profit from moving closer to actors: asking who acts, with what degree of awareness, through which institutions, under which incentives and towards what objectives.
The culture war is certainly a struggle for hegemony. But hegemony does not require a strategist. Strategy does.
Disclosure
The author received a review copy of Hegemony and Woke Strategy directly from Lars Erik L. Gjerde.
Lars Erik L. Gjerde,Hegemony and Woke Strategy: A Study of Cultural Warfare. Routledge, forthcoming 2027.
References
Ferreira Dias, J. (2025). Entre as Brumas da Memória: gramáticas identitárias, guerras culturais e direitos fundamentais em Portugal, no século XXI. Doctoral dissertation, Iscte – Instituto Universitário de Lisboa.
Gjerde, L. E. L. (forthcoming 2027). Hegemony and Woke Strategy: A Study of Cultural Warfare. Routledge.
Gramsci, A. (1971). Selections from the Prison Notebooks. International Publishers.
McWhorter, J. (2021). Woke Racism: How a New Religion Has Betrayed Black America. Portfolio.
Mounk, Y. (2023). The identity trap: A story of ideas and power in our time. New York: Penguin Press.
Please cite as: Tauil, Rafael Marchesan. (2026). “Toward a Three-Dimensional Understanding of Populism: Discourse, Ideology, and Democratic Mediation.” Journal of Populism Studies (JPS). September 6, 2026. https://doi.org/10.55271/JPS000131
Abstract The diversity of conceptual approaches to populism has enriched the study of the phenomenon while leaving unresolved the problem of identifying its common structure across different historical, national, and ideological contexts. This article addresses this problem by proposing a three-dimensional understanding that brings together Ernesto Laclau’s conception of populism as an ontological-discursive process, Cas Mudde’s understanding of populism as a thin-centred ideology, and Pierre Rosanvallon’s account of populism as a form of democratic indetermination. We argue that these perspectives should not be treated as competing or merely complementary definitions, but as analytically distinct and constitutive dimensions of the same political dynamic. Our hypothesis is that populism can be identified through the articulation of three processes: the constitution of an antagonistic fissure between “we” and “they”, the organization of this fissure through moral polarization and its projection onto democracy through the simplification of representation, mediation, and popular sovereignty. To assess the analytical plausibility of this proposition, the article examines four heterogeneous cases—Rodrigo Duterte, Recep Erdogan, Daniel Ortega, and Evo Morales—drawing on peer-reviewed secondary studies and the Global Populism Database’s classification. The analysis provides preliminary evidence that the three dimensions can be identified across substantially different contexts while their substantive contents remain contingent. The article first examines existing multidimensional approaches, then develops the relationship between ontology, ideology, and democracy, and finally applies the proposed approach to the four cases before discussing its implications and limitations.
Keywords:Populism, Discourse, Ideology, Democracy, Ernesto Laclau, Cas Mudde, Pierre Rosanvallon, Political Antagonism, Moral Polarization, Democratic Mediation, Popular Sovereignty, Plebiscitary Democracy
The article takes as its starting point a conceptual problem arising from theoretical debates on populism: the diversity of conceptual formulations of the phenomenon has stimulated the construction or mobilization of highly valuable interpretative frameworks but has not yet satisfactorily resolved the problem of identifying a minimal structure capable of recognizing populism across distinct national, historical, and ideological contexts. This article seeks to address this problem through a three-dimensional theoretical-conceptual framework, bringing together the formulations of Ernesto Laclau, Cas Mudde, and Pierre Rosanvallon on populism.[1] The challenge is to preserve the conceptual variability of populist contents and manifestations without allowing the interpretation to become so broad that it is forced to adapt contextually to the different expressions of the same phenomenon.
This is a predominantly theoretical-conceptual study, complemented by an exploratory empirical exercise involving the analysis of four distinct cases. The hypothesis is that the articulation of these three dimensions makes it possible to apprehend the fundamental properties of populism in a coordinated manner, while simultaneously preserving its conceptual unity and contextual variation.
The framework distinguishes three analytical levels that do not correspond to independent phenomena, but rather to constitutive dimensions of the same political dynamic. At the ontological-discursive level, Laclau makes it possible to apprehend the logic through which frustrated social demands, initially particular and heterogeneous, produce an antagonistic fissure within the social sphere and reorganize political positions and identities around an opposition between “we” and “they.” This division thus constitutes the relational structure through which political identities and hegemonic forms are rearticulated in populism.
At the ideological level, Mudde makes it possible to apprehend the specific way in which this antagonistic relationship is organized by populism through moral polarization. Because of its thin-centered character, populist ideology does not substantively determine the constitutive essence of the two poles but structures their relationship through a moral division between the people and the elite. The concrete contents of these poles remain contingent: different actors and groups may occupy the position of the elite or represent the people according to the context. What constitutes the populist dimension is the persistence of the moral polarized form of the relationship, rather than the stability of its contents.
At the democratic level, Rosanvallon makes it possible to apprehend the unfolding of this antagonistic and polarized configuration within democracy itself. The opening of an antagonistic fissure and its ideological organization as moral polarization tend to reduce the plurality of forms of representation and mediation to a conception of direct, immediate, and polarized popular sovereignty. Democratic indetermination thus appears not as a third property simply added to the previous ones, but as the level at which the political consequences of the articulation between antagonism and polarization become manifest. The plebiscitary simplification of democracy therefore constitutes the unfolding of the specific way in which populist conflict organizes the relationship between the people, power, and representation.
The relationship between these levels is therefore constitutive rather than causally linear. At the ontological-discursive level, antagonism structures the political fissure constituted through frustrated demands; at the ideological level, populist ideology organizes this fissure into a moral polarization whose content remains contingent and currently assumes the form of an opposition between the “pure people” and the “corrupt elite”; and, as this configuration is projected onto democracy, it tends to produce its simplification in terms of direct, immediate, and plebiscitary sovereignty.
The framework thus articulates discursive-ontology, ideology, and democratic indetermination as different analytical dimensions of the same process, allowing for the formulation of three distinct but complementary questions through which the cases analyzed here can be empirically examined: 1) does the article identify the presence of an antagonistic fissure that divides the social field between “we” and “they” and produces new political identities through processes of hegemonic rearticulation? 2) does the article identify the organization of this antagonistic division through an ideological form that divides the “pure people” and the “corrupt elite” according to a moral yardstick? 3) does the article identify the simplification of forms of democratic representation, mediation, and sovereignty, expressed through the production of a unitary, direct and/or immediate popular will exercised in a polarized and plebiscitary manner?
The empirical exercise consists of assessing the plausibility of this architecture through the analysis of four scientific articles addressing distinct manifestations of populism, selected for the diversity of their national, historical and ideological contexts. The analysis seeks to identify, in each case, the presence and articulation of the three dimensions, assessing whether the framework is capable of producing a common interpretation of empirically heterogeneous manifestations of populism.
The cases selected for the empirical assessment were chosen according to the criteria of the Global Populism Database (GPD) populist classification. The project aims to identify populist features in the speeches of leaders from different countries and periods. The GPD emerged from a project initiated in 2006 to construct a database on the populist discourse of political leaders, initially focused on Latin America and subsequently expanded to different countries and historical periods. The methodology employed is holistic grading, a technique originally developed to assess latent aspects of texts, such as tone, style, and argumentative quality. In the GPD, trained coders assign speeches a score from 0 to 2 according to a rubric that identifies the presence and intensity of populist elements. For a discourse to be considered populist, it must present some conception of popular will; the mere existence of a Manichean worldview is insufficient. For each term in office, the sample normally includes four speeches: a campaign speech, a domestic/commemorative speech, an international speech, and a speech considered representative or famous of the leader.
In addition to this classification, the GPD separates cases and selected speeches according to different ideological, temporal, and geographical dimensions. To maintain case diversity in this analysis, populist leaders were selected with the greatest possible diversity across cases, thereby preventing potential methodological bias. Leaders from the Philippines, Turkey, Nicaragua, and Bolivia were considered, classified across the left, center, and right, with GPD scores of 1.375 (Duterte), 1.466 (Erdogan), 1.25 (Ortega), and 1.462 (Morales), and who were in government between 2002 and 2022. This temporal period was defined in order to test the empirical application of the framework to the political context of the twenty-first century.
Please cite as: Aslam, Muhammad Faizan. (2026). “Mandate Inflation: How Populists Claim Authority to Challenge Global Constraints.” Journal of Populism Studies (JPS). August 24, 2026. https://doi.org/10.55271/JPS000130
Abstract
Populist leaders often say they are restoring popular sovereignty against treaties, courts, trade rules, migration regimes, expert bodies, and international organizations. Yet their behavior toward international order varies. They may withdraw, renegotiate, obstruct, selectively comply, or perform public defiance while remaining inside institutions. This article explains that variation through mandate inflation: a process of turning a vote into a broader political claim in which an election or referendum is recast from a limited permission to govern into wider authority to challenge constraints in the name of the people. A structured comparison of Trump’s ‘America First’ politics, Brexit’s ‘take back control’ discourse, and Viktor Orbán’s conflict with EU constraints shows four recurrent moves: mandate condensation, construction of ‘the real people,’ reframing of constraints as anti-democratic obstruction, and assertion of special authority to act. The argument does not replace material, institutional, or nationalist explanations. It shows how leaders present these strategies as the will of the people; it does not assume that audiences accepted those claims or that rhetoric alone caused policy choices. The article contributes to recent debates on global populism by showing why exit is only one possible outcome of populist constraint politics.
Keywords: Populism, mandate, global governance, international institutions, sovereignty, Brexit, Trump, Viktor Orbán
By Muhammad Faizan Aslam*
Introduction
Populist leaders rarely challenge international order by saying only that a treaty, court or organization is inefficient. They often say something stronger. They argue that constraints on government action stand between the people and democratic control (Dijkstra & Ghassim, 2025). Trade agreements become “bad deals” made by globalist elites (Finbow, 2023). Courts become “foreign” or “unelected bodies.” Migration rules become “imposed commands.” Expert advice becomes “technocratic obstruction.” The point is not only policy disagreement. The point is authority (Wajner et al., 2024).
This creates a puzzle for international relations as populist leaders do not respond to global constraint in a single way. Some withdraw from agreements. Some seek better terms. Some stay inside institutions while blocking decisions. Some comply with parts of a regime while attacking other parts. Some use defiant language even when policy change is limited. Recent research on global populism has made this variation clear (Pacciardi et al., 2024; Wajner & Giurlando, 2024). It has also shown that populist foreign policy is now a serious research programme rather than a side question for domestic politics (Ozdamar & Yanik, 2024; Wajner & Giurlando, 2024). What remains underdeveloped is the democratic authorization mechanism that makes such varied strategies appear legitimate to supporters.
This article calls that process of turning a vote into a broader political claim “mandate inflation.” Mandate inflation is the process through which a populist leader recasts an election or referendum from a limited permission to govern into a wider claim of authority to challenge, override or rewrite constraints in the name of the people. The concept is deliberately narrow. It is not a synonym for nationalism, anti-globalism, sovereignty talk or ordinary treaty renegotiation. It is present when four claims appear together: a complex vote is condensed into one clear mandate; that mandate is attached to “the real people”; international or EU-level constraints are described as illegitimate barriers to that people; and the leader claims authority to act against those constraints. Mandate inflation is therefore observed in actors’ claims; whether those claims generate public acceptance or independently cause policy outcomes is a separate empirical question.
The argument matters because global constraints are not self-explanatory objects, and their political effects depend on observable factors such as legal form, institutional location, economic impact and domestic visibility. They can be legal commitments, institutional procedures, market pressures, treaty obligations, policy standards, rights regimes or expert rules. Many have been voluntarily accepted by elected governments. Some are popular because they provide security, market access, rights protection or credibility. Others are weakly accountable, socially unequal or politically remote. Populist leaders exploit this mixed character. They do not need to prove that a constraint is legally invalid. They need to make it look democratically suspect (Ecker-Ehrhardt et al., 2025; Tallberg & Zürn, 2019).
This is why the argument avoids a simple defense of global governance. It does not assume that international institutions are always democratically healthy or that popular control is a false problem. Many voters experience international commitments through job loss, austerity, migration pressure, border disputes, legal complexity or distant expert language (Bellodi et al., 2024; Scheiring et al., 2024a). The issue is not whether these concerns should be dismissed. The issue is how a leader turns them into an exclusive claim to speak for the people against constraints that may also have democratic authorization of their own.
This article compares three cases: Trump’s “America First” politics, Brexit’s “take back control” discourse and Viktor Orbán’s confrontation with EU constraints. The cases are not treated as identical. Trump shows presidential mandate inflation in a great power setting, with exit, renegotiation and symbolic defiance. Brexit shows how a referendum can be converted into a mandate to leave a regional legal order. Orbán shows that mandate inflation can also work from inside an institution through obstruction, selective compliance and public defiance. The cases vary by mandate source, institutional location and strategy toward constraint. This variation is useful because the argument does not predict one outcome. It explains how different strategies are justified through a similar claim about the people. The relevant actors are the Trump administration, the Leave-to-government coalition centered on the May government, and the Orbán government; campaign rhetoric, official government claims, legal acts and institutional responses are treated as distinct forms of evidence.
The article makes three contributions. First, it adds a mechanism to recent work on populism and international affairs. Existing scholarship shows that populist governments affect foreign policy, international institutions, trade, migration, security and world order visions in uneven ways (Brusenbauch Meislova & Chryssogelos, 2024; Destradi & Plagemann, 2024; Wajner & Giurlando, 2024). Mandate inflation explains how this unevenness can still share a common democratic grammar. Second, it connects populism research to work on international institutions and unilateral challenges. Institutions face not only legal non-compliance, but also domestic struggles over whether their constraints count as legitimate democratic commitments (Walter & Plotke-Scherly, 2025). Third, it separates voter-side causes from leader-side authorization. Economic insecurity, status grievance, territorial loss and backlash against globalization may help explain why populist appeals resonate(Carter & Pop-Eleches, 2025; Koenig & Mendelberg, 2026; Scheiring et al., 2024b). They do not by themselves explain how leaders turn a vote into authority to contest courts, treaties or international organizations.
The article proceeds in five steps. It first places the argument in recent literature on global populism, foreign policy and international institutions. It then defines “mandate inflation” and its boundary conditions. The empirical sections trace the mechanism in the United States, the United Kingdom and Hungary. The comparative discussion explains why the same authorizing logic supports different strategies toward constraint. The conclusion draws implications for scholars and policy practitioners who face populist challenges to global governance.
Rev. Dr. Colin Bossen’s book offers a compelling reinterpretation of American populism through the lens of political theology. Challenging conventional accounts that reduce populism to anti-elitism or electoral strategy, Rev. Dr. Bossen demonstrates how competing visions of “the people” are constructed through narratives of belonging, redemption, and collective identity. By tracing the historical continuity of white supremacist, Pan-African, and pluralistic populisms from the Progressive Era to Trumpism, the Civil Rights Movement, Black Lives Matter, and progressive labor politics, the book makes a significant contribution to contemporary populism scholarship. While its comparative framework occasionally risks creating an unintended moral symmetry between emancipatory and exclusionary movements, it remains an original, theoretically sophisticated, and highly recommended study for scholars of populism, political theology, religion, and American political development.
Few concepts have generated as much scholarly debate over the past two decades as populism. Whether understood as a thin ideology, a political style, a discursive logic, or a mode of constructing “the people,” populism has become one of the defining frameworks through which scholars interpret democratic transformation in the twenty-first century. Yet despite the flourishing literature on populism, comparatively little attention has been devoted to its religious dimensions or to the theological narratives that shape collective political identities. Rev. Dr. Colin Bossen’s The Political Theologies of Populism: The Garveyites, the Klan, and the Wobblies, 1905–1930. enters this crowded field with an ambitious and refreshingly original intervention. Rather than approaching populism primarily through electoral politics, party systems, or charismatic leadership, Rev. Dr. Bossen investigates the theological imagination underlying populist movements, arguing that populism is fundamentally a process of “people-making” through narratives of salvation, ritual, belonging, and collective identity. The book thus offers an innovative synthesis of political theology, American religious history, social movement studies, and populism scholarship.
The volume examines three influential movements of the Progressive Era: the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), Marcus Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), and the Second Ku Klux Klan. Although these organizations pursued radically different political objectives, Rev. Dr. Bossen argues that each sought to answer the constitutional question embedded in the opening words of the American Constitution—“We the People”—by constructing its own vision of who genuinely belonged within the political community. In doing so, he identifies three enduring forms of American populism: pluralistic populism, Pan-African populism, and white supremacist populism. These competing projects of collective identity, he contends, have not disappeared with the Progressive Era but continue to shape American political life into the twenty-first century.
