National Identity Formation Through Civilizational Populist Discourse: The Historical–Discourse Analysis of Imran Khan’s Public Addresses in 2022

Abstract

The foundational work on civilizational populism by Yilmaz and Morieson has set the stage to explore the complex relationship between civilizational and national identities and how this relationship supports the populist discourse beyond national boundaries. Applying this framework to the case of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), a populist party in Pakistan, the paper presents the findings of critical discourse analysis of the public addresses of PTI founder and chairman Imran Khan, delivered in 2022—the year he was removed from his office as Prime Minister of Pakistan through a parliamentary no-confidence motion. Using the Discourse–Historical Analysis (DHA) developed by Reisigl and Wodak and the Discourse Theory (DT) of populism by Laclau, this paper critically examines ten public addresses in 2022, five during his tenure as Prime Minister, and five following his removal from office. The analysis focuses on how Imran Khan constructed Pakistani identity around Islamic civilization and critically evaluates the possible implications of this discourse on religious extremism in Pakistan. The findings contribute to an understanding of how civilizational populism operates in practice, highlighting how populist leaders shift their strategic use of civilizational discourse when moving between positions of power and opposition.

1. Introduction

The foundational work on civilizational populism by Yilmaz and Morieson (2021) has set the stage to explore the complex relationship between civilizational and national identities and how this relationship supports the populist discourse. Unlike national populism, which confines populist antagonism within a state’s boundaries through secular or civic definitions of “the people,” civilizational populism employs religious or cultural classifications to define identity and belonging, extending the antagonistic divide beyond national borders. Civilizational populism creates both vertical divisions between “pure people” and “corrupt elites” within the polity, and horizontal divisions between civilizational “self” and threatening “others” both inside and outside the polity (Yilmaz and Morieson 2021, 2022; Brubaker 2020). The civilizational frame enables populists to stage existential crises that allegedly threaten not just the nation but the entire civilization, thus justifying radical solutions that create pathways to democratic erosion. Moreover, when populist discourse invokes civilizational enmity, the stakes extend beyond democratic stability to questions of religious extremism.

The case of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), founded and led by former cricket captain turned politician Imran Khan, provides a laboratory for examining these dynamics. Khan’s political evolution demonstrates a clear progression from reformist anti-establishment populism in 1996 to Islamist civilizationism by 2018, when his party won national elections and he became the prime minister (Yilmaz and Shakil 2021; Batool 2025). This transformation culminated in his vision of Riyasat-e-Madina [“State of Medina,” the first city where the Prophet established political rule], which merged populist appeals with Islamic civilizational nostalgia (Yilmaz et al. 2023). However, his political trajectory took a dramatic turn in 2022 when he lost office through a parliamentary no-confidence motion. As he continued employing similar civilizational discourse and slogans, it provided an opportunity to analyze how populist leaders adapt their civilizational discourse when transitioning from the legitimizing rhetoric of governance to the mobilizing rhetoric of opposition.

Using the Discourse–Historical Analysis (DHA) (Reisigl and Wodak 2001) and the Discourse Theory (DT) of populism (Laclau 2005), this paper critically examines ten public addresses delivered by Imran Khan during 2022, five during his tenure as Prime Minister, and five following his removal from office. The analysis focuses on how Imran Khan constructed Pakistani identity around Islamic civilization and critically evaluates the possible implications of this discourse on religious extremism in Pakistan. The findings contribute to an understanding of how civilizational populism operates in practice, highlighting how populist leaders shift their strategic use of civilizational discourse when moving between positions of power and opposition.

2. Literature Review

Although debates over the definition of populism have not been concluded, a broad scholarly consensus has emerged around its core features: the construction of “the people” as the main reference identity and its antagonistic relationship with “the elite” and “the others.” However, disagreement persists regarding the ontological status of populism, with the ideational school, led by Mudde (2004), conceptualizing it as a “thin-centered ideology” and the discursive or Essex school, led by Laclau and Mouffe (2001), treating it as a discursive logic.

A similar difference exists between how this paper treats civilizational populism and its original conceptualization. Yilmaz and Morieson (2021) extended the ideational framework to develop their concept, defining civilizational populism as

a group of ideas that together considers that politics should be an expression of the volonté générale (general will) of the people, and society to be ultimately separated into two homogenous and antagonistic groups, ‘the pure people’ versus ‘the corrupt elite’ who collaborate with the dangerous others belonging to other civilizations that are hostile and present a clear and present danger to the civilization and way of life of the pure people.

(Yilmaz and Morieson 2021, p. 19)

This study, however, treats civilizational populism as a discursive frame that political leaders use to build a frontier between “the people” and their enemies. Following Laclau’s (2005) DT of populism, the study treats “the people” as a construct and one that lacks a clear meaning. Historically, it has been articulated in the sense of underdog, sovereign democrats, and a bounded community, and populists often mix all these meanings in their discourse (Brubaker 2020). Populist discourse, hence, is defined on the grounds of the antagonistic structure and not the exact content of “the people,” which is usually relative to the context and ideological orientation of the populist leader (Panizza 2017; Batool 2025). In the case of civilizational populism, civilizationism provides the substantive content that fills this otherwise empty signifier.