Rev. Dr. Bossen is unusually well positioned to write such a study. Trained as both a historian and a scholar of religion, he is also an ordained Unitarian Universalist minister whose long involvement in labor activism—particularly within the IWW—deeply informs his analytical perspective. Rather than concealing his normative commitments behind claims of detached neutrality, Rev. Dr. Bossen openly acknowledges that the book emerged during a period marked by the resurgence of white supremacist politics in the United States. Echoing Howard Zinn’s famous observation that one cannot remain neutral on a moving train, he explicitly rejects the possibility of complete scholarly neutrality and instead argues that historical inquiry should contribute to understanding and resisting contemporary threats to democratic life.
This methodological transparency constitutes one of the book’s principal strengths. Rather than pretending to occupy an impossible position of complete objectivity, Rev. Dr. Bossen clearly situates his scholarship within broader democratic and ethical concerns. His extensive archival research, coupled with his experience as both minister and labor organizer, enables him to bridge historical analysis with contemporary political theory in a manner rarely achieved within existing populism scholarship.
Equally impressive is Rev. Dr. Bossen’s conceptual innovation. Instead of defining populism through anti-elitism, charismatic leadership, or ideological “thinness,” he shifts analytical attention toward the construction of collective political identity. Populism, in his account, is less about particular policy agendas than about the creation of a populus—an imagined political community whose boundaries define inclusion and exclusion. This emphasis resonates with Ernesto Laclau’s theory of populist articulation while simultaneously incorporating insights from Charles Taylor’s concept of the social imaginary and Margaret Canovan’s work on “the people.” Yet Rev. Dr. Bossen moves beyond these traditions by arguing that political identities are sustained not merely through discourse but through deeply embedded theological narratives, rituals, myths, and symbols inherited from American Protestant culture.
Perhaps the book’s most significant contribution lies in demonstrating the historical continuity of these three competing populist traditions. Contemporary discussions of populism often begin with Donald Trump, Brexit, or the European radical right, inadvertently suggesting that populism is primarily a recent electoral phenomenon. Rev. Dr. Bossen persuasively demonstrates instead that today’s political conflicts are rooted in much older struggles over belonging, sovereignty, race, labor, and democracy. The three traditions he reconstructs during the Progressive Era continue to reverberate throughout American political development.
White supremacist populism, represented historically by the Second Ku Klux Klan, survives today in modified forms within elements of Trumpism and the broader MAGA movement. Its rhetoric of reclaiming the nation, defending “real Americans,” protecting traditional values, restricting immigration, and portraying demographic change as existential decline echoes many of the exclusionary narratives that Rev. Dr. Bossen identifies in early twentieth-century white populism. While contemporary movements operate within vastly different institutional and constitutional contexts, the underlying logic of constructing “the people” through exclusion exhibits remarkable historical continuity.
Similarly, the tradition Rev. Dr. Bossen describes as Pan-African populism did not disappear with Marcus Garvey and Garveyism. Rather, it evolved through successive generations of African American political mobilization—from the Civil Rights Movement to Black Power and, more recently, Black Lives Matter. Although these movements differ profoundly in strategy, ideology, and organizational form, each represents an effort to redefine democratic membership by confronting the historic exclusion of Black Americans from the full promise of citizenship. Rather than simply demanding policy reform, they have sought recognition, dignity, and inclusion within the American political community itself.
Rev. Dr. Bossen’s third tradition, pluralistic populism, likewise extends beyond the IWW. Its aspiration to construct solidarity across racial, ethnic, and occupational divisions can be traced through segments of the American labor movement, democratic socialism, Occupy Wall Street, and Bernie Sanders’ campaigns. Here, “the people” are constituted not by ethnicity or race but through shared economic interests and democratic participation. This continuity illustrates one of the book’s central insights: populism is not inherently authoritarian or democratic, progressive or reactionary. It is instead a contested political logic capable of generating radically different democratic projects depending upon how “the people” are imagined.
This tripartite framework represents one of the most original contributions of The Political Theologies of Populism. By recovering these competing historical traditions, Rev. Dr. Bossen challenges simplistic understandings that reduce populism either to an authoritarian pathology or to a democratic corrective. Instead, he demonstrates that American political development has long been characterized by competing populisms, each offering rival answers to the enduring constitutional question of who belongs within “We the People.” The chapters of the book develop this argument through a richly detailed historical reconstruction of the Progressive Era and its lasting influence on contemporary American politics.
The Enduring Legacies of White Supremacist, Pan-African, and Pluralistic Populisms
Rev. Dr. Bossen develops his central thesis through an eight-chapter structure that moves systematically from conceptual foundations to historical case studies before returning to the contemporary implications of his argument. Rather than presenting the Ku Klux Klan, the IWW, and UNIA as isolated historical phenomena, he demonstrates how each movement constituted a distinctive political theology—a comprehensive moral vision that sought not merely political power but the construction of a particular understanding of the people. This emphasis on “people-making” distinguishes the book from much of the existing literature on populism, which has frequently privileged electoral mobilization, anti-elitist rhetoric, or leadership styles over the deeper ontological question of collective identity.
The opening chapter situates American populism within the unresolved constitutional ambiguity surrounding the phrase “We the People.” Rev. Dr. Bossen argues that American political history is characterized less by a stable democratic consensus than by recurring struggles over membership, belonging, and sovereignty. Every major populist movement attempts to answer the same foundational question: who legitimately constitutes the American people? This conceptual move immediately elevates the discussion beyond conventional institutional analysis. Instead of treating populism as a temporary electoral pathology, Rev. Dr. Bossen understands it as an enduring contest over political ontology—that is, over the very constitution of the political community itself.
The subsequent chapter introduces what is arguably the book’s most original analytical contribution: the identification of three distinct varieties of American populism. White supremacist populism constructs the people through racial exclusion; pluralistic populism seeks solidarity across class and ethnic divisions; Pan-African populism builds collective identity around the shared historical experience of Black oppression and aspirations for racial self-determination. These three traditions are neither merely ideological positions nor electoral constituencies. They represent competing moral universes, each grounded in narratives of redemption, sacrifice, community, and historical destiny. In Rev. Dr. Bossen’s formulation, theology becomes less a matter of organized religion than of symbolic frameworks through which political communities understand themselves and their collective futures.
The conceptual richness of this framework becomes particularly evident in the chapters devoted to political ritual, mythmaking, and collective memory. Rev. Dr. Bossen convincingly demonstrates that each movement employed remarkably similar organizational mechanisms despite radically different political goals. All developed founding myths, sacred texts, ceremonial performances, songs, symbols, and narratives of salvation that transformed fragmented social groups into imagined political communities. The Klan’s rituals of racial purity, the UNIA’s Pan-African ceremonies, and the Wobblies’ labor songs all functioned as instruments for constructing political solidarity. Here, Rev. Dr. Bossen successfully bridges political theology with social movement theory by showing that identity formation depends not only upon ideological programs but also upon emotionally resonant symbolic practices.
One of the book’s greatest strengths is its sustained attention to historical continuity. Rather than treating the Progressive Era as a closed historical episode, Rev. Dr. Bossen demonstrates that the competing populisms of the early twentieth century established durable political traditions whose influence extends well beyond their original organizational lives. This historical perspective offers a valuable corrective to contemporary scholarship, which frequently treats populism as a phenomenon emerging primarily after the global financial crisis of 2008 or the electoral victories of Donald Trump and other contemporary populists.
Indeed, one of the most illuminating aspects of the book is the ease with which Rev. Dr. Bossen’s historical framework can be extended into subsequent periods of American political development. The Pan-African populism represented by Garvey’s movement did not disappear with the decline of the UNIA. Instead, it evolved through successive generations of Black political mobilization. While Martin Luther King Jr.’s Civil Rights Movement emphasized constitutional equality and nonviolent democratic inclusion, Malcolm X and later Black Power organizations increasingly embraced forms of collective self-determination that echoed certain elements of Garveyite political thought, albeit under profoundly different historical circumstances. Contemporary movements such as Black Lives Matter similarly continue the struggle over democratic membership by insisting that Black Americans be recognized as fully equal participants within the American political community rather than perpetual outsiders.
Importantly, however, continuity should not be mistaken for identity. The Civil Rights Movement, Black Power, and Black Lives Matter differ significantly in leadership, ideology, organizational structure, and strategic objectives. Yet they share with Garveyism a fundamental concern with redefining political belonging and confronting structures of racial exclusion. Rev. Dr. Bossen’s framework allows readers to perceive these continuities without collapsing important historical distinctions.
A similar continuity characterizes pluralistic populism. The IWW’s aspiration to unite workers across race, nationality, and occupation prefigured later forms of progressive labor politics that sought to construct solidarity through shared socioeconomic interests rather than ethnic or racial identity. Although the organizational influence of the Wobblies declined dramatically after the 1920s, their broader democratic imagination survived within segments of the American labor movement, the New Left, Occupy Wall Street, and, more recently, Bernie Sanders’ campaigns for democratic socialism. These movements likewise understand democracy as requiring broad popular participation against concentrated economic power, illustrating the remarkable persistence of pluralistic populism across more than a century of American political development.
Rev. Dr. Bossen’s discussion of progressivism further enriches this historical narrative. Rather than equating progressivism with contemporary liberal politics, he defines it as a political theology centered upon the administrative state, legal reform, and technocratic expertise rather than the construction of popular identities. Whereas populists seek to constitute a people, progressives seek to reform institutions. This distinction provides a useful analytical vocabulary for understanding why progressive governments often struggle to respond effectively to populist mobilization. Administrative competence alone rarely satisfies citizens searching for belonging, recognition, or collective purpose.
This insight carries considerable contemporary relevance. Much of the political conflict surrounding Trumpism cannot be adequately explained through policy preferences alone. Trump’s political success rested less on detailed programs than on constructing an emotionally resonant narrative of “real Americans” reclaiming their nation from perceived elites and outsiders. Rev. Dr. Bossen’s historical reconstruction demonstrates that this style of political mobilization has deep roots within American history. Trumpism thus appears less as an unprecedented rupture than as the latest manifestation of a much older tradition of exclusionary people-making.
Yet Rev. Dr. Bossen avoids the temptation to reduce populism to authoritarianism. His historical comparison instead reveals that competing populisms have long struggled against one another. White supremacist populism has consistently encountered resistance not only from institutional liberalism but also from alternative populist projects rooted in racial justice, labor solidarity, and democratic inclusion. This recognition substantially enriches contemporary debates by reminding readers that populism has never been politically monolithic. It has always been a contested terrain upon which rival democratic and anti-democratic visions compete to define the boundaries of political community.
By the midpoint of the book, therefore, Rev. Dr. Bossen has accomplished something remarkably difficult. He has transformed three seemingly disparate historical movements into components of a coherent analytical framework that explains not only the Progressive Era but also enduring patterns of American political development. His combination of archival depth, theoretical sophistication, and interdisciplinary ambition makes these chapters among the most intellectually stimulating contributions to recent scholarship on American populism and political theology.
The Political Theology of Populism from the Progressive Era to Trumpism
The latter half of the book represents the culmination of Rev. Dr. Bossen’s broader intellectual project. Having established that populist movements are fundamentally engaged in the construction of collective identities, Chapters Five through Eight examine the symbolic practices through which these identities are sustained. Here, the book moves beyond conventional political history into the domains of ritual, performance, salvation, memory, and political imagination. The result is an unusually sophisticated account of populism that integrates insights from religious studies, historical sociology, and political theory without sacrificing empirical depth.
Particularly illuminating is Rev. Dr. Bossen’s discussion of ritual and performance. Rather than treating ceremonies, uniforms, hymns, catechisms, or mass meetings as peripheral cultural phenomena, he demonstrates that they constituted the very mechanisms through which “the people” came into existence as a political community. The Garveyites’ elaborate parades, the Klan’s carefully choreographed ceremonies, and the Wobblies’ musical traditions each transformed abstract political ideas into lived collective experiences. Politics, in this account, becomes inseparable from emotion, symbolism, and shared moral narratives. Populism succeeds not merely because it articulates grievances but because it offers individuals a compelling sense of belonging during periods of profound social dislocation.
Rev. Dr. Bossen’s treatment of political soteriology (his analysis of competing narratives of salvation) is equally original. Each movement promised redemption, albeit in radically different forms. The Klan envisioned the restoration of a purified White Protestant nation. The UNIA promised racial dignity, Black self-determination, and collective liberation from centuries of oppression. The IWW anticipated emancipation through industrial democracy and working-class solidarity. These contrasting visions demonstrate that populism cannot be reduced to anti-elitist rhetoric alone. Rather, it constitutes a moral project that offers comprehensive explanations of social crisis while simultaneously identifying the agents of redemption and the enemies of collective flourishing.
The chapters examining decline are particularly noteworthy because Rev. Dr. Bossen refuses to interpret organizational decline as ideological disappearance. Although each movement experienced institutional fragmentation, repression, or internal crisis, their underlying political imaginaries survived. This distinction between organizational collapse and ideological continuity represents one of the book’s most valuable contributions. Political movements may disappear, but the symbolic resources they generate often remain available for subsequent generations confronting new historical crises.
The concluding chapter, significantly entitled “Look for Me in the Whirlwind”: Enduring Populisms, demonstrates precisely this point. Rev. Dr. Bossen argues that the three competing populisms identified in the Progressive Era continue to animate American political conflict well into the twenty-first century. This historical continuity is arguably the book’s central achievement and provides an important corrective to interpretations that portray recent populist mobilization as historically unprecedented.
Indeed, contemporary American politics vividly illustrates the durability of Rev. Dr. Bossen’s analytical framework. Trumpism, despite its distinctive twenty-first-century media environment and electoral strategies, can be understood as the latest manifestation of the exclusionary populist tradition that Rev. Dr. Bossen identifies with the Second Ku Klux Klan. Such a comparison does not imply organizational continuity or ideological identity. Rather, it highlights recurring political logics. Both movements define “the people” through exclusionary conceptions of national identity, portray demographic change as existential decline, invoke nostalgia for a lost national greatness, and frame political conflict as an existential struggle between authentic citizens and corrupt elites allied with threatening outsiders.
The slogan “Make America Great Again,” for example, functions as more than an electoral slogan. It evokes a redemptive political narrative that promises national restoration following perceived moral decline. Immigration, globalization, demographic transformation, and multiculturalism become interpreted not merely as policy disagreements but as threats to the moral integrity of the nation itself. Rev. Dr. Bossen’s emphasis on political theology helps explain why such narratives resonate so powerfully. They address questions of identity and belonging rather than simply economic interests or governmental performance.
Conversely, Rev. Dr. Bossen’s category of Pan-African populism illuminates important dimensions of contemporary Black political mobilization. Although the Civil Rights Movement pursued constitutional equality through integrationist strategies largely absent from Garvey’s separatist vision, both sought to redefine democratic membership by challenging the exclusion of Black Americans from full political belonging. Later movements, including Black Power, increasingly emphasized cultural autonomy, community empowerment, and independent political agency—concerns that resonate more directly with aspects of Garveyite political thought.
More recently, Black Lives Matter has continued this broader historical struggle, albeit through decentralized organizational forms and digital activism unimaginable during the Progressive Era. Like earlier Black movements, it insists that democracy cannot be understood solely through formal legal equality but must confront enduring structures of racial domination embedded within public institutions. Rev. Dr. Bossen’s framework thus demonstrates that Pan-African populism has undergone significant transformation while retaining its central concern with reconstructing political community around principles of racial dignity, recognition, and justice.
Likewise, pluralistic populism continues to shape contemporary progressive politics. The IWW’s aspiration to organize workers across divisions of race, nationality, gender, and occupation anticipated later democratic socialist traditions emphasizing broad-based economic solidarity. Occupy Wall Street’s distinction between the “99 percent” and the “1 percent,” the resurgence of labor organizing across multiple sectors, and Bernie Sanders’ repeated appeals to working-class democracy all reflect attempts to construct an inclusive political people grounded primarily in shared economic interests rather than ethnic or racial identity.
Rev. Dr. Bossen’s historical reconstruction therefore challenges one of the dominant assumptions in current populism research: namely, that populism is inherently anti-democratic or necessarily associated with the political right. His comparative analysis instead demonstrates that democratic inclusion and authoritarian exclusion have long competed through rival populist projects. The decisive analytical question is not whether a movement is populist, but rather how it defines the people, who is permitted membership, andwhich forms of solidarity it seeks to institutionalize.
This insight significantly enriches ongoing scholarly debates surrounding populism. It moves beyond the binary opposition that has often characterized the literature, in which populism is either celebrated as democratic renewal or condemned as democratic pathology. Rev. Dr. Bossen instead presents populism as a contested political field within which multiple normative projects coexist. White supremacist populism, Pan-African populism, and pluralistic populism each mobilize “the people,” but they do so toward fundamentally different political horizons.
At the same time, the book’s impressive conceptual synthesis occasionally invites further reflection. By organizing these movements within a single comparative analytical framework, Rev. Dr. Bossen necessarily foregrounds structural similarities in their methods of identity construction. This comparison is intellectually productive and yields important theoretical insights regarding ritual, symbolism, and collective identity. Nevertheless, the comparative architecture also raises difficult normative questions that deserve closer consideration. Similarities in political form should not obscure profound differences in historical purpose, ethical orientation, or democratic aspiration.
This tension does not undermine Rev. Dr. Bossen’s larger argument. On the contrary, it demonstrates the analytical richness of his framework. Yet it also prepares the ground for a broader critical discussion concerning the limits of comparison itself—a discussion that becomes central to assessing both the book’s enduring significance and its principal limitations.
A Critical Assessment of Rev. Dr. Bossen’s Contribution
The greatest strength of the book lies in its intellectual ambition. Rev. Dr. Bossen successfully brings together fields that too often remain isolated from one another—American religious history, political theology, social movement theory, labor history, African American studies, and populism research—and demonstrates that each can enrich the others. His archival work is extensive, his command of the historical literature is impressive, and his conceptual framework offers an original vocabulary for understanding populism as an enduring struggle over collective identity rather than merely an electoral phenomenon. Particularly noteworthy is his insistence that populism should be understood as a process of “people-making,” one that is sustained through narratives, rituals, symbols, and moral imagination as much as through political programmes or charismatic leaders. In this respect, the book deserves to become a significant reference for future scholarship on American populism.
Equally commendable is Rev. Dr. Bossen’s willingness to acknowledge his own intellectual and political commitments. Unlike many scholars who present normative assumptions as methodological neutrality, Rev. Dr. Bossen explicitly situates himself as a Unitarian Universalist minister, labor activist, and advocate of democratic participation. His long engagement with the IWW informs both his historical sensitivity and his appreciation for grassroots democratic organization. This transparency strengthens rather than weakens the credibility of his scholarship because readers are never left wondering about the standpoint from which the analysis proceeds.
Nevertheless, precisely because the book is so theoretically ambitious, it also raises important methodological questions. The most significant concerns the comparative architecture itself. Rev. Dr. Bossen’s decision to analyze the Ku Klux Klan, the UNIA, and the IWW within a single conceptual framework is undoubtedly productive. It reveals common mechanisms through which populist movements construct collective identities and mobilize followers. Yet comparison, while indispensable as a historical method, carries its own risks.
Most notably, placing emancipatory and exclusionary movements within the same analytical structure can occasionally generate an unintended impression of moral symmetry. Rev. Dr. Bossen is careful throughout the volume to distinguish white supremacist populism from Pan-African and pluralistic populisms and repeatedly affirms his opposition to racial domination. His normative position is therefore never in doubt. Yet the comparative framework itself sometimes places disproportionate emphasis on structural similarities—rituals, myths, narratives of salvation, political symbolism, and collective identity formation—while giving comparatively less analytical attention to the fundamentally different ethical purposes toward which these mechanisms are directed.
This distinction matters considerably. White supremacist movements emerged historically to preserve racial hierarchy, political exclusion, and systems of domination. By contrast, Garveyism, despite its own ideological contradictions and internal tensions, developed as a response to centuries of racial oppression, disenfranchisement, colonialism, and segregation. Likewise, later African American political movements—from the Civil Rights Movement to Black Power and contemporary struggles for racial justice—cannot be adequately understood without recognizing that they sought democratic inclusion, equal citizenship, and protection from institutionalized violence rather than the exclusion of others from political membership.
To acknowledge that these movements all engaged in “people-making” is analytically illuminating. However, democratic theory also requires distinguishing between the politics of emancipation and the politics of domination. Similar mechanisms of collective identity formation do not necessarily imply comparable normative projects. A movement struggling to secure equal citizenship for historically excluded communities occupies a fundamentally different moral position from one seeking to preserve racial privilege through exclusion and violence. Future editions might therefore benefit from engaging more explicitly with scholarship on historical injustice, democratic inclusion, and recognition theory in order to sharpen this distinction further.
Relatedly, while Rev. Dr. Bossen convincingly demonstrates the persistence of three populist traditions across American history, greater engagement with contemporary comparative populism scholarship would have strengthened the book’s broader theoretical intervention. The framework developed by Ernesto Laclau regarding populist articulation, Cas Mudde’s influential conception of populism as a thin-centered ideology, Jan-Werner Müller’s emphasis on anti-pluralism, Nadia Urbinati’s work on populism and representation, Benjamin Moffitt’s theory of populism as political style, and Pierre Rosanvallon’s reflections on democratic legitimacy all offer fruitful points of dialogue. Rev. Dr. Bossen’s contribution stands comfortably alongside these major theorists, yet the conversation occasionally remains more implicit than explicit.
The book also invites reflection on developments beyond its historical period. Although Rev. Dr. Bossen concludes by emphasizing the endurance of the three populisms he identifies, readers are naturally drawn toward contemporary politics. Trumpism illustrates the remarkable resilience of white supremacist populist narratives centred upon national restoration, exclusionary conceptions of citizenship, and nostalgia for an idealized past. Conversely, Black Lives Matter, contemporary labor organizing, democratic socialism, and broader progressive coalitions demonstrate that Pan-African and pluralistic populisms likewise continue to evolve in response to changing social and political conditions. One of the book’s lasting achievements is precisely that it provides a conceptual vocabulary through which these contemporary developments can be interpreted within a much longer historical trajectory.
In sum, The Political Theologies of Populism succeeds because it fundamentally reframes the study of populism. Rather than asking whether populism is inherently democratic or authoritarian, Rev. Dr. Bossen encourages readers to ask a more fundamental question: Who constitutes “the people,” by what moral vision are they united, and whom does that definition inevitably exclude? In shifting attention from electoral competition to the moral construction of political communities, he significantly expands the conceptual horizons of populism research.
If one reservation remains, it concerns not the historical scholarship—which is exemplary—but the comparative balance of the analytical framework. While comparison reveals important structural affinities, greater normative differentiation between emancipatory and exclusionary populisms would have further strengthened the book’s democratic argument and prevented any possible reading that places victims of racial oppression and architects of racial domination within an overly symmetrical analytical space. This is, however, a criticism directed at the limits of comparison rather than the quality of the scholarship itself.
Taken as a whole, Rev. Dr. Bossen’s book is an impressive, original, and intellectually courageous work. It enriches our understanding of American political development by demonstrating that populism has never been a singular phenomenon but rather a contested field of competing democratic and anti-democratic projects. Combining historical depth with theoretical sophistication, it offers an important contribution not only to the study of populism but also to political theology, American intellectual history, religion and politics, and democratic theory. It deserves a wide readership among historians, political scientists, scholars of religion, and anyone seeking to understand why struggles over belonging continue to define American democracy in the twenty-first century.
Colin Bossen. The Political Theologies of Populism: The Garveyites, the Klan, and the Wobblies, 1905–1930. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2026.
Please cite as: Ali, Karrar & Urooj, Aamina. (2026). “Beyond Islamo-Populism: Religious Framing and Sectarian Mobilization among the Far-Right Islamist Parties in Pakistan.” Populism & Politics (P&P). European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS). July 07, 2026. https://doi.org/10.55271/pp0055
Abstract
Pakistan’s far-right Islamist political parties hold a significant space in the electoral and mobilizational base, yet their scholarly examination is quite limited in the existing literature. Although these parties have different doctrinal positions and unique political agendas, the existing literature treat them all under broad umbrella terms assuming that they share a common narrative and have homogeneous logic. This paper challenges this assumption by conducting a first systematic comparative framing analysis of three far-right Islamist parties that represent three different sectarian constituencies namely the Tahreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP), Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam Fazlur Rahman Group (JUI-F), and Majlis Wahdate-e-Muslimeen (MWM) representing Barelvi, Deobandi, and Shia sects respectively. The study applies Benford and Snow’s (2000) framing theory that constitute three core framing tasks and four frame alignment processes. For data sources, the study relies on party manifestos, campaign slogans, party leadership statements, and documented public discourse spanning from the period of 2015 till 2024. The chosen time period starts from the point when TLP was formed, till 2024 that marks the latest elections in the country. The findings of the study reveal that although all three parties conduct their activities within the same political environment and invoke Islamic symbols, but they manifest different political logics and mobilization strategies. TLP’s positioning is built upon religious populism that centers on Khatm-e-Nabuwwat (the finality of prophethood), constructing a moral antagonism between the pious people and corrupt elites. JUI-F operates through Islamist conservatism, pursuing the state to institutionalize Sharia in the country, and MWM mobilizes through sectarian minority identity politics, constructing their political narrative around Karbala symbolism to frame Shia Muslims as a persecuted community demanding protection and recognition. These distinct logics of each party are shaped by sectarian identity and historical grievances which demonstrate that religious political mobilization in Pakistan is internally differentiated in ways that umbrella categorization does not reveal. The findings of this study contribute to how scholars theorize religious populism in Muslim-majority states and help understanding the structural sources of political polarization and sectarian tension in Pakistan.
PTI supporter at Jinnah Cricket Stadium during a political rally of cricketer turned politician Imran Khan on March 23, 2012 in Sialkot, Pakistan. Photo: Jahanzaib Naiyyer.
The far-right Islamist landscape in Pakistan presents an analytical puzzle, manifested by three political parties: Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP), Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam Fazlur Rahman Group (JUI-F), and Majlis Wahdat-e-Muslimeen (MWM), which operate within the same religious-political field, draw on the same Islamic tradition, and all deploy religious symbols to construct political narratives and mobilize public support. Yet, they do through strikingly different strategies, targeting different constituencies, invoking different symbols, and constructing different political logic. TLP shows their support from the Barelvi sectarian tradition, JUI-F from the Deobandi tradition, and MWM from the Shia community. This paper argues that these differences are not incidental but are analytically significant. Through a systematic comparative framing analysis grounded in Benford and Snow’s (2000) framework, this study examines how each party strategically constructs its political narrative through religious symbols and what those differences reveal about the internal differentiation of far-right Islamist mobilization in Pakistan.
The involvement of far-right Islamist parties in the political sphere in Pakistan has remained significant since its inception. They have played an important part in Islamization of the state and society especially since late 1970s under the military regime of General Zia-ul-Haq. To legitimize his military rule, he reorganized governance around “Islamic” norms, most notably through the Hudood Ordinances (1979) and the creation of the Federal Shariat Court (1980). These strategies soon became an enforceable state policy that strengthen the role of religious parties and clerical networks extending their leverage into the public life, law, and political bargaining (Kennedy, 1990: 65). The Islamic provisions in the constitution of 1956, 1962, and 1973 are one such manifestation of their involvement (Roy, 1994: 23). This Process did not redefine constitutional language, but it normalized the use of Islamic symbolism in political discourse and opened institutional space for religious parties to claim moral authority in the public sphere.
The Islamist political parties under focus of this study have emerged in different times having different objectives to come into politics, but they all share common popular strategies to remain in power and have significant voter base. JUI-F, Pakistan’s largest Islamist political party currently holds fourth-most seats in the Senate and fifth-most in the National Assembly and has proven street power, largely drawn from the students of madrassas (Rahimullah, 2021). TLP became 4th largest party in Pakistan following the 2024 general election, securing nearly 2.89 million votes (Gallup Pakistan, 2024). Although still struggling to make significant presence in the political space, MWM has also secured seats in both national assembly and senate in 2024 general election (Hussain, 2024).
An initial step toward an understanding of these parties is the scholarship on religious populism, which is helpful but insufficient. The scholars of religious populism such as Mudde (2004), Yilmaz, Batool and Shakil (2023), and Hadiz (2014) have demonstrated how Islamist movements use the same rhetoric by replacing the term “the people” with “ummah” and the term “political opposition” with “moral and theological opposition.’ TLP fits this description quite well; it builds a moral dichotomy between the righteous and the corrupt, it defines blasphemy as an existential threat to the civilizational values of Islam and it sees itself as the true voice of the Barelvi Muslim community against what it considers to be the secular, corrupt, and morally bankrupt government.
The situation becomes much more complicated, however, if JUI-F and MWM are viewed the same way. JUI-F’s politics are not directed against the political system but toward its completion on Islamic lines, it doesn’t involve protesting against the corrupt elite but the creation of Sharia institutions in the current political system. The dominant discourse on the other hand, which MWM is best known for, is one of sectarian community protection, in which Shia Muslims are portrayed as apersecuted minority that deserves recognition, security and representation from a government “ignoring their plight.” These are different political logics, and it is important to consider them as different, otherwise the comparative analysis will lose the value of comparing the differences that make it possible.
Though the use of populism and religious symbolism has been researched in other contexts, such as Hindu populism in India (Jaffrelot, 2021: 85) and Christian populism in Europe (Brubaker, 2017: 1191–1226), few in-depth scholarly studies have explored how far-right Islamist parties in Pakistan use framing strategies to mobilize popular support. This research seeks to address that gap. To the best of our knowledge, there is still no systematic comparative study of far-right Islamist parties in Pakistan. Much of the existing scholarship has explored these actors separately, mainly as a religious populist movement (e.g., Sabat et al., 2020; Zahid et al., 2022; Yilmaz & Shakil, 2022), and has not considered the possibility of their doing the same political work with other symbols, or of them representing truly different styles of religious political mobilization. This paper goes to the heart of the issue.
At the outset, it should be noted that framing analysis, though analytically useful, is not a full account of the political career of these parties. But the framing is not the only key to success or failure; structural conditions are, as well. In addition to framing strategies, outcomes are influenced by resource access, organizational capacity, political opportunity structures and institutional patronage. In TLP, Javid (2021) has shown that although the party was able to mobilize its supporters on street, its clientelist nature and competition among the religious right limited its electoral success. This paper does not assert that the only forces behind these parties’ political paths are framing. Instead, it uses framing analysis as a fruitful tool for examining how they shape political meaning, build their constituencies and position themselves in relation to each other; something that structural approaches are unable to do.
The key research question of this paper is: How do far-right Islamist political parties in Pakistan strategically use religious symbolization and framing to construct political narratives and mobilize public support, and what do differences in their framing strategies reveal about the differentiation of religiously inflected political mobilization within Pakistan? A related sub-question follows: Why do these groups, despite operating within the same political context and drawing on the same Islamic tradition, construct different political logics, and to what extent do sectarian identities explain these differences?
The paper is organized as follows. The theoretical framework presents Benford and Snow’s (2000) framework, including the three core framing tasks (diagnostic, prognostic, and motivational) and the four framing processes (bridging, amplification, extension, and transformation). It also defines the type of discourse employed in this study. The methodology explains the case selection, data sources, time period, and analytical process. The discussion is organized thematically, with an emphasis on comparative analysis rather than a party-by-party examination. Finally, the conclusion summarizes the main findings, discusses the study’s theoretical implications for understanding religious populism in Muslim-majority states, and outlines its limitations.
Theoretical Framework
Framing theory, conceptualized by Benford and Snow (2000: 611–639), has emerged to be one of the foundational frameworks for understanding the dynamics of social and political movements. It focuses on how movements construct, articulate, and disseminate meanings in efforts towards mobilization. Movements do this by addressing three primary framing tasks: diagnostic framing, prognostic framing, and motivational framing. These empower a movement to create resonance with its target audience and to translate grievances into actionable agendas.
Diagnostic framing involves the identification of social problems, attributing specific actors or structures with blame. While the specific targets of diagnostic framing vary across movements, secular elites, minority communities, foreign powers, or rival sects there are an underlying logic remains consistent: identifying a threat, assigning blame, and constructing a moral boundary between those who belong and those who do not.
Prognostic framing offers solutions to the grievances thus identified. In most cases, these solutions may be found within the ideological or cultural ethos of the movement. For instance, in the case of the JUI-F, the framing of Shariagovernance as the missing panacea for corruption and inequality is rooted in religious ideology. The credibility of prognostic framing depends on its alignment with the movement’s broader ideological identity; the proposed solution must appear morally necessary within the movement’s own normative universe.
Moreover, motivational framing inspires action by appealing to moral obligations and evoking emotional resonance. This framing task often contains religious, historical, and cultural symbols to galvanize collective action. In religiously inflected movements, motivational framing shows particularly on sacred history, martyrdom narratives, and divine obligation, transforming political participation into an act of faith and collective moral duty.