The concept of civilizationism emerged primarily as a paradigm for understanding global politics, with civilizational identity seen as the ultimate, most encompassing layer of multilayered political identity. Huntington’s (1996) clash of civilizations thesis established the foundational framework for this approach, claiming that cultural differences, instead of state-based national identities, would become the dominant source of conflict after the Cold War ended. Hence, the theory treated national and civilizational identities as separate political identities and conflict and competition as the key modes of relationship between civilizations.

In contrast, the theory of civilizational populism focuses not only on the implications for foreign policy decisions but also on the redefinition of democratic and national identities within civilizational frameworks, impacting the domestic political sphere (Yilmaz and Morieson 2021). Civilizational populists define “the people” as belonging to a superior civilization while portraying “elites” as being corrupt for having betrayed the civilizational values and culture, and “dangerous others” as belonging to foreign civilizations with inferior values. This represents a fundamental departure from traditional civilizational discourse by merging national and civilizational identities into a single political framework. The intrinsic ambiguity of “the people” in populist discourse facilitates this merger by allowing leaders to simultaneously invoke both national belonging and civilizational membership as overlapping and mutually reinforcing sources of authentic identity.

The role of religion is intrinsic to this merged concept of civilizational cum national identity. Yilmaz and Morieson (2021, 2022) assert that civilizational populist rhetoric almost invariably incorporates religion as the primary organizing principle for defining civilizational boundaries, using religious identity not merely as a cultural marker but as a tool to justify radical solutions and legitimize the exclusion or repression of religious minorities who are portrayed as threats to the nation and its religious culture. This is in line with Huntington’s original concept of civilization, where the most important defining feature was religion. He claimed religion “discriminates sharply and exclusively among people,” because one can have multiple nationalities and ethnicities but not religion (Huntington 1993, p. 26).

However, extensive scholarly critique has emerged challenging this rigid conceptualization of religious identity. Critics have highlighted the complex and fluid nature of religious traditions, which often contain internal diversity, contested interpretations, and evolving practices that resist essentialist categorization and the civilizational framework fails to capture this complexity (Haglund and Singh 2023; Dallmayr 1996). Furthermore, the framework underestimates human agency in identity construction, overlooking how individuals strategically prioritize different aspects of their identity based on situational contexts and political opportunities (Sen 2006). Perhaps most significantly, critics argue that Huntington’s approach ignores substantial evidence of religion serving as a bridge for intercultural dialogue and peaceful conflict resolution, rather than inevitably generating discrimination and conflict (Appleby 2000; Norris and Inglehart 2011).

Paradoxically, these very limitations of civilizationism as an analytical framework align perfectly with populist discourse strategies. The essentialist nature of civilizational thinking provides populist leaders with simplified, emotionally resonant categories that facilitate the construction of clear antagonisms between “us” and “them.” The framework’s tendency to obscure internal religious diversity serves populist interests by enabling leaders to claim authentic representation of supposedly homogeneous religious communities while marginalizing dissenting voices within those traditions. Moreover, the deterministic view of religious conflict inherent in civilizational discourse provides populist movements with ready-made justifications for exclusionary policies and aggressive rhetoric. This potent intersection of civilizational essentialism with populist antagonism creates particularly fertile ground for religious extremism.

Research shows that populist attitudes serve as catalysts for extremism by fostering conspiracy beliefs and ideological radicalization (Ventura-Egoávil et al. 2025). Some studies have highlighted how populist discourse has contributed to militant extremism and radicalization (Koehler 2016; Thompson 2021). Civilizational populism amplifies this process by combining anti-establishment sentiment with exclusionary identity frameworks. However, most research has been exploring this connection in the context of Europe, where secular state institutions compete with such a narrative. This knowledge gap is critical because civilizational populism becomes particularly acute in contexts like Pakistan, where faith serves as the primary identity marker.

When leaders like Imran Khan successfully merge Islamist ideals with populist rhetoric, they inadvertently justify and promote the use of violence against individuals or groups perceived as threatening to the faith community (Yilmaz and Shakil 2021). Given that populists use static definitions of religion, the source of threat is not just political opponents or foreign countries belonging to other civilizations but anyone who challenges this rigid religious orthodoxy, including religious minorities, progressive voices within the faith, and secular elements of society. This dynamic demonstrates how civilizational populism in religious states creates multiple layers of exclusion that can escalate from political marginalization to violent extremism.

While some preliminary works on civilizational/Islamic populism in Pakistan have been conducted (Yilmaz and Shakil 2021; Yilmaz et al. 2023; Faiz 2022), there is still much room to explore how this civilizational discourse is influencing the post-9/11 issues of rising extremism and terrorism in the country. Pakistan’s terrorism crisis has deep roots in the Soviet-Afghan war (Abbas 2010). Recent data from the Pakistan Institute for Peace Studies (2025) reveals a dramatic escalation, with terrorist attacks increasing by 70% in 2024 to 521 incidents, claiming 852 lives—a trend that began reversing after the Taliban’s return to power in Kabul in 2021.

Simultaneously, Pakistan has experienced severe democratic erosion characterized by repeated military interventions in civilian politics, with each of the past five prime ministers facing indictment or imprisonment after leaving office, as the military continues to function as the ultimate arbiter of political power (Gunes 2025; Rehan 2023). The human rights situation has deteriorated significantly, with blasphemy-related violence intensifying (Bilal 2024). The legal and illegal persecution of minorities, particularly Ahmadis, with forced conversions, attacks on places of worship, and extrajudicial killings, which often go unpunished, are on the rise (Human Rights Watch 2024). Through examining the discursive strategies used by Khan to construct Pakistani national identity around Islamic civilizational belonging, this paper critically evaluates the potential contributions of his populist discourse to these interconnected dynamics of religious extremism, democratic erosion, and minority marginalization in contemporary Pakistan.

3. Results

The analysis proceeds through three interconnected stages. First, the text of each speech was manually analyzed to identify key discourse topics that “summarize the text and specify its most important information” (van Dijk 1991, p. 113). Following the advice of De Cleen et al. (2021), the textual analysis is not focused on syntax or phonetics, but rather on understanding the dynamics behind that speech and being au fait with the main content of the speeches.

Building on Reisigl and Wodak’s (2001) framework, the second stage examines discursive strategies employed by Khan for positive self-presentation and negative presentation of both “the elite” and “the others.” The analysis focuses on five key strategies, namely reference/nomination (labels, titles, and group terms), predication (attributes of each social actor), argumentation (justifying evaluation using different topoi), perspectivation (using facts and other quotes), and intensification/mitigation (emphasizing or deemphasizing certain acts or attributes).

The final stage employs the macro-analytical approach of DT to contextualize Khan’s civilizational populist discourse within broader historical and political discourses in Pakistan. The analysis at this stage establishes how Khan’s civilizational populist discourse functions as a hegemonic project that seeks to reproduce traditional Islamic nationalist narratives while simultaneously adapting them to contemporary populist logics. This macro-level contextualization, along with a comparative analysis of pre- and post-ouster speeches, demonstrates how such discursive shifts contribute to broader patterns of religious extremism in Pakistan, particularly through the normalization of exclusionary civilizational appeals in Khan’s discourse.

3.1. Discourse Topics

When he was in power, Imran Khan’s critics in the media frequently complained about the repetitive nature of his rhetoric, arguing that his constant reiteration of similar themes resulted in monotonous and predictable content. The monotonous nature of the content was noticeable during the process of listening to and transcribing the data for this analysis. However, a systematic analysis to identify key topics revealed a more nuanced picture: not only was there a gradual discursive evolution around each recurring topic, but there was also a notable shift in topic selection before and after his removal from office (See

Table 1. Discourse topics before and after the ouster.

Before the Ouster	After the Ouster
Economic Development and Growth Record-high growth in specific sectors (agriculture, IT, large-scale manufacturing, construction, etc.) Tax collection record Exports growth Remittance	Foreign Conspiracy and Regime Change Allegation of US threat to Pakistan’s Ambassador Imported government narrative Military’s non-neutral stance in regime change
Riyastat-e-Medina Welfare state system Rule of law and social justice	Riyasat-e-Medina Welfare state system Equality before law Pakistan’s true vision Freedom from all forms of slavery
Challenges and Crisis Management Record Fiscal and Current Account Deficit COVID-19 response Afghanistan crisis Global Inflation	Economic performance of his government Record exports, remittance, and tax collection GDP growth Economic stability after long crisis
Government Initiatives Health Card Program Educational reforms Ehsas Program Scholarships Kamyab Pakistan Program Low-cost housing initiatives	Rule of Law and Anti-Corruption Accusation of NRO demands from opposition Shahbaz Sharif’s and Zardari’s cases Money laundering Criticism of Supreme Court Call for institutional neutrality (to bureaucracy and military)
Rule of Law and Anti-Corruption National Accountability Bureau No possibility of NRO with corrupt elite Money laundering	Independent Foreign Policy Defending his visit to Russia “Absolutely Not” Dignity and respect Comparison with India and some other countries
Independent Foreign Policy Defending his visit to Russia Non-alignment Dignity and respect Comparison with India	Public Mobilization and Protests Azadi March Civil Disobedience Peaceful protests
Personal and Political Struggles Social motivation behind his entry in politics 25-year political journey Jihad for justice and rule of law	Threats and Security concerns Life threats Divine protection and sacrifice for nation political struggles

).

Nevertheless, the core topics remained the same—Riyasat-e-Madina, rule of law, and anti-corruption—all contributing to a specific identity construction of a pious and just Muslim Pakistani community. Irrespective of genre and audience, and with almost equal frequency and intensity both before and after the ouster, Khan explained his idea of Riyasat-e-Medina and asserted that this is not just a religious slogan to win popular support but the core of his political struggle for bringing social justice in the country. In almost all speeches, he repeated a saying of the Prophet on the prime reason for the failure of previous civilizations being inequality before the law, with different rules for the rich and the poor. However, before the ouster, he presented this concept as a governing philosophy and policy framework that he was trying to implement. After the ouster, the concept was framed as a rallying cry for resistance, with Khan emphasizing a need for political struggle (called Jihad) against both the corrupt ruling elite and the foreign powers (specifically the USA) intervening in Pakistani politics.