In addition to core framing task, Benford and Snow (2000) underlines frame alignment processes as key devices by which movements link their frames with wider societal discourses. It is through processes of frame bridging, frame amplification, frame extension, and frame transformation that movements reveal strategic responsiveness to shifting political and social terrains.
While frame bridging refers to the linking of disconnected but congruent grievances or stories, it allows movements to expand their scope by linking their goals to interests in society (Van Dijk, 2023: 153–178). Frame bridging itself is particularly consequential in fragmented political contexts, where each movement must stitch together disparate constituencies by demonstrating that their specific demands serve broader shared interest.
Frame amplification involves heightening the salience of specific values or issues to enhance their relevance and urgency. Through amplification, movements can elevate particular grievances above others, constructing a hierarchy or urgency that channels collective energy toward specific symbolic and political objectives.
Frame extension broadens the scope of a movement’s narrative by incorporating additional issues to appeal to a wider audience. Frame extension reflects a movement’s strategic awareness of its own limits, by reaching beyond its core constituency which trades ideological purity for broader coalition appeal.
Frame transformation redefines existing narratives, creating new meanings that resonate with changing sociopolitical contexts. Frame transformation is the most ambitious of the alignment process, because it requires movements to reinterpret the established meanings.
There is a need for a theoretical clarification before moving on. The definition of populism by Mudde (2004) is a thin-centered ideology, namely a rather coherent body of ideas about society organized around the moral polarity between the pure people and the corrupt elite. This is an ideological conception that is not the discursive approach followed in this paper. This study views framing as a strategic communicative action whereby political actors are actively shaping meaning, defining problems, solving them, and calling them to action, following the example of Benford and Snow (2000) and Entman (1993). The distinction is significant: in this paper, the idea of party is not understood as an ideology merely in advance of the evidence but is rather analyzed as the kind of story each party tells, who they’re going to fight, what they’re going to offer as a solution, and the people they’re going to rally behind. This is how the empirical differences between the three parties come out of the analysis and not assumed as a prerequisite, which is the reason the comparative results are possible.
In this study, Benford and Snow (2000) model is used to examine political communication by TLP, JUI-F, and MWM.Importantly, the discussion section is not party by party, but rather thematically. All three parties are compared to one another in each framing task so that the framework can shed light on the similarities and differences in the way they make sense of the political position. It is this comparative thematic structure that enables the paper to go beyond description to an explanatory argument as to why these parties frame their political positions in such different ways, despite the fact that they operate within the same political reality. The methodological decisions that provide the basis for this analysis are described below.
Research Methodology
This study used a qualitative research design, with framing analysis as the primary analytical technique. In line with Benford and Snow (2000), framing analysis is understood as the systematic investigation of how political actors, through public communication, create meaning by defining a problem, identifying those responsible, proposing a solution, and calling for collective action. The study is situated within the broader field of political discourse but does not adopt discourse analysis as a method per se, such as Critical Discourse Analysis (Fairclough, 1995) or Discourse-Historical Analysis (Wodak, 2001). Instead, framing theory is employed as the specific analytical tool through which the discourse of the three selected parties is examined. This distinction highlights two important differences: first, framing analysis focuses on the strategic and purposeful dimensions of political communication; second, it is particularly useful for studying parties that consciously employ religious symbols to construct political narratives and mobilize constituencies (Snow et al., 1986: 464).
Case Selection
The three groups selected for this study—Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP), Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam Fazlur Rahman Group (JUI-F), and Majlis Wahdat-e-Muslimeen (MWM)—were chosen based on two explicit selection criteria. First, they each represent different sectarian constituencies within Pakistan’s far-right Islamist landscape: TLP mobilizes the Barelvi-Sunni community, JUI-F mobilizes the Deobandi-Sunni community, and MWM mobilizes the Shia community in Pakistan. This sectarian variation constitutes the key variable for explaining differences in the framing strategies employed by the three parties, and it is this variation that the paper seeks to explain. Second, during the study period, all three groups were actively engaged in political mobilization and maintained a public presence across all three modes of participation—electoral politics, street mobilization, and public communication—thereby providing a sufficient basis for the systematic analysis of their discourses.
The most important omitted case requiring explanation is Jamaat-e-Islami (JI). On theoretical grounds, JI is excluded because, unlike the three selected parties, it does not mobilize a specific sectarian constituency but instead represents a pan-Islamist ideological platform that transcends sectarian boundaries. Its organizational model and discursive logic are therefore fundamentally different from the sectarian community-based mobilization that constitutes the analytical focus of this study. Including JI would introduce a different type of case that could not be analyzed using the same analytical dimensions as the three selected cases. Likewise, smaller organizations such as Jamiat Ulema-e-Pakistan were not included because they lacked sufficient publicly documented discourse during the study period to permit systematic analysis.
The inclusion of MWM warrants particular comment because its electoral presence is relatively limited. However, electoral size is not the key consideration here; rather, it is its discursive distinctiveness. MWM is the only organized Shia political party within Pakistan’s far-right political landscape and mobilizes a Shia community that has received far less scholarly attention than Sunni Islamist parties (Rajani, 2013). Its inclusion is therefore both theoretically justified and empirically meaningful, as it allows us to examine whether Shia political mobilization follows the same framing logic as Sunni Islamist parties or instead reflects a distinct form of religious political mobilization.
Data Sources and Time Period
This analysis is based on publicly available political communications produced by the three political parties and their leaders between 2015 and 2024. The starting point, 2015, was chosen because it marks the founding of TLP, which laid the foundation for the contemporary far-right Islamist contest in Pakistan. The end point, 2024, represents the most recent general election cycle and encompasses a complete period of contemporary political mobilization for each of the three parties.
The data corpus consists of four types of sources. First, it includes official party documents, such as Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan’s Election Manifesto 2024 (2024), and documented party materials, such as Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan’s Official Anthem 2018 (Allama Khadim Hussain Rizvi Official, 2018). Second, it draws on the verbatim speeches of party leaders as reported in Pakistan’s leading national newspapers—Dawn, The Express Tribune, The News International, and Business Recorder—which serve as the principal public archive of political communication in Pakistan. Third, it incorporates party social media content, including verified hashtag campaigns and documented social media slogans used by all three parties on platforms such as X (formerly Twitter) and Facebook. Fourth, it draws on academic studies that directly cite and analyze party discourse, particularly the works of Sabat et al. (2020), Zahid et al. (2022), Yilmaz and Shakil (2022), and Javid (2021).
This corpus has certain limitations. The analysis relies heavily on reported statements rather than on a comprehensive collection of primary texts. However, full transcripts of leaders’ speeches are not always available in digital or searchable formats, nor are many Urdu-language primary sources, such as party newspapers like Sada-e-Wahdat published by the MWM. Consequently, the findings are based on credible journalistic and academic sources that document the parties’ public political communication rather than on an exhaustive corpus of primary source materials.
Analytical Procedure
The analysis is conducted at two levels. First, the publicly documented discourse of each party is analyzed according to the three fundamental framing tasks identified by Benford and Snow (2000): diagnostic framing, in which each party defines the problem and assigns blame; prognostic framing, in which each party proposes solutions; and motivational framing, in which each party constructs moral and emotional appeals for collective action. Second, the four frame alignment processes—bridging, amplification, extension, and transformation—are employed to examine how each party connects its core frames with broader societal concerns and adapts its framing practices to changing political environments (Snow et al., 1986).
The study adopts a thematic comparative analysis rather than a party-by-party analysis. In other words, the discussion does not examine all three framing tasks for each party individually; instead, it compares how the three parties approach each framing task. This design is intentional, as it highlights the comparative logic of the analysis and allows convergences and divergences among the parties to become clearly visible at each analytical stage, rather than being merely inferred from three separate case descriptions.
The coding of party discourse was carried out deductively, with the framing tasks and frame alignment processes serving as the principal analytical categories for coding the data. Recurring religious symbols—such as Khatm-e-Nabuwwat for TLP, Sharia governance for JUI-F, and Karbala for MWM—were identified as the symbolic anchors around which each party organizes its diagnostic, prognostic, and motivational framing in its public communication.
Discussion: Comparative Framing Analysis of Far-Right Islamist Parties in Pakistan
The following analysis applies Benford and Snow’s (2000) framing framework comparatively to the three parties examined in this study: TLP, JUI-F, and MWM. The discussion is organized thematically around the three core framing tasks. The following subsections examine each party’s approach to the issues it emphasizes. The analysis focuses on the problems each party identifies, the solutions it proposes, and the motivational appeals it employs to mobilize collective action. It also examines how these frames align with broader societal discourses. This structure makes it possible to identify both the convergences and divergences that distinguish these parties on analytical grounds. The preliminary study of all parties suggests that even though all three parties deploy Islamist symbols strategically, they do so from a different political logic that dictate their behavior shaped by their distinct sectarian identities and historical grievances.
Diagnostic Framing: Identifying the Problem and Assigning Blame
Diagnostic framing refers to the identification of social problems and the attribution of blame. It is the fundamental process through which political actors derive their political identity and demarcate the boundary that separates them from their opponents, thereby constructing the distinction between “us” and “them” (Benford & Snow, 2000: 615). Examining each party through the lens of diagnostic framing reveals that they identify strikingly different problems, assign blame to different actors, and construct distinct categories of enemies. These differences are not arbitrary; rather, they reflect the sectarian identities of each party and the specific grievances of the constituencies they seek to mobilize.
Tahreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP)
A large numbers of people gathered to attend funeral prayer of Khadim Hussain Rizvi, Chief of TLP, held at Minar-e-Pakistan in Lahore on on November 21, 2020. Photo: Asianet-Pakistan.
TLP emerged in 2015 as a major political force in Pakistan. It was established by Khadim Hussain Rizvi. TLP claims that it is the true herald of the deep-rooted Barelvi school of thought and is one of the proudest fighters of the Khatm-e-Nabuwat, which is also the ideology that underpins the very existence of TLP. The party became popular quite quickly because it raised a monumental rally against principles threatening its existence by the Ahmadi community, calling them Ahmadis alongside all such incidents of alleged blasphemy (UK Visas and Immigration, 2025). It employs a combination of street protests, social media campaigns, and religio-symbolic imagery to mobilize conservative Muslim constituencies under the banner of saving Islamic values from the secular political machinations of Pakistan’s sociopolitical scene.
In this regard, TLP has claimed that they have diagnosed the real problems of society, such as the failure of true spirit of Islam and undue lenience towards acts of blasphemy. In this way, these factors have been indicated as the causes of societal disintegration and moral decay in Pakistan. These narratives are strongly propagated through their party anthem, which is filled with religious fervor, designating the party as the sole savior of Pakistan, bringing Sharia into the political system, and categorically alienating the previous governments and political parties as looters, and corrupt, and label them as one and the same group who are dividing Pakistan. The anthem is filled with rhetorical lines such as “Pakistan banaya tha, Pakistan bachana hai (We created Pakistan, and we have to save it),” “deen ko takhat par lana hy (we have to bring religion to govern),” “watan ko katne wale sabhi ye aik chakoo hain (those dividing the country are all one group),”alluding that we are going to come and be the sole savior of the country by bringing religious rule (Allama Khadim Hussain Rizvi Official, 2018).
The party particularly identifies the Ahmadi community as its primary target, declaring Ahmadis to be non-Muslims (IHRC, 2024). The central basis for this allegation is the sanctity of Khatm-e-Nabuwwat, as Ahmadis believe in a prophet after Muhammad. This is not merely a theological disagreement but is presented as an attack on the very political identity that TLP has built around defending the doctrine of the Finality of Prophethood.
Ahmadis have been affected by TLP campaigns directed against them, with cases such as Mubarak Sani, who was lynched on suspicion of blasphemy in 2014, cited by TLP as exemplary cases against Ahmadis (Mahmood, 2024; Persecution of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, 2022). This incident was similarly framed by TLP as a successful expression of public piety against heresy, reinforcing its claim that social grievances stem from the ineffective implementation of blasphemy laws (Jalil, 2024).
TLP thus diagnoses the fundamental ills of society—namely, the erosion of the true spirit of Islam and undue leniency toward acts of blasphemy—as the causes of social disintegration and moral decay in Pakistan. The outrage expressed by TLP leaders following the acquittal of Asia Bibi, a Christian woman convicted on blasphemy charges, was particularly intense. At a protest in Lahore, TLP leader Afzal Qadri declared: “The judges who have ordered the release of the accursed Asia are all liable to be killed under religious edict” (Al Jazeera, 2018; Khan, 2018).
For diagnostic framing through social media, TLP employed hashtags such as #Tajdar_Khatam_e_Nabuwat and #Labbaik_Ya_Rasoolallah. These slogans were instrumental in constructing a narrative of moral urgency that resonated strongly with its support base. This emphasis further reinforced an “us versus them” dichotomy, portraying the party’s supporters as the pious defenders of Islam in opposition to secular elites, Ahmadis, and Western influences (Mahmood, 2024).
During protests demanding the expulsion of the French ambassador, TLP demonstrators were confronted by law enforcement agencies. In response, Khadim Rizvi questioned the ideological foundations of the Pakistani state, stating: “We cannot forgive the enemies of the Prophet (PBUH). While traveling to Islamabad, I wondered whether we could send back the French Ambassador. [Alas] the Muslims living in France can protest, but in the state, which was achieved in the name of Islam, the nation is not allowed to protest for the honor of the Prophet. Now, we have to ask a question about the type of leadership we have been led by for the last 72 years. Had Labbaik (TLP) been ruling the country, it would have executed them [blasphemers],” (Zahid et al., 2022).
Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam Fazlur Rahman Group (JUI-F)
JUI-F has its roots in the Deobandi movement, which sticks to some rigid fundamentals of the Sharia and Sharia legalism over literalism and puritanical reforms. JUI-F has possessed both a religious and an organizational face in Pakistan ever since its inception as a party. The party entered the political limelight by taking advantage of its communication network of religious institutions, called madrassas, and aligning itself with the conservative Muslim culture and belief system of the voting population (Karamat et al., 2019: 29–36). Throughout the years, JUI-F has sustained its political relevance by masquerading as a protector of Islamic values amidst perceived threats posed by secular and liberal ideologies. In the political context, JUI-F uses its political symbol, the book, referring to the Quran, the holy book of Muslims, and its candidates refer to their audiences by saying that not stamping its symbol is equivalent to rejecting the holy book (Nazar, 2013).
In this broader context, JUI-F traces the root of the crises affecting society to the inability of others to properly implement Islamic law. The party continuously criticizes secular models of governance for promoting corruption, inequality, and moral decline (Khan, 2019). At a 2016 press conference, Fazlur Rahman stated that he would “not let Pakistan become secular,” asserting that secular legislation was “in conflict with the Holy Quran, the life of Prophet Muhammad, the Constitution of Pakistan, and the values of our country” (Express Tribune, 2016). This framing was reiterated during the 2024 election campaign, with the party urging voters to support JUI-F as the party committed to Islamic values and governance (Express Tribune, 2024b).
In 2019, during the Azadi March, Fazlur Rahman argued that the policies adopted by the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government had undermined the country’s Islamic traditions. He framed the actions of the ruling government as being entirely contrary to the injunctions of the Sharia (Batool, 2019). During the march, he portrayed the PTI government as an existential threat to both the constitutional order and Islamic governance, declaring that the march aimed to “protect the Constitution, democracy and Pakistan” from a government that had made “the Constitution a joke” and put “the survival of the country at risk” (Shaikh & Hussain, 2019). This narrative resonates with JUI-F’s core constituency, which views the party as a representative of conservative Muslims.
Majlis Wahdat-e-Muslimeen (MWM)
MWM came into being in 2009 to fight against the systematic persecution and escalating violence targeting Shia Muslims in Pakistan (Shah, 2019). Guided by the tenets of Shia Islam, especially those rooted in the history of Imam Hussain and his martyrdom at Karbala, MWM serves both as a force for the protection of Shia rights and as a force for unity among Pakistan’s Muslim communities. The ideological foundation of the party is thus deeply embedded in notions of justice, sacrifice, and resistance, which are represented by its electoral emblem, the Khama (the tent)—the tent of Imam Hussain (Naqvi, 2025). This reinforces MWM’s claim to follow in the footsteps of Imam Hussain and his struggle for truth and justice. Additionally, in recent elections, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) has been a political ally of Majlis-e-Wahdat-ul-Muslimeen (MWM) (BR Web Desk, 2024). Allama Raja Nasir Abbas, the Chairman of MWM, was elected to the Senate in the 2024 elections and was nominated as the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate with the support of PTI at a time when PTI Chairman Imran Khan was incarcerated (Sadozai & News Desk, 2026).