Khan’s construction of Pakistani identity was deeply embedded in his selective emphasis on Islamic civilizational themes throughout all ten speeches. Most speeches began with the traditional Islamic invocation Bismillah (In the name of God) and the Quranic verse Iyyaka na’budu wa iyyaka nasta’een (You alone we worship, and you are the only one we seek for help). After his ouster, he also started referring to La Ilaha Illa Allah (There is no god but Allah). These phrases were consistently framed as freedom from all subjugation, with Khan connecting them to Pakistan’s founding rationale (freedom from British imperialism and Hindu dominance) and his concept of an Independent foreign policy (freedom from American intervention). Thus, by connecting these topics, Khan positioned his struggle for power within a grand narrative of Islamic and Pakistan’s history.

The temporal proximity of the selected speeches to Imran Khan’s ouster (April 2022) means that most of his in-power addresses were defensive, focused on justifying his policies and governance record rather than addressing routine administrative matters. He presented statistical figures to demonstrate economic achievements, particularly highlighting record-high growth in agriculture, information technology, large-scale manufacturing, and construction sectors. Khan emphasized unprecedented tax collection and significant increases in exports and remittances to counter opposition criticism.

His defensive posture also involved acknowledging major economic challenges while attributing them to external factors beyond his control, including record fiscal and current account deficits when he started his government, the global COVID-19 pandemic, the Afghanistan crisis, and the post-COVID worldwide inflation. To strengthen his governance narrative, Khan systematically outlined his administration’s signature initiatives, including the Sehat Card Program, educational reforms, the Ehsaas social protection program, scholarship schemes, the Kamyab Pakistan Program, and low-cost housing projects. This comprehensive enumeration of policies and achievements served as a political shield against mounting opposition pressure and reflected his government’s struggle to maintain legitimacy during its final months in power.

Out of power, while he continued to refer to the economic achievements of his government, the context was vastly different: the same statistical achievements he had previously used to justify his governance now served as proof of a conspiracy against Pakistan’s interests. His post-ouster rhetoric transformed economic indicators into symbols of national betrayal, suggesting that his removal had not only ended effective governance but had deliberately sabotaged Pakistan’s development trajectory. This new topic of foreign conspiracy and regime change became the core of his speeches and public addresses, with him openly naming US official Donald Lu, threatening Pakistan’s ambassador in the US.

Khan also began extensive discussion of resistance tactics, including calls for mass mobilization, Azadi marches, and civil disobedience against what he termed the “imported government.” He introduced historical analogies of betrayal, frequently referencing Mir Jafar (the commander-in-chief of the Bengali army who conspired with the British forces in the Battle of Plassey, overthrowing a Muslim Nawab and ascending to his throne) to characterize his political opponents as traitors collaborating with foreign powers. Additionally, while Khan made some reference to this 25-year political struggle before the ouster as well, he began addressing topics of personal persecution, threats to his life, legal harassment through multiple FIRs, and media suppression more frequently in his discourse after the ouster.

3.2. Discursive Strategies

Khan’s discourse employs sophisticated identity construction through religious authority, performance metrics, and sovereignty claims to create a powerful in-group identity, while systematically delegitimizing his opponents through accusations of corruption, incompetence, and foreign dependency. His self-presentation reveals a calculated evolution from democratic politician to religious crusader, with discourse intensity correlating directly with his changing political fortunes and the perceived threats to his authority.

3.2.1. Positive Self-Presentation of Himself

To present himself positively as a qualified leader, Khan relied heavily on his past achievements in cricket and philanthropy, asserting that he was already successful and so there was no greed for power or fame involved in decision to join politics In one of his pre-ouster speeches in March, he questioned, “For a man who had everything, why would he spend 22 years in political struggle?” Then, using the topos of self-sacrifice and religious framing, he presented this political struggle as a service to the nation and a Jihad—a religious obligation or divine mandate. By invoking Jihad, Khan implicitly situates contemporary Pakistani politics within a broader civilizational conflict, suggesting that his decision to join politics had far broader civilizational goals linked to defending an Islamic state.

He emphasized that his achievements In politics are self-made, “My relatives, my father, or [anyone else in] my family were not in Politics… I started it alone.” Predicating himself as a self-made hardworking man, he also emphasized his honesty (“the only politician, declared by the court as Sadiq and Ameen), care for people (Every day I am and my government officials thinks of ways to reduce the burden of global inflation on Pakistani public), ideological consistency (I have been saying it forever not to join others’ war against people’s interests), competence (I have had the opportunity to tour the entire world”), and international recognition (I was given a protocol in the US that no previous leader in Pakistan has received before) as positive attributes making him an ideal for leading Pakistan. He used hyperbolic terms like “more than anyone in the world/Pakistan,” or “record-breaking” to enhance his credibility over others.