Within this frame of reference, MWM identifies sectarian violence, institutionalized discrimination, and foreign interference as the causes of social unrest in Pakistan. The party often refers to the Quetta Hazara killings (Baloch, 2021) and the Parachinar bombings (Mehdi, 2024) as examples of the state’s failure to provide security for Shia Muslims. Through slogans such as “Pakistan Banya Tha – Pakistan Bachyanga (“Pakistan was made, and Pakistan will be saved”),” MWM underlines its role as a guardian of the country’s ideological and territorial integrity.
It further draws on the legacy of Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan, who was claimed to be a Shia Muslim, to give legitimacy to its position as the protector of Pakistan’s Islamic identity. This becomes a narrative not only within the Shia community but also in broader nationalist sentiments, presenting this as a collective responsibility toward the ideals on which Pakistan was founded.
Although all three parties possess a clear religious narrative, the diagnostic framing reveals a fundamental divergence in how they construct political antagonism. TLP’s diagnostic frame clearly alludes to Mudde’s (2004) definition of populism: it constructs a moral antagonism between the pious Muslim people and a corrupt secular elite that is complicit in blasphemy and moral decay. JUI-F’s diagnostic framing stands in contrast to that of TLP, targeting secularism as an ideological failure of statecraft rather than political elite corruption. It identifies the absence of divine governance as the enemy, rather than the political elite per se, which reflects a conservative rather than a populist logic. MWM’s diagnostic framing is categorically different from that of its counterparts. It identifies the Shia community as a persecuted minority within a hostile majority environment and views sectarian enemies and state negligence as blameworthy, rather than a generalized corrupt elite, as TLP does. This framing reveals that the convergent factor among all three parties is the use of Islamist referents to frame grievance, while they differ in the structure of the antagonism they construct and the identity of the enemy they identify.
Prognostic Framing: Proposing Solutions
Prognostic framing concerns how actors advance solutions to the problems they have diagnosed (Benford & Snow, 2000: 616). The analysis of each party highlights that the proposed solutions are closely tethered to their diagnostic frames, showing the logical connection between the defined problems and the solutions proposed. Examining these solutions comparatively not only reveals what each party wants but also sets out its vision for the political project it seeks to implement.
Tahreek-e-Labaik Pakistan (TLP)
TLP believes the remedy for the real moral and social crises in the fine land of Pakistan is the lawful, strict, and complete application of blasphemy laws and the exclusion of Ahmadis from the public domain. It has demanded the full implementation of laws concerning crimes against the Holy Prophet Muhammad. For instance, during one of the sit-ins at Faizabad in 2017, TLP demanded the resignation of the lawmakers responsible for amending the electoral oath relating to Khatm-e-Nabuwwat (Dawn, 2017). The government’s surrender to TLP’s demands at Faizabad, including the resignation of the minister responsible for the oath amendment, was framed by the party as strong proof that street pressure grounded in religious obligation could force the state to comply with Islamic imperatives. Its ritualized symbolic practices at public gatherings, including collective prayers and recitations, further reinforced its prognostic framing by embedding its political demands within a register of religious observance and constructing compliance with the party’s agenda as an act of devotion rather than a simple act of political choice (Sabat et al., 2020).
Designating the government and opposing state institutions as mere stooges of the West, the TLP leadership proposes a solution by expressing its intention that “once we are in power, we will treat them (the West) with an iron fist” (Zahid et al., 2022). Its solutions are mostly emotive rather than based on rational or practical grounds. For instance, at a public gathering, the firebrand Rizvi proposed launching a missile attack against the USA and the IMF if they asked Pakistan to repay its loans, stating, “Lo ji fer aaya je Ghauri (here comes the Ghauri missile to hit you)” (Zahid et al., 2022).
Designating the government and opposing state institutions as a mere stooge of the West, TLP leadership proposes a solution by expressing their intentions as “once we are in power, we will treat them (West) with an iron fist,” (Zahid et al., 2022). Their solutions are mostly emotive rather than based on rational or practical grounds. For instance, in a public gathering, firebrand Rizvi proposed to launch a missile attack against the USA and IMF if they ask Pakistan to pay back its loan stating “Lo ji fer aaya je Ghauri (here comes the Ghauri missile to hit you) (Zahid et al., 2022)
Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam Fazlur Rahman Group (JUI-F)
JUI-F prefers the implementation of Sharia law as the ultimate solution to the governance issues in Pakistan. The party’s rhetoric has consistently emphasized that only an Islamic model of governance can overcome the deeply ingrained problems of corruption, inequality, and societal discord. Additionally, it presents itself as the protector of democracy and the guardian of the sanctity of the Constitution, while portraying others as diminishing its value (Dawn, 2024a).
Election campaigns are often marked by calls to establish an “Islamic state” as a moral imperative (Dawn, 2024b; Karamat et al., 2019). Symbolic actions, such as leading prayers at political gatherings, further reinforce this vision and create a sense of urgency among supporters to rally behind the party’s agenda.
Majlis Wahdat-e-Muslimeen (MWM)
The prognostic framing by MWM can be reduced to three main postulates that it propagates: the unification of all sects, the strict application of the law in dealing with extremist groups and increased political representation for Shia Muslims. The electoral campaigns frequently feature the slogan “Life for Hussain—Vote for Hussain,” which alludes to tying political action to religious devotion. This framing helps MWM present its political platform as a continuation of Imam Hussain’s struggle for justice, playing a catalytic role in mobilizing its followers to view voting as a religious and moral obligation.
Image credit: Taken from the party’s Facebook page. The flyer was produced by MWM for the 2013 general election campaign, in which the Khama (tent) represents the party’s political symbol, while the slogan at the top reads, “Life for Hussain, Vote for Hussain.”
The party advocates for an independent foreign policy, free from Western influence, as can be witnessed eloquently in its slogans, such as “Down Down America” and “Down Down Israel” (Hasan, 2012). These slogans demonstrate MWM’s resistance to liberal, Western-appeasing policies, which, according to the party, are against the Islamic identity of Pakistan. The emphasis on self-reliance and resistance to foreign dominance reinforces the party’s populist appeal among the ranks of nationalist and religiously conservative voters.
The prognostic frames are different for each party, further illuminating their distinct political logics as their proposed solutions correspond to the problems identified earlier. TLP emphasizes the implementation of strict blasphemy laws, the expulsion of Ahmadis from public life, and taking strict action against the perceived enemies of the Prophet. These reflect a rupture logic in its prognostic framing that alludes to the existing order being morally compromised and, hence, needing to be purged.
JUI-F’s proposed solutions are different. They reflect a completion logic by calling for the institutionalization of Sharia within the existing state. It points to a political order that, in its view, should not be dismantled but rather fulfilled along Islamic lines, which puts forward a fundamentally conservative rather than populist orientation.
Meanwhile, MWM’s proposed solutions, including sectarian unity, legal accountability for anti-Shia violence, and increased Shia political representation, reflect a recognition logic, in which the party is not seeking to transform the political order outright but instead wants to secure a legitimate place within it for a marginalized community.
These three qualitatively different political projects reflect distinct political logics advanced by different actors, all expressed in the shared language of Islamic governance.
Motivational framing revolves around how actors push for action based on the narrative they have been creating. It concerns how movements translate diagnostic and prognostic frames into calls for collective action by constructing moral obligations and emotional imperatives that drive participation (Benford & Snow, 2000: 617). All three parties demonstrate the use of religious symbols in constructing motivational framing. It is here that the specific symbolic repertoires of each sectarian tradition are most directly deployed to generate emotional zeal and a sense of duty among those who support their cause.
Tahreek-e-Labaik Pakistan (TLP)
Their solutions are often filled with emotive zeal, pushing their followers to take to the streets, incite violence, and, at worst, lynch people on accusations of blasphemy. Their aggressive fervor motivates their supporters to champion the cause of defending the blasphemy laws in Pakistan and the finality of the Prophet.
TLP’s motivational framing for mass protests is centered on calling upon religious zeal and defining a common identity. Thus, the party relies on slogans such as #Member_o_Mahrab_Se_Siyasat (Politics from the Pulpit) as evidence of how the authority of religious leaders shapes the boundaries of political discourse. The tradition of Prophet Muhammad, together with that of other Islamic martyrs, is extensively used to build emotional and spiritual commitment among TLP supporters.
Social media is at the center of all motivational action by TLP. Through public campaigns using hashtags such as#Labbaik_Ya_Rasoolallah, the party encourages its followers to mobilize for protests and political rallies, presenting participation as a communal duty. Digital platforms further expand the party’s community, drawing more people to the message it espouses through these calls to action.
The “us versus them” framing presents the secular elite, liberal policies, and Ahmadis as existential threats to Islamic unity, as reflected in TLP’s political rhetoric. The sentence handed down to Mubarak Sani provided a significant opportunity to highlight what TLP portrayed as a moral victory over the Ahmadis by drawing attention to their alleged heretical status (Mahmood, 2024a). Such narratives not only carry the potential for grassroots mobilization but also marginalize minorities by portraying them as enemies of Islam.
Their criticism extends beyond the influence of Western cultural traits, which they perceive as corrupting values and eroding the Islamic identity of Pakistan. Their focus relies more on the dichotomy of “pious defenders” and “corrupt elites,” through which they legitimize their populist claims and strengthen their support among conservative constituencies. In practice, symbolic mobilization means that TLP makes effective use of religious congregations, media, and Madaris (madrassas) to spread its narrative. Mass protest events, such as the 2017 Faizabad sit-in, have demonstrated how the party is able to transform symbolic mobilization into concrete political power. Madaris serve as sites of ideological dissemination, providing a steady supply of activists committed to the mission of TLP.
Symbolic mobilization of TLP through social media has therefore turned out to be completely essential. Tweets carrying the hashtag #Tajdar_Khatame_Nabuwat and numerous widely shared posts across social media platforms have allowed the party to promote its agenda broadly. Through both conventional and new media, TLP sustains its populist appeal and defines itself as the defender of Islamic Shariah (Zahid et al., 2022: 276–295).
Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam Fazlur Rahman Group (JUI-F)
Motivational framing serves as a primer for the conditions that enhance the potential for large-scale mobilization, and JUI-F demonstrates considerable capacity in this respect. The “book” as the electoral symbol is portrayed as the Holy Quran, and thus, for any religious Muslim, voting for anyone other than JUI-F would be sinful to their faith. In another instance, JUI-F takes time to remind people of various episodes in Islam and, at times, of the great sacrifices of leaders who fought for Islam in order to evoke a particular emotional response that influences their political choices. Such framing rebrands election campaigns as a religious mission and cultivates, with great vigor, a powerful sense of identity and purpose among its supporters (Dawn, 2025).
Additionally, JUI-F uses the “us vs. them” dichotomy as a tool for maintaining its hard core and demarcating its territory and identity. It portrays secular forces as the enemies of unity among Islamic states, while presenting the liberal elite and other sects as enemies of the correct Islamic values, and portrays itself as the defender of the correct Islamic values (Ashfaq, 2024). This not only mobilizes its supporters but also dismisses opposition groups as enemies of Islam. For instance, JUI-F has blamed secular elites for their penchant for embracing Western culture and easily portrays such groups as symbols of corruption and moral decadence. This type of narrative increases polarization and simplifies the binary between the sacred and the profane.
Symbolic mobilization is at its best in JUI-F’s religious meetings, madrassah network, and media presence, all of which speak to the organization’s commitment to symbolic action. Party structures enable the diffusion of party narratives as well as the reinforcement of its identity as the defender of Islam. Like all political parties, madrassas are an integral part of JUI-F’s organizational setup and a strategically important component in terms of ideological indoctrination and network mobilization. The framing strategies are further developed and disseminated through media appearances and speeches. These practices not only facilitate JUI-F’s political mobilization but also solidify the party’s ties with its religious voter base.
Majlis Wahdat-e-Muslimeen (MWM)
MWM is able to marshal its base through effective motivational framing, coupling religious symbolism with nationalist rhetoric. Its “Khama” electoral symbol turns out to be a very potent reminder of the sacrifice of Imam Hussain and evokes the feeling among its followers that political participation is part of their religious duty. Slogans such as “Life for Hussain – Vote for Hussain,” displayed on campaign materials, reinforce this message by framing political choice as a matter of faith.
MWM also resorts to emotive slogans such as “Pakistan Ka Matlab Kya? La Ilaha Illallah” (What is the meaning of Pakistan? There is no God but Allah) to mobilize the people (Iqbal, 2014). These slogans link national identity with Islamic principles, thereby constructing a shared identity among Pakistan’s Muslim population while excluding those perceived as “others”: the liberal elite, foreign influences, and extremist groups threatening Shia Muslims.
MWM has engaged in several symbolic practices to mobilize its base. Religious gatherings during the months of Muharram and Ashura, considered the most prominent, are crucial for the party in reaching out to the Shia community and propagating its narratives. These events provide ample opportunity for MWM leaders to underline issues of resistance and justice, drawing parallels between the sacrifices of Imam Hussain at Karbala and present-day struggles (Rajani, 2013).
The motivational frames of the three parties draw on distinct sectarian symbolic traditions that help construct different modes of political duty among their targeted constituencies. TLP mobilizes through what can be characterized as sacred outrage, invoking narratives of blasphemy as an existential civilizational threat that demands an immediate, emotionally charged response (Sabat et al., 2020; Zahid et al., 2022).
JUI-F places religious incumbency at the center of its motivational framing, presenting electoral participation as a religious obligation and positioning its candidates as stewards of Islamic governance, while bringing the Quran as a reference book that equates voting for the party with affirming one’s faith (Nazar, 2013).
MWM’s mobilizing strategy revolves around martyrdom solidarity, drawing on the Karbala narrative. It helps construct political participation as a continuation of Imam Hussain’s struggle against injustice, transforming the act of voting into an act of religious remembrance and communal resistance that supporters perceive as a religious duty (Rajani, 2013).
Each mode of motivational framing is thus culturally specific and sectarianly grounded, appealing to the particular audience of its targeted constituency. This is why the symbols are not used interchangeably across parties, as Karbala cannot motivate Barelvi constituencies in the way Khatm-e-Nabuwwat can, and vice versa.
Frame Alignment Processes: Strategic Adaptation and Broadening
Supporters of the religious political party TLP chant slogans during a protest following the Supreme Court decision on Pakistani Christian woman Asia Bibi in Lahore on November 02, 2018. Photo: A.M. Syed.
Beyond the three core framing tasks identified by Benford and Snow (2000), their framework also stipulates four frame alignment processes. These refer to the ways in which movements link their frames to wider societal discourses and adapt strategically to shifting political contexts. The four frame alignment processes include frame bridging, frame amplification, frame extension, and frame transformation (Snow et al., 1986). Examining these processes across the three parties reveals the ways in which each expands its reach beyond its core sectarian constituency and responds to changing political opportunities.
Frame Bridging
Frame bridging refers to grievances that are otherwise disconnected from religious appeals but affect the parties’ voter base. All three parties employ frame bridging differently, while commonly attaching it to their proposed solutions to the identified problems.
JUI-F, for instance, bridges economic grievances such as poverty, unemployment, and IMF-imposed austerity with its demand for Sharia governance, arguing that material deprivation exists because of the absence of divine law (Khan, 2019; Express Tribune, 2025). Through this bridging, JUI-F becomes able to appeal to economically marginalized populations who might not be primarily motivated by theological concerns.
TLP, on the other hand, bridges blasphemy politics with broader nationalist sentiment, arguing that a state that loses the ability to honor the Prophet has forfeited its Islamic legitimacy. By doing this, it connects a specific religious grievance to a wider crisis of national identity (Zahid et al., 2022).
MWM bridges Shia-specific sectarian grievances with broader Pakistani nationalist narratives by invoking Jinnah’s claimed Shia identity. By doing so, it argues that a state persecuting Shia Muslims is actually demonstrating a betrayal of Pakistan’s founding vision, connecting minority rights claims with majoritarian national sentiment (Iqbal, 2014).
Frame Amplification
Frame amplification refers to the heightening of the salience and urgency of specific issues. It is highlighted in each party’s treatment of its central symbol.
TLP amplifies Khatm-e-Nabuwwat from a theological doctrine into an existential civilizational crisis requiring an emergency response, arguing that any perceived compromise on the finality of prophethood would pose a catastrophic threat (Shakil & Yilmaz, 2021). The deployment of hashtags such as #Tajdar_Khatame_Nabuwat and the 2017 Faizabad sit-in are instances of this amplification, elevating a specific doctrinal issue to the level of a national emergency.
JUI-F amplifies the moral authority of its clerical leadership by conflating electoral choice with religious observance, placing them side by side to amplify a political act into a matter of faith and sin.