Meanwhile, he also used democratic legitimization, referring to his government as “the people’s government” and his party as “the only national-level political party in Pakistan having a presence in all four provinces and Gilgit-Baltistan”. Interestingly, he linked this public support to divine support: “I started it all alone, but gradually, Allah put this in your hearts, and gradually you started joining me, [and so] the movement started expanding.” Post-ouster, his main demand was to hold elections in the country, claiming that seeing the overwhelming support he is getting from the masses in his protest rallies, the forces involved in his ouster are delaying elections. Using the mitigation strategy, he frames the challenges to his re-election as manageable if the public agrees to support him, “I am congratulating you today as you have won elections already, and party defectors [used a defamatory term] of any size cannot defeat you… I assure you that if you enter this field (of electoral politics) as a team (i.e., united), no one can beat you.”

He also highlighted the economic competence of his government, emphasizing achievements using the intensification strategy, such as “record tax collection” and “highest exports in the history of Pakistan and topoi of number, quoting specific financial statistics on Inflation, exports, remittance collection, etc., and comparing it with the economic performance of past governments. For perspectivation, he made references to international actors like the World Bank recognition and Bill Gates’ inquiries about Pakistan’s COVID response. These references, when linked to the civilizational framework, could be interpreted as him arguing that authentic Islamic leadership can command respect from Western civilization, thereby countering narratives of Islamic civilizational inferiority or backwardness.

Post-ouster, this strategy shifted toward defending achievements against systematic dismantling, with Khan claiming that the economic performance of his government was the best in thirty years while warning of impending collapse under the new government. Using the topoi of threat and security, Khan connected the economic achievement of his government with “regime-change conspiracy”, claiming that the ouster of his government is to put a stop to this economic growth. Hence, he extends his removal from the prime minister’s office as a wider threat to the national and economic interests of the country. This discursive shift from achievement celebration to achievement protection transformed a positive performance-oriented discourse into a polarization rhetoric, creating zero-sum political dynamics that impede democratic compromise and coalition-building.

Religious perspectivation produced similar outcomes. He frequently associated his politics with a movement for justice started by the Prophet, claiming that he is promoting the same values as set by the Prophet Muhammad while establishing the first Muslim state in Medina. Again, this association transcends national boundaries, positioning his political trajectory as continuous with the Islamic foundational moment. In addition to strategically building an association of his views with those of religious figures like the Prophet, he also systematically referred to figures in the Pakistan Movement like Quaid-e-Azam and Allama Iqbal and claimed that his movement is built on Pakistan’s foundational ideals. Notably, pre-ouster reference to religious principles and ideals of the Pakistan movement served as a warrant for policy direction. This evolved into explicit divine mandate claims post-ouster, with Khan declaring, “This is Allah’s work” and “This is not politics, this is jihad.” He also warned the audience that the failure of his movement would be the failure of the very reason Pakistan was founded, “Where did Iqbal’s Khudi [i.e., self-respect and self-reliance] go? Where did the great dream of Pakistan go if these thieves succeed and rule over us?” Political vulnerability drove increasingly radical self-presentation, with Khan positioning himself not merely as a competent administrator but as a divinely guided leader whose removal constituted sacrilege, justifying resistance as defense of civilization itself rather than partisan politics. He systematically connected the claim of threat to his life with the wider Islamic jurisprudence of resistance against injustice and martyrdom.

People are repeatedly saying that there is a threat to [my] life. There is no threat to life; this is Allah’s work. This is His command to us… the command from above is to us. When there is injustice in a country or someone tries to take your freedom, then death is better than becoming a slave.

While Khan presents this as personal testimony about prioritizing the movement against injustice over his own life, thereby establishing his ultimate commitment to the cause and moral-religious superiority, this discourse simultaneously functions as sophisticated mobilization rhetoric that transforms political participation from optional civic engagement into divine religious obligation. By invoking Allah’s direct command and positioning resistance as preferable to slavery, Khan creates a theological framework that not only delegitimizes neutrality as religious disobedience but also psychologically prepares his supporters to endure expected state repression by reframing potential suffering as sacred martyrdom rather than political persecution. He linked popular resistance to monotheistic principles, declaring that all Muslims recite “There is no god but Allah” but rarely understand that this liberates humans from all earthly powers, including corrupt political authorities and global power, because there is no power above God.

3.2.2. Positive Self-Presentation of “The People”

In Khan’s discourse, the primary in-group is the Pakistani nation, which he variously describes as “poor people,” “hardworking people of Pakistan,” and “common people” in his pre-ouster speeches. In post-ouster addresses, this representation shifts as he refers to them more frequently as “conscious citizens,” signaling a discursive elevation of their political agency. The predication strategy similarly evolved from positioning people as victims requiring protection to elevating them as the most honored creation with inherent dignity demanding respect. Beyond victimhood and dignity, Khan presented “the people” as the ultimate moral and political sovereign—those whose will should override institutional authority, parliamentary procedure, or external pressures. The people thus become the central source of democratic legitimacy in his narrative and the main force for his movement after the ouster. However, he intelligently linked this sovereignty discourse with religious framing, presenting the Pakistani public not just as abstract citizens with some social contract with the state but as members of the Islamic ummah, whose collective will must align with civilizational values rather than Western democratic procedures.

Khan consistently uses possessive pronouns such as “my nation” and “our people,” reinforcing a sense of intimacy and solidarity. For instance, in references to Pakistan’s role in the War on Terror, he describes it as sacrificing “our people” for “someone else’s war”. Given that he did not clearly articulate the boundary of “our” and mixed reference to the loss of life in Pakistan and Afghanistan, he is clearly farming the War on terror as a civilizational conflict where Pakistan wrongly sacrificed the lives of Muslims (both Pakistani and Afghani) for a Western civilizational interest. He built similar binaries between the elite interest and public interests, presenting people as victims of elite capture. Similarly, in articulating his idea of “independent foreign policy” in his discourse, he explained that this is a policy that should serve the interests of “our nation”. His discourse also invokes a generational frame, presenting youth and future generations as vital agents of national redemption. In addition, he frequently highlights specific social groups—such as farmers, entrepreneurs, women, ex-servicemen, and families of military officers—as the main target of his mobilization.

Interestingly, while he emphasizes in his addresses that he is talking to all Pakistanis, and not just the PTI supporters, his use of religious argumentation inadvertently equates Pakistani identity with Muslim identity, subtly sidelining the non-Muslim Pakistanis. Also, when connecting his contemporary movement for freedom with the Pakistan Movement, he explicitly mentions “Hindus” from whom the founders took freedom, thereby marginalizing Hindu Pakistanis. The exclusionary national imaginary that privileges Muslim subjecthood is deeply rooted in the religious nationalist discourse, historically propagated by the state, and Khan actively reproduced and legitimized this narrative in his political rhetoric.

3.2.3. Negative Other-Presentation of Opposition

The most dramatic shifts occurred in Khan’s negative presentation of political opponents, particularly in naming strategies. Pre-ouster speeches employed relatively moderate terms like corrupt people” or “ruling elite”, while post-ouster intensification produced increasingly derogatory characterizations, including “gang of thieves,” “traitor”, “dacoit,” “drug dealers,” and “mafia”. Personal ridicule emerged as a dominant strategy post-ouster, with Khan introducing mockery terms for Shahbaz Sharif like “cherry blossom” for his servile behavior and “Maqsood peon” using a class-based insults. Both terms carry explicit civilizational dimensions, as they function not as mere personal insult but as marking civilizational betrayal—Shahbaz represents the archetypal leader who has defected, preferring Western approval over Islamic self-respect. He used similar mockery terms for other politicians, such as “Hamza Kukri”, “Mulana Diesel,” and “Mufta Ismael,” while explicitly naming Zardari and Sharif as the most corrupt individuals in the country. He made fun of tongue slips and the accent of Bilawal Bhutto, claiming that he cannot even speak Urdu properly, leveraging linguistic identity to question his belonging and leadership legitimacy. Corruption allegations showed similar intensification patterns, moving from general references to specific quantifications like “corruption cases of worth forty billion rupees” and “theft of eleven hundred billion rupees”.

Also, the use of historical analogies with Mir Jaffar with topoi of betrayal, positioned the current opposition’s alleged involvement in the US-led conspiracy as a continuation of colonial collaboration, transforming temporary political disagreements into permanent civilizational threats. The use of prophetic traditions about justice for powerful criminals added the moral and religious element to this opposition. This historical-religious framing fundamentally altered the nature of political competition in Pakistan, presenting it as civilizational regression that betrays both the nation’s founding principles and divine commands, thereby promoting political polarization. Opposition leaders are not political adversaries who might govern differently; they are civilizational defectors who threaten Islamic Pakistan’s existence by aligning with Western civilization against their own civilizational community.

3.2.4. Negative Other-Presentation of West and the US

Apart from the elite, the other main out-group in Khan’s discourse is the West, particularly the US. In the pre-ouster speeches, as most were delivered after he alleged that Donald Lu threatened Pakistan’s ambassador in the US, he used the topoi of sovereignty and dignity to criticize the US approach towards Pakistan and asserted Pakistan’s right to follow an independent foreign policy. However, in most pre-ouster speeches, he maintained relatively measured language and even praised the West in several instances for following the values and principles introduced by Islam. Mostly, he blamed the past governments for pursuing policies that made Pakistan dependent on the US and held that he would eventually earn the respect of the US institutions by crafting policies serving national interests. He also employed comparative frameworks to shame Pakistani elite subservience, frequently referencing India’s ability to maintain independent oil purchases from Russia despite American alliance.

Post-ouster discourse positioned America as the primary architect of a systematic conspiracy against Pakistan’s sovereignty. Through religious framing, he added a theological element to the binary he built between Pakistanis and the West. Khan positioned resistance to American pressure as a fundamental monotheistic duty, connecting it with their recitation of “There is no God but Allah” as an expression of freedom from all domination, including the US domination. The religious dimension culminated in his declaration that Pakistani leaders who submitted to American pressure had violated the fundamental Islamic principle of sovereignty, transforming foreign policy debates into questions of religious authenticity and making a compromise with Western demands a betrayal of both national and divine authority.