MWM amplifies incidents of anti-Shia violence into clear evidence of a systematic existential threat to the Shia community by citing the Quetta Hazara killings and the Parachinar bombings. By doing so, it constructs a sense of urgency around a situation that might otherwise be understood as a localized security failure (Baloch, 2021; Mehdi, 2024).
Frame Extension
Frame extension helps broaden a movement’s narrative to incorporate additional issues and appeal to wider audiences. In the case of these three parties, it reflects each party’s attempt to transcend its sectarian base.
TLP extends its blasphemy-centered frame to encompass anti-Western foreign policy positions, linking the sanctity of the Prophet to resistance against Dutch politicians, French cartoonists, and Western cultural imperialism more broadly (Zahid et al., 2022). This extension takes TLP beyond its Barelvi base to constituencies of Muslims who perceive Western secularism as a threat to Islamic identity.
JUI-F extends its Sharia governance frame to encompass constitutional democracy. By doing so, it paradoxically positions itself as both the defender of Islamic law and the protector of the democratic process against military interference. This places the party in a strategic position that broadens its appeal to anti-establishment voters as well (Dawn, 2024a).
MWM’s frame extends beyond its Shia-centric grievances to encompass inter-sectarian unity. This extension positions the party within a broader Muslim solidarity base, framing its struggle not merely as a Shia cause but as a defense of justice and pluralism within the Pakistani state (Rajani, 2013).
Frame Transformation
Frame transformation occurs when a movement tries to redefine an existing narrative to create new meaning that resonates with changing contexts. All parties use frame transformation from time to time, but it is most visible in MWM’s treatment of the Karbala narrative. The Battle of Karbala is specifically associated with a Shia historical event commemorating the martyrdom of Imam Hussain in 680 CE. MWM transforms this sectarian religious event into a universal symbol of resistance in the face of injustice. It does not limit Karbala merely to Shia heritage; rather, it constitutes a moral framework applicable to all communities facing persecution (Naqvi, 2025). This transformation not only speaks to the Shia audience but also potentially expands to communities beyond it.
TLP has also engaged in frame transformation over time. Its earlier framing was centered narrowly on blasphemy enforcement, but it has progressively transformed into a broader civilizational discourse about the moral corruption of the Pakistani state and its subservience to Western powers, as is evident from a comparison of its 2018 and 2024 electoral manifestos (Allama Khadim Hussain Rizvi Official, 2018; Tahreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan, 2024).
Comparative Synthesis: Convergence, Divergence, and What it Means
The comparative analysis of all three parties presents a picture of Pakistan’s far-right Islamist landscape that is more internally differentiated than the umbrella categories in the literature suggest. At the level of surface convergence, all three parties deploy religious symbols, construct “us vs. them” narratives, and invoke religious duty to motivate their supporters toward political participation. These strikingly similar strategies explain why they are often treated as variants of the same phenomenon. However, a deeper analysis through the framing framework shows that, beneath these surface similarities, lie three structurally distinct political logics.
TLP employs a logic of religious populism by constructing a moral antagonism between the pious Muslim people and a corrupt secular establishment, calling for a rupture with the existing moral order, and mobilizing through sacred outrage. This positioning places TLP within the analytical category of religious populism as defined by Mudde (2004) and Yilmaz et al. (2023): a movement that channels popular anger simultaneously against internal elites and external civilizational enemies, with the ummah serving as the populist people.
JUI-F operates through a logic of Islamist conservatism that does not seek to dismantle the current political order but to complete it under the guidance of divine law. It does not portray the corrupt elite, in the populist sense, as its enemy but rather an ideologically misguided system of governance that has failed to implement God’s law in the land. JUI-F does not remain isolated from the current system; rather, it works within democratic institutions, forms coalitions across the political spectrum, and frames its demands as those that, in its view, will fulfill Pakistan’s constitutional identity. This positioning is closer to what scholars of political Islam describe as institutional Islamism (Roy, 1994), reflecting a conservative rather than a populist logic.
MWM occupies a very different place on this spectrum. Rather than posing a people-vs.-elite antagonism, its primary frame revolves around communal persecution, recognition, and protection, providing a picture that is closer to a logic of sectarian minority identity politics than a populist one. The Karbala narrative does not construct a populist people; rather, it speaks directly to a suffering community that experiences political persecution and injustice. This positioning is closer to the minoritarian political logic identified in the comparative literature on identity-based movements (Brubaker, 2017).
The explanatory variable for these differences is the sectarian identity. It suggests that framing strategies cannot be interchangeably used for these parties, as they are anchored in specific theological tradition, communal grievances, and historical memory that is attached to the sectarian constituency it mobilizes. Barelvi theology emphasizes the personal sanctity of the Prophet, which perpetuates TLP’s blasphemy-centered outrage politics. Deobandi theology promotes jurisprudential governance, which underpins JUI-F’s Sharia institutionalism. The foundational martyrdom narrative of Shia Islam informs MWM’s Karbala-centered solidarity politics. This backdrop demonstrates that sectarian identity does not merely provide background information; rather, it structurally embeds these parties’ framing strategies and determines their content, logic, and tone.
Conclusion
This paper examines the space and scope of far-right Islamist parties in Pakistan that use religious symbols and framing strategies to construct political narratives and mobilize public support. The comparative analysis of these parties’ framing strategies reveals that, although they are often referred to as uniform religious groups under the generalized term Islamo-populism, far-right religious parties exhibit significant internal differentiation that shapes their political mobilization.
This study applies Benford and Snow’s (2000) framework to TLP, JUI-F, and MWM, which represent the Barelvi, Deobandi, and Shia sectarian constituencies, respectively. The framing analysis of these parties reveals that, despite operating within the same political environment and drawing on a shared Islamic tradition, they construct fundamentally different political logics. TLP’s framing contours suggest a religious populist positioning, mobilizing Barelvi constituencies through sacred outrage centered on Khatm-e-Nabuwwat and constructing a moral antagonism between the pious Muslim people and a corrupt secular establishment. JUI-F’s positioning resonates more with Islamist conservatism, seeking the institutionalization of Sharia within the existing state structure rather than mobilizing outright against the corrupt elite. MWM operates through sectarian minority identity politics, calling for the protection of minority rights within a majority environment. It derives its political stance from the Karbala narrative to frame the Shia community as a persecuted minority demanding recognition, security, and political representation from a state that is not paying heed to its suffering. Their divergent political logics demonstrate that these are three structurally distinct political projects expressed in the shared language of Islamic governance.
The findings of this study extend substantive implications for the study of religious populism in Muslim-majority states. The existing literature on religious populism treats all religious groups from a monolithic viewpoint by arguing that Islamist movements adapt the populist logic of people-vs.-elite antagonism, where the ummah represents the people, framing political conflict in moral and theological terms (Mudde, 2004; Yilmaz et al., 2023; Hadiz, 2014). This paper’s comparative findings suggest that, although this framework provides a useful analytical lens for cases such as TLP, it does not offer a general account of far-right Islamist mobilization. Not all religious parties that deploy Islamic symbols, invoke religious duty, and construct a general us-vs.-them narrative engage in populism; rather, some are engaged in advancing conservatism, while others pursue identity politics, and these differences are important for making analytical distinctions. Applying the term “Islamo-populism” indiscriminately to religious parties risks obscuring the internal variation that provides a comparative logic for understanding these parties. Given this context, this paper proposes that sectarian identity is not merely background information but plays the role of a structural variable that shapes not only the symbols these parties use but also the political logic they carry. This finding calls for a more rigorous analysis of the sectarian foundations of Islamist mobilization rather than treating religious framing as analytically equivalent across cases.
Applying this framing model to Pakistan’s case demonstrates a diverse political landscape that the existing literature has not sufficiently addressed. The far-right Islamist space that scholars often view as a shared entity does not constitute a monolithic bloc united by a common Islamo-populist project; rather, it is a fragmented and internally competitive field in which parties mobilizing different sectarian communities pursue different political objectives by employing different framing strategies. This context makes understanding internal differentiation important and helps explain the political polarization and sectarian tension in Pakistan. Diagnostic framing not only highlights existing sectarian divisions but also reveals an active and systematic political structure that assigns blame to different entities, identifies different enemies, and builds political identity around different symbolic repertoires. The four frame alignment strategies, especially frame extension and frame transformation, further reveal that these parties make deliberate attempts to transcend their sectarian space and appeal to larger constituencies. This suggests that the boundaries between sectarian communities are not static but are porous and susceptible to expansion. For civil society actors and policymakers working to understand and address religious mobilization, these findings underscore the importance of disaggregating the far-right Islamist landscape rather than treating all its actors under unified labels.
This study has several limitations that invite further research to address them. First, the analysis largely relies on leadership statements as documented in reputable journalistic sources and existing academic studies rather than on a fully systematic corpus of primary texts. While this approach is defensible given the scattered and largely non-digitalized nature of primary party documentation, it creates the possibility of selection bias, as the statements receiving journalistic coverage may not fully represent the broader discursive stance of the party. Future research could construct a systematic primary corpus using empirical evidence from Urdu-language party publications, archived social media content, and direct speech transcripts. Second, this study is confined to a single case study, which limits the possibility of establishing the generalizability of its findings. The relationship between sectarian identity and framing logic observed in this study may take different forms in other Muslim-majority states with different sectarian configurations and political opportunity structures. Third, this study treats framing as a discursive practice and does not examine the organizational, institutional, or financial factors that affect each party’s ability to disseminate its frames. This dimension can be further explored by applying structural approaches to social movements (Javid, 2021). These limitations do not undermine the paper’s core findings; rather, they mark the boundaries of what can be claimed on the basis of the evidence presented here.
These findings open several directions for future research on this issue. The most immediate is a systematic primary source study of all parties’ Urdu-language communications, including party newspapers, manifestos, madrassa curriculum materials, and social media archives, which will allow the framing analysis conducted here to be rigorously tested against a comprehensive empirical corpus. A second important direction would be extending comparative research across Muslim-majority states with similarly fragmented sectarian landscapes, including Indonesia, Lebanon, and Iraq. This will reveal whether sectarian identity functions as an explanatory variable shaping Islamist framing strategies in other national contexts, as it appears to do in Pakistan. Finally, the relationship between the parties’ framing strategies and their constituencies deserves empirical attention: how do the recipients of these parties’ framing strategies internalize and interpret the frames constructed by the party leadership? Survey-based and ethnographic approaches will provide pertinent answers to these questions, which framing analysis of public discourse alone cannot address.
Corresponding author Karrar Ali and Aamina Urooj are from Universitas Islam International Indonesia (UIII). Email: karrar.ali@uiii.ac.id
Allama Khadim Hussain Rizvi Official. (2018, July 16). New tarana | Deen ko takht pe lana hai | Allama Khadim Hussain Rizvi 2018 [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnjU8SJLEjE
Ashfaq, M. (2024, December 9). “Fazl says he won’t accept govt’s interference in seminaries.” Dawn.https://www.dawn.com/news/1877584
Azam, M. (2022). “Political activism and religiosity: An appraisal on Tehrik-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) and Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT) in Pakistan.” South Asian Studies, 37(2), 399–408.
Benford, R. D. & Snow, D. A. (2000). “Framing processes and social movements: An overview and assessment.” Annual Review of Sociology, 26, 611–639. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.soc.26.1.611
BR Web Desk. (2024, February 13). “PTI announces alliance with Majlis Wahdat-e-Muslimeen in centre, Punjab.” Business Recorder.https://www.brecorder.com/news/40288635
Brubaker, R. (2017). “Between nationalism and civilizationism: The European populist moment in comparative perspective.” Ethnic and Racial Studies, 40(8), 1191–1226. https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2017.1294700
Butt, I. Z., & Malik, A. (2024). “The role of right-wing political parties in politics of Pakistan: An exploratory study.” Annals of Human and Social Sciences, 5(4), 264–276.
Javid, H. (2021). “The limits and possibilities of religious politics: The case of the Tehreek-i-Labbaik in Pakistani Punjab.” Sociological Bulletin, 70(4), 502–521. https://doi.org/10.1177/0038022921103827
Karamat, S.; Shah, A. S. & Liaqat, B. B. (2019). “Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (F) Pakistan: From political conservatism to modernity 2002–2018.” Global Regional Review, 4, 29–36.
Kennedy, C. H. (1990). “Islamization and legal reform in Pakistan, 1979–1989.” Pacific Affairs, 63, 62–77.
Khalid, Z. & Hussain, M. (2017). “Politics of symbols & slogans: Its impact on elections of 1970.” Journal of Historical Studies, 3(2).
Mudde, C. & Kaltwasser, C. R. (2017). Populism: A very short introduction. Oxford University Press.
Murtaza, H. (2024). “Influence of religio-political parties on Pakistan’s foreign policy.” Journal of Politics and International Studies, 10(2), 57–68.
Roy, O. (1994). The failure of political Islam. Harvard University Press.
Sabat, A.; Shoaib, M. & Qadar, A. (2020). “Religious populism in Pakistani Punjab: How Khadim Rizvi’s Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan emerged.” International Area Studies Review, 23(4), 365–381. https://doi.org/10.1177/2233865920962667
Sadozai, I. & News Desk. (2026, January 20). “PTI-nominated MWM chief Raja Nasir Abbas appointed Senate opposition leader after months-long delay.” Dawn.https://www.dawn.com/news/1968027
Shakil, K. & Yilmaz, I. (2021). “Religion and populism in the global South: Islamist civilisationism of Pakistan’s Imran Khan.” Religions, 12(9), 777. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel12090777
Snow, D. A.; Rochford, E. B. Jr.; Worden, S. K. & Benford, R. D. (1986). “Frame alignment processes, micromobilization, and movement participation.” American Sociological Review, 51(4), 464–481. https://doi.org/10.2307/2095581
Solahudin, D. & Fakhruroji, M. (2019). “Internet and Islamic learning practices in Indonesia: Social media, religious populism, and religious authority.” Religions, 11(1), 19. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel11010019
Ubaidullah Shaikh and Javed Hussain. (2019, October 29). “’No retreating now,’ says Fazl as JUI-F’s Azadi March enters Punjab.” https://www.dawn.com/news/1513413
Van Dijk, T. A. (2023). “Analyzing frame analysis: A critical review of framing studies in social movement research.” Discourse Studies, 25(2), 153–178.
Wodak, R. (2001). “The discourse-historical approach.” In: R. Wodak & M. Meyer (Eds.), Methods of critical discourse analysis (pp. 63–94). SAGE.
Yilmaz, I. & Shakil, K. (2022). “Religious populism and vigilantism: The case of the Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan.” Populism & Politics. European Center for Populism Studies. https://doi.org/10.55271/pp0001
Yilmaz, I.; Batool, F. & Shakil, K. (2023). “Pakistan: Islamist civilizational populism.” In: Civilizational populism in democratic nation-states (pp. 137–168). Springer Nature Singapore.
Zahid, M.; Sial, T. A. & Rana, H. A. (2022). “Religious populism in Pakistan: A case study of Tahreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan.” Pakistan Journal of International Affairs, 5(3), 276–295.
[1]Statement of Acknowledgment: The authors would like to express sincere gratitude to the faculty members and mentors at Universitas Islam Internasional Indonesia (UIII) for their academic guidance and intellectual support during the development of this research. The authors also acknowledge the valuable insights gained through scholarly discussions and institutional resources that contributed to the completion of this study. Any errors or omissions remain the sole responsibility of the authors.
Please cite as: Sharma, Dinesh & Streich, Gregory W. (2026). “The Orphan Paradox in India and the USA.” Journal of Populism Studies (JPS). July 06, 2026. https://doi.org/10.55271/JPS000128
Abstract
Why do some societies repeatedly elevate leaders marked by childhood loss, trauma, and adversity during periods of national crisis, while at other times they prefer leaders from established political, economic, and social elites? The Orphan Paradox explores a psychological, cultural, and developmental theory of democratic leadership that integrates developmental science, political history, economics, and personality theory to explain this recurring pattern in the United States and India. Drawing on biographical analyses of presidents and prime ministers from the eighteenth century to the present, the paper distinguishes between traumagenic outsiders—leaders whose identities were shaped by parental loss, family disruption, poverty, or other forms of early adversity—and patrician insiders, who emerged from stable, privileged, and institutionally embedded backgrounds. The central argument is that democratic electorates respond not only to policy preferences and economic conditions but also to symbolic narratives of resilience, authenticity, and continuity. During periods of war, economic inequality, institutional crisis, or social upheaval, voters are more likely to identify with leaders whose life histories embody hardship and recovery. Conversely, during periods of stability and prosperity, electorates tend to favor experienced insiders who represent institutional continuity, expertise, and elite governance. This dynamic produces a recurring epistemic or structural oscillation in democratic leadership between outsider reformers and insider custodians, which is not just a political phenomenon but a deeply psychological process.