In sum, Khan’s discourse is a sophisticated project of identity construction rooted in the logics of populism, nationalism, and religious civilizationism. Through strategic deployment of nomination, predication, argumentation, perspectivation, and intensification, he redefined leadership as both morally superior and divinely mandated. His self-representation as an incorruptible, self-made, and globally respected leader stands in sharp contrast to the portrayal of political rivals as criminal, foreign-dependent, and morally bankrupt actors. Similarly, “the people” are discursively elevated from passive victims to conscious citizens and moral sovereigns, while opponents and external actors are cast as threats to national dignity and divine order. Over time, his rhetoric transitions from conventional democratic appeals to an increasingly existential and religiously framed struggle, in which resistance to domestic elites and foreign powers becomes a sacred duty. This evolution has deepened political polarization by collapsing the boundaries between political loyalty and moral virtue, and between national belonging and religious identity. By positioning political engagement as an extension of spiritual obligation, Khan not only mobilized mass support but also foreclosed the space for neutral citizenship, institutional mediation, and pluralistic democracy. His discourse thus reflects and reinforces a broader populist-religious paradigm that reconfigures political legitimacy in Pakistan through the intertwining of piety, sovereignty, and popular will.

3.3. DT Analysis: Nodal Point and the Chain of Equivalence

Laclau (2005) introduced several new concepts for understanding how populist discourse achieves hegemonic effects. Of these, two are of prime importance and are widely used in empirical discourse studies using Laclau’s theory to understand populist discourse: nodal point and chains of equivalence. As mentioned earlier, Laclau (2005) defines populism as a discursive logic that divides society into two groups: the people and their enemies. “The people,” however, lacks a meaning, an empty signifier in DT terms. A nodal point functions as a privileged signifier that partially fixes the meaning of “the people” within a populist discourse, while chains of equivalence link diverse elements into a unified political identity by establishing what they share in common—typically their opposition to a common enemy (Laclau 2005). However, DT offers no clear methodological guidelines for identifying these discursive structures empirically. In this paper, we began with the micro-level analysis of discourse topics and discursive strategies and found it extremely useful in providing essential groundwork for this macro-theoretical examination by revealing the specific mechanisms through which Khan constructs political identities and antagonisms.

The analysis reveals that the Khan uses the signifier of the Pakistani nation as its nodal point, giving some temporary meaning to “the people” in populist discourse. However, Khan does not define Pakistani national identity through conventional civic or territorial criteria. Instead, he articulates it through Islamic civilizational belonging, moral superiority, and resistance to foreign domination. This nodal point gains its hegemonic potential by linking Pakistan’s national destiny to Islamic values, anti-corruption principles, and sovereignty claims, creating a powerful equivalential chain that transcends traditional political divisions.

Khan constructs this chain of equivalence by systematically linking several key elements: Islamic civilization (Riyasat-e-Madina), moral purity (anti-corruption), national sovereignty (independent foreign policy), and authentic leadership (his own political struggle). These elements become equivalent not through their positive content but through their shared opposition to a common enemy—the corrupt elite collaborating with foreign powers to undermine Pakistan’s Islamic identity and independence. The chain operates through “negative identity,” where disparate elements unite primarily through what they oppose rather than what they positively represent.

Before his ouster, Khan positioned himself as the authentic representative of this equivalential chain while governing within existing institutional frameworks. His discourse emphasized policy achievements and democratic legitimacy to demonstrate his capacity to deliver the promised transformation. The nodal point of the Pakistani nation remained stable, but the chain of equivalence was primarily constructed through positive content—economic growth, welfare programs, and governance reforms that supposedly reflected Islamic values.

After his removal from power, Khan’s discourse underwent a significant transformation while maintaining the same nodal point. The chain of equivalence expanded to include new elements: victimhood (persecution by corrupt forces), resistance (the Azadi March), and martyrdom (willingness to sacrifice for the nation). The equivalential logic intensified as Khan began explicitly naming external enemies (the United States) and internal traitors (the military establishment and opposition parties). This shift demonstrated how populist discourse adapts its equivalential strategies based on changing political circumstances while preserving its core hegemonic project.

Interestingly, Khan is not the inventor of this nodal point. He built his discourse on the solid foundation of the civilizational discourse popularized by state machinery before him, connecting Muslim identity with Pakistani nationalism (Yilmaz and Batool 2025). To this, he added the populist ingredients of public will and sovereignty, highlighting that the public is not only morally superior, but it also has the real authority over the policy decisions of the country and must mobilize to bring change to its destiny. This empowering and inclusive discourse appears to be very democratic, but actually functions to legitimize exclusionary practices against those who fall outside his definition of authentic Pakistani identity. By linking democratic participation to Islamic civilizational belonging, Khan creates a framework where only those who conform to his religious and cultural orthodoxy can claim legitimate membership in “the people.” This conditional democracy transforms popular sovereignty from an inclusive principle into a tool for marginalizing religious minorities, secular voices, and progressive Muslims who challenge traditional interpretations of Islamic governance (Batool 2025).