Keywords: Orphan Paradox, Democratic Leadership, Political Psychology, Populism, Political Dynasties, Democratic Resilience, India, United States, Leadership
By Dinesh Sharma & Gregory W. Streich
Dynastic Politics in India and the USA
In both India and the United States, political dynasties have played a defining role in shaping democratic leadership, revealing how personal lineage and inherited legitimacy continue to intersect with modern electoral politics (Dal Bó et al., 2009; Hess, 2016).[1] In India, the Nehru–Gandhi family has dominated Congress Party politics for decades, serving as the symbolic and organizational center of the party since independence (Brass, 1994; Guha, 2007). Beyond the Congress, regional parties often mirror this pattern, functioning as quasi-familial enterprises in which leadership succession passes through kinship lines—examples include the Yadavs in Uttar Pradesh, the Thackerays in Maharashtra, and the Karunanidhi family in Tamil Nadu’s Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) (Jaffrelot & Verniers, 2016; Wyatt, 2013; Palshikar & Kumar, 2004). These familial structures often blur the boundaries between public service and private inheritance, creating networks of loyalty that reinforce both political continuity and resistance to internal reform (Chandra, 2016).
The United States, though formally committed to competitive primaries and elections with open political participation, exhibits its own dynastic patterns. The Kennedys, Bushes, Roosevelts, and Adams–each representing distinct political eras and ideological lineages—have used family name recognition, donor networks, and the symbolic capital of service and sacrifice to sustain their influence across generations (Hess, 2016; Feinstein & Masur, 2020). More recently, the Trump family’s growing presence within Republican politics underscores how populism, too, can potentially become dynastic, converting media visibility and brand identity into a new form of hereditary legitimacy (Saldin & Teles, 2020; D’Antonio, 2015). Trump may be the first modern president to combine outsider populism with explicit aspirations toward patrician and founder-level historical status. He attacks existing dynasties (Bush, Kennedy) yet simultaneously attempts to create a new one and to place himself in the symbolic lineage of Washington, Lincoln, and other nation-defining presidents such as Jackson and McKinley.
Across both democracies, the enduring appeal of dynastic politics reflects a paradox: voters simultaneously profess faith in meritocracy while responding to the familiarity, continuity, and symbolic legitimacy that political families provide (Besley & Reynal-Querol, 2011). Dynasties persist by drawing upon accumulated forms of capital—symbolic, financial, social, and emotional (Bourdieu, 1986)—yet their influence often weakens during periods of public disillusionment, corruption scandals, economic distress, or generational fatigue (Vaishnav, 2017). Dynastic politics thus functions as both a stabilizing and destabilizing force within democracy, embodying the tension between inherited privilege and democratic renewal.
Yet the counterpart to the dynastic heir is the political orphan or the outsider—the individual who possesses neither inherited status nor established networks of privilege. In many democracies, moments of political upheaval create opportunities for leaders whose authority derives not from lineage but from narratives of adversity, resilience, and personal struggle. Among the most striking of these figures are those who experienced significant childhood loss through parental death, family disruption, abandonment, or displacement. The Orphan Paradox proposed here, which constitutes our main thesis, suggests that early experiences of rupture may cultivate psychological characteristics—such as independence, ambition, resilience, and a heightened sensitivity to insecurity—that can later translate into political leadership.[2] Whereas dynastic leaders inherit political capital, orphan leaders are often compelled to construct it. Their biographies resonate with citizens who perceive themselves as marginalized, overlooked, or excluded from established systems of power. It allows outsiders, such as orphans, to speak for the people against the establishment, as is evident in recent years in the populist turn and the rise of amateur politicians. In this sense, the orphan and the heir represent two competing pathways to political legitimacy: one rooted in inheritance and continuity, the other in adversity and self-creation.
The Orphan Paradox describes the condition of loss: the absence of foundational support—whether parental, institutional, cultural, or even genetic—creates a dual trajectory. On one hand, it heightens vulnerability to instability, alienation, and maladaptive coping; on the other, it can spark remarkable resilience, innovation, and self-determined leadership. This paradox applies across multiple domains of human experience, from individual psychology to political systems and technological development (Sharma, 2026, 2025).[3]
This paper examines these dynamics – the outsider and the heir, the orphan and the patrician – in two of the world’s largest and most populous democracies, India and the United States, both of which emerged from profound historical ruptures and continue to grapple with competing demands for continuity and change (Moffitt, 2016; Jaffrelot & Tillin, 2017). In particular, we connect the rise of Modi in India and Trump in the USA – two political populists, one of whom left home early as a teenager to seek spiritual renunciation and the other who carries the scars of a fraught relationship with his demanding and wealthy parents – with the current trend towards nationalists who take on corrupt elites on behalf of the people (Mudde & Kaltwasser, 2017). Ironically, while in both India and the USA, there is a turn away from the familiar, stable, dynastic family names, both Modi and Trump are examples of how populists position themselves as outsiders seeking to become establishment insiders by creating their own autocracies or dynasties.
[1] This paper in large part is adapted from the forthcoming book, The Orphan Paradox (Sharma, 2026), which presents a detailed psychocultural, historical, and political analysis of leadership cycles in India and the US. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the ECPS workshop on September 4. 2025. We thank Professor Akis Kalaitzidis for his comments on this paper and the book. We are also immensely grateful to Dr. Arturo G. Munoz, senior political scientist at RAND Corporation, Washington DC, for his commentary on this project. This paper was partly inspired by the contemporary rise of nationalism worldwide. An earlier version of the proposal was reviewed by Dr. Munoz, who suggested that the argument would benefit from a stronger engagement with current political developments. In particular, he encouraged a more explicit comparison between Narendra Modi and Donald Trump as contemporary leaders whose rise reflects broader global trends.
Parts of this paper were originally developed for an edited volume on WEIRD psychology, which critiques the overreliance on Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic populations in psychological research (Joseph Henrich et al., 2010); the goal here is to show how democracy takes different forms in different contexts.
[2] For a full treatment of the underpinning of psychological, cultural, and political arguments, see the book, The Orphan Paradox (Sharma, 2026).
[3] The idea of the Orphan Paradox is interdisciplinary. First, developmental perspectives in leadership studies suggest that early experiences of trauma and loss can shape resilience, ambition, and identity formation over the life course. Work in political psychology and leadership analysis (e.g., Jerrold M. Post, 2003) highlights how formative adversity often informs leadership style and worldview. Second, my professional experience in the pharmaceutical sector exposed me to the concept of “orphan drugs” and “orphan markets,” terms institutionalized through policy frameworks such as the Orphan Drug Act. These refer to conditions or markets that lack early institutional support yet later become sites of innovation and intervention.
Please cite as: Kalaitzidis, Akis. (2026). “From Economic Crisis to Democratic Backsliding: Evidence from Thailand, Argentina, the United States, and Greece.” Journal of Populism Studies (JPS). July 06, 2026. https://doi.org/10.55271/JPS000127
Abstract
Economic crises often serve as incubators of populism. When currencies collapse, or debts spiral out of control, mainstream parties lose credibility, creating openings for leaders who claim to defend “the people” against distant elites. The cases of Thailand, Argentina, the United States, and Greece illustrate how crises enable populism, how populists frame economic struggles, and use them to subvert the political order.In Thailand, the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis led to IMF-imposed reforms that hurt the rural poor. Thaksin Shinawatra rose on a populist platform of cheap healthcare and rural development, casting himself as defender of the countryside against Bangkok elites (Phongpaichit & Baker, 2009). In Argentina, the 2001–2002 default discredited neoliberal economic policies. Néstor and Cristina Kirchner mobilized popular anger against the IMF and creditors, mixing subsidies and protectionism with nationalist rhetoric (Levitsky & Murillo, 2008). In the United States, the 2008 financial crash produced dual populist currents: the Tea Party and Donald Trump on the right, and Occupy Wall Street and Bernie Sanders on the left, both targeting elites, including Wall Street and the Washington establishment (Skocpol & Williamson, 2012; Frank, 2016). In Greece, Syriza rose during the Eurozone crisis, opposing austerity and demanding sovereignty from the EU “Troika” (Pappas, 2019).Across these cases, populists reframed abstract economic shocks as moral struggles, pitting ordinary people against elites, technocrats, or foreign powers (Mudde & Rovira Kaltwasser, 2017). Their policies emphasized immediate relief—subsidies, redistribution, debt resistance—over fiscal orthodoxy. Yet each also confronted the hard limits of global capitalism, leading to compromise, backlash, or renewed instability (Dornbusch & Edwards, 1991; Kahler & Lake, 2013). Economic crises highlight the tension between national democracy and global markets; populism thrives in this gap, using it to decay institutions and norms in democratic states. I argue that economic crises lead to democratic backsliding.
Keywords: Populism, Economic Crises, Democratic backsliding, Greece, USA, Thailand, Argentina
Do economic crises necessarily lead to democratic backsliding? My argument in this paper is that it does. Economic crises lead to increased populism, which ultimately erodes public confidence in the political system and degrades not only democratic regimes (Levitsky & Murillo, 2008) but also authoritarian ones (O’Donnell, 1999; Schedler, 2013). Bunce and Wolchik (2011) argued that the exclusionary populist politics of Slobodan Milosevic destroyed the multicultural authoritarian regime in Yugoslavia. Others have argued it is not necessarily the economic crises that produce populism but the conflict between the “winners and losers” of said economic crisis, which increases the feeling of loss among the many, something in conflict studies we call the Relative Deprivation thesis (Gurr, 1970). Others argue that it is race and status that are responsible for the increasing populism worldwide (Palmer, 2019). Finally, some blame global migratory patterns for being zero-sum, arguing that every newcomer is a net negative for the country that receives them (Palmer, 2019).
Populist regimes are, par excellence, illiberal, argues Pappas (2019). In this sense, democracies decline step by step, embracing new institutional structures that undermine the preceding democratic ones and replace them with illiberal ones. Often personalistic, these new regimes create institutions closer to authoritarianism than to actual democracy and dominate their countries for a long time, for example, Hungary, Turkey, Argentina, etc.
In this paper, I will examine four cases, in the order of the economic crises that affected them: Thailand in 1997, Argentina in 2001, the US in 2008, and Greece in 2015. It is my argument that economic crises arising from global economic dislocations and contagion (Desai, 2003) produce populist regimes that wreak havoc on established institutions and lead countries to political backsliding (Foa & Mounk, 2017). I will explain how populism works in light of severe financial crises, addressing the key elements such as a) its social base, b) the policies associated with the regime, c) its rhetoric, d) the organizational strategy of the regime, e) its leadership style, f) the mobilization associated with regime change, and finally, g) the legacy of each regime.
Populism and Its Discontents
What is populism? And how does it affect different countries? Before I analyze my case studies, it is important to examine how these populist movements form and what they mean. Considering the variation in regimes and political cultures that produce populism, as well as the nebulousness of the concept, it is essential to define it as precisely as possible. Generically, the definition of populism is “a thin center ideology that considers society to be ultimately separated into two homogenous and antagonistic camps, ‘the pure people’ versus the ‘corrupt elite’ and which argues that politics should be an expression of the volonté générale (general will) of the people.” (Mudde & Kaltwasser, 2017). Although Ernesto Laclau (2005) argued that populism does not lead to authoritarianism, my research finds evidence to the contrary. In fact, using populism as an intermediary variable, one can see that economic crisis can lead to political backsliding that takes the form of authoritarianism (Thailand, the USA) or not (Argentina and Greece), depending on political culture. I agree with Laclau that populism is a form of politics, not an ideology, but unlike Laclau, I view populism as a challenge to democracy and argue it should be viewed as such.
Benjamin Moffit describes the various approaches to defining the concept through the years with a) the ideational approach, b) the strategic approach, and c) the discussive performative approach (Moffit, 2020). The Ideational approach argues that populism is a worldview and an ideology. Populism, sure enough, increasingly appeals to even the younger generation and has made inroads in even the strongest liberal democracies. Roberto Stefan Foa and Yascha Mounk argue that there are signs of the deconsolidation of democracies across the board (Foa & Mounk, 2017). Americans have long been growing dissatisfied with the state of their political system. As survey researchers have chronicled over recent decades, an overwhelming majority of citizens now believe that the US is ‘headed in the wrong direction,” (Foa & Mounk, 2017).
In Europe, the shock of Brexit was felt in the corridors of European capitals, and some decided to work against the established order. Several populist leaders, among them the leaders of Italy, Croatia, Slovakia, Hungary, and Bulgaria, made an extra effort to dismantle liberal justice requirements and regress their country’s democracy (The Guardian, 3.30.2026). It remains to be seen whether the trend of democratic backsliding can be reversed following Viktor Orbán’s decisive defeat.
In general, there are two forms of backsliding according to Nancy Bermeo (2016: 6): “Backsliding can take us to different end points at different speeds. Where backsliding involves rapid and radical change across a broad range of institutions, it leads to outright democratic breakdown and to regimes that are unambiguously authoritarian.” In one of my cases, a complete deconsolidation of democracy happened with the end of a populist regime in Thailand. Essentially, the end of the Thaksin experiment was the rise of the Thai military. In the other three cases, the backsliding has been much more gradual, and in those cases, Bermeo argues: “Where backsliding takes the form of gradual changes across a broad range of institutions, it is less likely to lead to all-out regime change and more likely to yield political systems that are ambiguously democratic or hybrid” (Bermeo 2016: 6). In other words, illiberal democracies.
The last three cases here, Argentina, the US, and Greece, experienced a decline in democratic values, with the US doing the heavy lifting under the Trump Administration. Yet, even in the mild cases of Greece and Argentina, we have seen a serious weakening of democratic institutions, thus “Democratic backsliding can thus constitute democratic breakdown or simply the serious weakening of existing democratic institutions for undefined ends. When backsliding yields situations that are fluid and ill-defined, taking action to defend democracy becomes particularly difficult,” (Bermeo, 2016:6). So as Palacios (2025: 1832) notes, “a large body of studies has found that populism ‘in the real world’ also has detrimental effects on the quality of democracy. Due to their ambiguous relationship with democracy, once in power, many populist forces adopt an agenda of institutional change that seeks to better approximate their illiberal democratic ideals to the practice.”
What I argue in this paper is that populism transforms economic woes into political and, especially, moral conundrums, pitting parts of society against one another for the benefit of the leadership. The result of populism’s divisiveness is frequent democratic backsliding, as seen in Thailand, where it led to a coup d’ etat against Thaksin and renewed authoritarianism. In Greece, the collapse of the party system and increased violence among people, and in the US, the establishment of an authoritarian pronged leadership. Only in Argentina have the populists from the left been replaced by the populists of the right, with no discernible end to their economic woes.
[1]Akis Kalaitzidisis aProfessor of Political Science at the Department of Government, Law, and International Affairs, University of Central Missouri. Email: kalaitzidis@ucmo.edu
Please cite as: Streich, Gregory W. (2026). “Liberal Democracy in the United States: The Challenge of Trumpism.” Journal of Populism Studies (JPS). July 01, 2026. https://doi.org/10.55271/JPS000126
Abstract
Liberal democracy is increasingly challenged by the rise of populism in the twenty-first century. In the United States, the rise of President Donald Trump, a populist leader pursuing policies that differ from those of traditional Republican Presidents, is increasingly challenging the norms and institutions of liberal democracy. In this paper, I examine populism as an ideology, style, and strategy, and apply those criteria to Trumpism as a unique form of populism in the US. I also examine the economic, political, and cultural themes of Trumpism. And while Trumpism has a domestic orientation highlighted by the slogan “Make America Great Again,” it also has an international orientation highlighted by the slogan “America First.” In both orientations, it is transforming US liberal democracy from within and altering its position as a leading defender of liberal democracy and free trade on the international stage.
The twenty-first century has not been kind to liberal democracy: there are now fewer democratic nations in the world than at the dawn of the twenty-first century. In 2005, there were 27 democratizing regimes compared to 12 autocratizing regimes, but by 2025, the numbers flipped to 18 democratizing regimes compared to 44 autocratizing regimes (Nord et al., 2026). Researchers at V-Dem have found that liberal democracies declined from 22.03% of all nations in 2000 to 17.83% by 2023, while over the same period, electoral autocracies held steady, representing 32.2% of all nations in 2000 and 31.84% in 2023 (Nord et al., 2025). Additionally, V-Dem dedicated a section titled “USA – A Democratic Breakdown in the Making?” in their Democracy Report 2025, drawing attention to President Trump’s actions that purged military and civil servants as well as threatened independent media outlets, judges, universities, and more (Nord et al., 2025: 46-47). As a result, V-Dem’s 2026 report concluded that the United States has lost its status as a liberal democracy for the first time in fifty years, and instead joins the ranks of “electoral democracies” in which “liberal characteristics of established democracies – such as checks and balances on the executive, respect for civil liberties, and the rule of law – are eroding”(Nord et al., 2026: 10).
Similarly, a February 2025 report from Bright Line Watch found that the “overall performance of American democracy on a 0–100 scale has fallen to the lowest levels observed since they began tracking this measure in 2017: 53 among the public and 55 among experts” (Bright Line Watch, 2025). In their 2026 report, the public’s rating of democracy in the US dipped to 49 in April 2025 before rebounding back to 52 in early 2026, while expert ratings were relatively unchanged at 56 (Bright Line Watch, 2026). Additionally, the US has seen its Freedom House scores drop in recent years from 89/100 “free” to 84/100 in 2025 to 81/100 in 2026 (Freedom House, 2025, 2026). To be sure, the US is still a strong democracy. But when the world’s oldest, wealthiest, and, in many ways, most powerful democracy is identified as a case of democratic backsliding (Levitsky & Way, 2025), this is a significant development that has important ramifications for the health of liberal democracy both domestically and globally.
While liberal democracy is in retreat around the world for several reasons, one is the rise of populism. Both left- and right-wing populist leaders and political parties have emerged in various countries in reaction to the economic challenges of globalization and the rise of migration, both of which have sparked the anti-globalist and anti-immigration reactions that fuel populism (Eatwell & Goodwin, 2018; Judis, 2016; Moffitt, 2016; Norris & Inglehart, 2019; Scheiring et al., 2024). As such, populism is a symptom of those underlying causes but also exacerbates those anxieties and fears. While the US has seen the emergence of a left-leaning populism in the form of the Occupy Wall Street movement and the rise of Senator Bernie Sanders as a national political figure, in this paper, I focus on the rise of Trumpism as a right-leaning populism led by Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again (MAGA)” and “America First” movement. Indeed, political journalists have claimed that President Trump is undertaking the “Orbánization” (Beauchamp, 2024; Marantz, 2022, 2025) or even the “Putinization” of the US (Glasser, 2025; Kasparov, 2025).
Donald Trump is not alone in using populist appeals and styles to consolidate power and pursue his agenda. Populists of the left and right, such as Hugo Chávez in Venezuela, Viktor Orbán in Hungary, Narendra Modi in India, and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Turkey, have all come to power through legitimate electoral mechanisms. However, once in office, “these populist leaders have skewed political competition by implementing discriminatory electoral rules, orchestrating partisan takeovers of the judiciary and of other independent institutions, and launching constant attacks on the media” (Rovira Kaltwasser & Taggart, 2025, p. 97). President Trump is following a similar playbook by using the power of the Presidency to reward friends and punish foes, all while consolidating more power in the Executive branch. For example, Trump has used Executive Orders, the Justice Department, and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to purge civil servants and attack judges, independent journalists, and political opponents. He has also intimidated and threatened legal action and regulatory review of universities, media outlets, late-night talk show hosts, and law firms. And, he has asserted (and attempted to assert) Executive control over independent agencies such as the Federal Reserve, National Labor Relations Board, and the National Science Foundation (among others), usurped Congress’s power of the purse, and has gone to war in Iran without Congressional consultation or approval (Luttig, 2025).
To the extent that Trumpism appeals to social conservatives who openly admire Viktor Orbán and Vladimir Putin for their defense of traditional gender roles and opposition to what they see as decadent liberalism, immigration, and LGBTQ rights, it is little wonder that the domestic policies of Trump reflect some of the same policies pursued by Orbán as he has turned Hungary into an illiberal democracy (Beauchamp, 2024b; Field, 2025: 17; Marantz, 2022; Rudolph, 2024). Indeed, Orbán has attended and spoken at several CPAC events in the US as well as hosted CPAC events in Hungary, cementing the ideological convergence of Orbánism and Trumpism. Further, Snegovaya et al. (2023) highlight many socially conservative policies on traditional gender roles and opposition to LGBTQ rights of Putinism that overlap with Trumpism in the US. While there are important differences, these overlapping policy interests are why some social conservatives in the US view Putin and Russia as an ally of the US in the battle against what they see as decadent liberal Western values.
Given the populist turn in the US and elsewhere, we are witnessing the formation of a new ideological conflict that will shape the twenty-first century: the battle between liberal democracy on one side and various forms of populism, autocracy, and authoritarianism on the other. An open question is which side the US will take in this battle, especially when it is being transformed from within by Trumpism.
The remainder of this paper consists of four parts. In Part 2, I review the literature on populism to argue that Trumpism meets the criteria of populism in its ideology, style, and strategy. I then examine the economic (Part 3), political (Part 4), and cultural dimensions (Part 5) of Trumpism and, in so doing, draw out some of its domestic and international manifestations. I then conclude (Part 6) with some observations about future research questions for the study of populism in general and Trumpism in particular.
Please cite as: Sharma, Dinesh; Romagna, Britt; Lowenthal, Zara & Perez-Hosein, Jamilla. (2026). “Daughters of the Dynasties: Father-Daughter Succession in Asia and the United States.” Journal of Populism Studies (JPS). June 30, 2026. https://doi.org/10.55271/JPS000125
Abstract Why do some democracies consistently produce female national leaders from political dynasties while others—with equally prominent political families—do not? This article addresses this puzzle through a comparative analysis of father–daughter succession in South and Southeast Asia and the United States. Although both regions feature competitive electoral democracies, influential political families, and mass media politics, they have produced markedly different patterns of female executive leadership. While South and Southeast Asia has generated numerous female prime ministers and presidents from political dynasties, the United States has produced no comparable case of a daughter of a president ascending to the presidency. Drawing on psychohistory, political psychology, comparative politics, and gender studies, the article argues that populism assumes different institutional forms across democratic contexts. In much of South and Southeast Asia, populist politics frequently operates through dynastic legitimacy, allowing daughters to inherit symbolic authority from charismatic or martyred fathers. By contrast, American populism has historically defined itself against entrenched political dynasties, making hereditary succession a political liability rather than a source of democratic legitimacy. The analysis combines two complementary studies. The first compares patterns of political and corporate father–daughter succession across Asia and the United States, including contemporary comparisons such as Chelsea Clinton and Paetongtarn Shinawatra. The second presents a psychohistorical comparison of Indira Gandhi and Rosemary Kennedy, demonstrating how family socialization, gender norms, disability, political culture, and historical context shaped radically different life trajectories. The article concludes that female dynastic succession is shaped not by democracy alone but by the interaction of political institutions, populist narratives, patriarchal norms, historical memory, and elite family structures. By integrating comparative politics with psychohistory, it offers a novel framework for understanding how democracies construct legitimacy, political inheritance, and pathways to female executive leadership across cultures
Keywords:Populism, Political Leadership, Female Political Leadership, Political Dynasties, Leadership Succession, Gender and Politics, Political Psychology, Chelsea Clinton, Indira Gandhi, Rosemary Kennedy, India, United States, Paetongtarn Shinawatra, Thailand
By Dinesh Sharma, Britt Romagna, Zara Lowenthal & Jamilla Perez-Hosein
Introduction
During the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, South and Southeast Asia produced an unusually large number of female national leaders compared with global trends. Many of these women—including Indira Gandhi in India, Benazir Bhutto in Pakistan, Corazon Aquino in the Philippines, and Aung San Suu Kyi in Myanmar—emerged from powerful political dynasties as daughters, widows, or wives of assassinated, persecuted, or charismatic male leaders. Scholars argue that these women inherited symbolic legitimacy through family lineage, particularly in contexts where political parties and nationalist movements were deeply personalized around founding fathers and political martyrs (Richter, 1990; Derichs et al., 2011).
Paradoxically, patriarchal political cultures sometimes facilitated rather than prevented the rise of elite women leaders. Because these women were viewed through traditional gender roles—as mothers, daughters, or widows of the nation—they were often perceived as morally virtuous and less threatening than male rivals (Choi, 2015). This gendered moral capital enabled them to unify fragmented political movements and inherit charismatic authority from deceased or persecuted male relatives. In the case of Aung San Suu Kyi, for example, her identity as the daughter of Burmese independence hero Aung San provided symbolic continuity that strengthened opposition to military rule (Fleschenberg, 2008).
However, scholars also note that the same patriarchal structures that enabled women’s political ascent often constrained their authority once in power. Female dynastic leaders frequently faced military coups, assassination, corruption allegations, or resistance from male political elites who expected them to serve symbolic rather than executive roles. Moreover, many studies conclude that these leaders did relatively little to advance broader women’s rights or challenge patriarchal systems, often relying instead on traditional gender norms and dynastic legitimacy to maintain political authority (Blackburn, 2004; Jalalzai, 2013). Thus, the rise of female dynastic leaders in Asia illustrates the complex relationship between patriarchy, populism, political inheritance, and gendered legitimacy in democratic and postcolonial societies.
Research Question
Why are some democracies able to consistently produce powerful female leaders from political dynasties, while others exhibit a lack, or near absence, of national female leadership? Utilizing a quasi-experimental design and a naturalistic or qualitative methodology that examines the life histories of the daughters of national leaders in different democratic contexts—namely South and Southeast Asia and the United States—reveals important differences in how these political systems construct female power and authority (Mahoney & Thelen, 2010). Both regions contain large electoral democracies with mass political participation, modern media environments, and long traditions of competitive politics (Dahl, 1971). Yet, the trajectories of the daughters of national leaders differ strikingly across these settings, with many prominent female leaders emerging from South and Southeast Asian political systems (Jalalzai, 2013). This paper attempts to address this comparative difference by using a multi-method approach.
By contrast, daughters of US presidents have rarely entered formal political leadership. Figures such as Chelsea Clinton, daughter of Bill Clinton, and Ivanka Trump, daughter of Donald Trump, participated in political campaigns or held advisory roles, yet neither became a nationally elected leader. Despite the prominence of political families in the United States, dynastic succession through daughters has not produced a female president or equivalent national executive leader (Kazin, 1995; Lipset, 1996).
This contrast creates a useful naturally occurring comparative experiment. Both regions share electoral democracy and highly visible political families, yet they produce different outcomes in the political careers of daughters of national leaders. Examining these divergent life histories helps illuminate how political institutions, dynastic networks, gender norms, and populist narratives shape pathways to female national leadership (Mudde & Kaltwasser, 2017).
Please cite as: Solaja, Oludele Mayowa. (2026). “Waste Sovereignty and Plastic Colonialism: Environmental Power and Populism in the Global Political Economy of Waste.” Journal of Populism Studies (JPS). June 11, 2026. https://doi.org/10.55271/JPS000124
Abstract
Plastic pollution is one of the most pressing environmental problems of the twenty-first century, but the governance of global plastic waste is remarkably unequal. Significant volumes of plastic waste from developed countries are exported to developing countries in the Global South, where waste management infrastructure and regulatory capacity are often limited. While this movement of waste across borders is frequently discussed in terms of recycling efficiency or waste management capacity, these transactions are deeply embedded in unequal power relations within the global political economy. This article proposes a theoretical framework called Waste Sovereignty Theory (WST), which explains how international waste trade reproduces environmental power asymmetries between exporting and importing nations. Drawing on political ecology, environmental justice, postcolonial environmental governance, and emerging scholarship on environmental populism, the paper conceptualizes transboundary plastic waste flows as a form of plastic colonialism in which the ecological costs of production and consumption in wealthy countries are displaced onto less powerful states. The article introduces a Waste Sovereignty Theory Framework (WST Framework) that links four key dynamics—plastic production, transnational waste trade, governance inequality, and sovereignty claims—to explain contemporary struggles over environmental authority in the Global South. Using illustrative cases from Southeast Asia and Africa, the article demonstrates how states and communities respond through waste import bans, stricter regulatory regimes, waste repatriation policies, and the promotion of domestic recycling industries. These responses are interpreted not only as efforts to reclaim environmental governance but also as expressions of environmental populism, whereby affected populations challenge environmental burdens perceived as imposed by distant political, economic, and technocratic elites. Waste sovereignty thus emerges as both a claim to environmental justice and a form of political resistance against unequal structures of global environmental governance. The article argues that addressing the global plastic crisis requires more than technological improvements in waste management; it demands institutional reforms capable of confronting the structural inequalities embedded in contemporary systems of production, consumption, and environmental governance.
Keywords: Waste Sovereignty, Plastic Colonialism, Environmental Populism, Global Waste Trade, Environmental Governance, Political Ecology, Environmental Justice, Circular Economy, Global South
Plastic waste constitutes one of the leading contemporary environmental problems in the 21st century. Over the last decades, production of plastics in the global South have rapidly increase from less than 1 million tons per year in the 1950s to more than 400 million tons in a year and rapidly growing international plastic waste trade networks (Geyer et al., 2017; Zhao et al., 2021; Clapp, 2022). Although plastic waste is created around the globe, its environmental burden has been distributed unevenly, that is, wealthy industrialized countries ship vast amounts of their waste to the Global South countries whose institutions and capabilities are often unable to manage this commodity (Brooks et al., 2018; Clapp, 2021). This paper considers that what often appears as technical problems with waste management or efficiency of recycling, are the consequences of underlying structural power relations within political economy that shaped global politics of waste management.
The political ecology literature frames such dynamics within a politics of unequal access to environmental resources. International industrial and consumer economies are producing vast flows of unwanted materials whose disposal is often externalized, whereby they can find an outlet within the weaker regulatory systems found in some Global South countries, leading to environmental contamination and informal dumping and recycling networks (Pellow, 2018; Liboiron, 2021). This is a pattern of waste colonialism where environmental harm produced by global industrial capitalism can be displaced from wealthy consumer economies to the periphery through the waste trade (Pellow, 2018; Liboiron, 2021). This in turn constitutes ecological distribution conflicts, whereby environmental burdens and their subsequent harm fall unevenly between social groups and geographic territories (Martinez-Alier, 2002).
Emergent trends in international waste markets highlight the politicization of these dynamics. The closure of the Chinese market to the majority of foreign waste exports under the National Sword policy in 2018 led to the redirection of massive flows of plastic waste to countries in Southeast Asia and Africa, overwhelming the existing domestic waste management systems of these recipient countries. Consequently, governments from the Global South such as Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines and a host of African states have since imposed new regulations and repatriated illegal shipments of plastic waste, showing the burgeoning politics of the waste system.
Most academic literature on the global plastic crisis frames plastic waste as a technical problem of recycling efficiency or waste management systems, however there is an important politics of why environmental problems and the burden of waste are distributed unevenly. More focus has not been paid to the issue of environmental sovereignty – a State’s/Community’s authority over their environmental resource system, including regulation of trans-boundary flows and their control over development pathways, as a source of environmental power and control within global waste flows governed by the trade regime, global corporate supply chains, and disparities in regulation.
This article theorizes the politics of global waste governance by developing the Waste Sovereignty Theory (WST), which frames global waste systems as arenas of political struggle over authority where States and communities contest the uneven distribution of ecological burden. Waste Sovereignty Theory framework links four key mechanisms-production, trade networks, disparity in regulation, and sovereignty claims-to illuminate the operation of environmental power within current waste regimes. Waste sovereignty, within WST, signifies the authority of States, communities and social movements to assert control over the management of waste systems, including import flows, domestic recycling industry development and environmental common preservation.
In this article, waste sovereignty is defined as the capacity of states, communities, and social institutions to exercise political, ecological, and economic authority over the governance of waste within their territories. This includes the power to regulate transboundary waste flows, control domestic recycling infrastructures, determine environmental standards, and shape the economic systems through which waste materials are managed or transformed into resources. Within the Waste Sovereignty Theory Framework (WST Framework), waste sovereignty therefore represents a form of environmental authority through which political actors contest the unequal distribution of ecological burdens generated by global production and consumption systems.
The theory of Waste Sovereignty extends the field of environmental governance in three main ways; first, situating the plastic crisis within the politics of production, consumption and the externalization of environmental impact. Second, it develops the discourse of environmental justice by placing issues of ecological inequity alongside control over environmental governance systems. Third, it theorizes responses to plastic waste in the Global South as claims to sovereignty from the peripheries in the form of restrictions on imports, new legislation, domestic recycling industries development etc.
Therefore this paper answers the questions: how does global plastic waste trade create a power disparity and how can the Waste Sovereignty Theory frame the emergence of fights for environmental governance in the Global South? Showing the dynamics of the WST through cases from Southeast Asia and Africa, the paper argues that plastic waste has become a politically embedded global issue and its solutions need to transcend purely technical strategies of waste management and recycling, and include the politics of environmental power and sovereignty within the waste system.