4. Material and Methods

The study employs DHA developed by Reisigl and Wodak (2001) with theoretical insights of DT (Laclau 2005) to analyze Imran Khan’s civilizational populist discourse during 2022. The DHA is particularly suited for this research because of its social constructivist perspective that treats identities to be contingent and constructed through discourse. Also, unlike other approaches in Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), DHA situates texts within evolving political, cultural, and institutional contexts. Because most of the civilizational discourse Khan used is closely linked to anti-colonial, Islamic democratic, and Muslim nationalist discourses, the study could contextually understand how his speeches reproduce or contest these discourses. The analysis of this connection between “a particular discourse under study and the more encompassing and the more stable structures of meaning it reproduces or contests” is also integral to Laclau’s DT.

While there are some differences in the ontological claims about discourse in DT and broader CDA (Howarth et al. 2000; Glynos et al. 2009), several works have supported the idea of combining the two (De Cleen et al. 2021; Brown 2024; Carpentier 2010). This study merges DHA’s micro-level analysis of discursive self- and other-presentation (Reisigl and Wodak 2001) with DT’s macro-theoretical focus, enabling a contextualized and theoretically informed examination of how Khan discursively constructs “the people,” “the elite,” and “the others” within a broader civilizational frame.

The study analyses ten public addresses (See

Table 2. Details of texts (speeches) selected for analysis.

Field of Action	Genre	Context	Duration (min: s)	Date of Delivery
Before ouster
Formation of public opinion and self-preservation	Speech at a conference	Address to the business community at the 14th International Chambers Summit	25: 57	11 January 2022
	Inaugural speech	Launching ceremony of Qaumi Sehat Card for free healthcare inpatient services	23: 49	9 February 2022
	Live TV address	TV address during growing tensions with the establishment over Russia–Ukraine policy, and the threat of a no-confidence motion from the opposition	42: 22	28 February 2022
	Live TV Address	Another effort to win public confidence amidst growing tension with the military establishment and the opposition	42: 49	31 March 2022
	Speech at a Conference	Speech at Islamabad Security Dialogue organized by the National Security Division	25: 34	1 April 2022
After ouster
Formation of public opinion and self-preservation	Speech at a rally	In a post-ouster protest rally in Karachi, Khan responded to DG ISPR’s statement rejecting Khan’s claim that the US government was involved in his ouster.	54: 19	16 April 2022
	Speech at the party convention	At the Party Workers’ Convention in South Punjab, Khan called workers to join a March to Islamabad against his ouster	15: 14	29 April 2022
	Press Conference	In this press conference in Peshawar, Khan finally announced the date and shared other details of the “Azadi” March	24: 49	16 May 2022
	TV Interview	Interview in a TV program hosted by a journalist known for supporting PTI	47: 30	18 June 2022
	Speech at a rally	Before launching the second series of Azadi March, this is one of the series of protest rallies held by PTI.	31: 39	7 July 2022

) delivered by Imran Khan during 2022: five speeches during his tenure as Prime Minister (January–April 2022) and five speeches following his removal from office (April–July 2022). As demonstrated by Yilmaz and Shakil (2021), Khan’s discourse had already adopted a full-fledged Islamist civilizational rhetoric by 2018, making the 2022 power transition a theoretically significant moment to examine potential shifts in civilizational populist discourse. The period was marked by growing geopolitical friction, particularly over his Russia–Ukraine policy, which provided the context for this anti-American discourse and sheds light on how civilizational populists frame their foreign policies as a war against civilizational enemies.

The speeches were selected based on the following criteria: (1) public accessibility through social media; (2) delivered to significant audiences with potential national reach; and (3) duration of at least 15 min to ensure substantial content. In line with Reisigl and Wodak (2009), this study treats discourse as “context-dependent” and “situated within specific fields of action.” The selected speeches cover discourse aimed at “the formation of public opinion and self-presentation” (Wodak 2001, p. 69) but belong to different genres and settings to account for intertextuality and interdiscursivity (Reisigl and Wodak 2009).

Table 2 indicates a noticeable difference in the genres of speeches before and after the ouster of Khan. This change primarily reflects his altered access to state resources and his position. Before his ouster, Khan’s speeches were delivered in controlled, institutional settings, such as the 14th International Chambers Summit and the Qaumi Sehat Card inauguration, where he addressed targeted audiences like the business community or policy stakeholders. These settings, often backed by state machinery, allowed him to project authority and leverage formal platforms to shape public opinion. His live TV addresses in February and March 2022, delivered amidst escalating tensions with the military establishment and opposition, were strategic attempts to consolidate public support in a volatile political climate, particularly as the threat of a no-confidence motion loomed.

In contrast, post-ouster speeches occurred in less structured, more populist environments, such as protest rallies in Karachi and South Punjab, and a press conference in Peshawar. These settings were inherently reactive, driven by the need to mobilize supporters and counter others’ narratives, such as the military’s rejection of his claims of foreign involvement in his ouster. The shift to TV interviews with sympathetic journalists further indicates a reliance on media allies to amplify his message, compensating for the loss of state-controlled platforms.

5. Discussion and Conclusions

While much has been written about the civilizational populist discourse of Khan, this analysis systematically proves through extensive analysis how Khan merged Islamic civilizational belonging with Pakistani national identity. Through his concept of Riyasat-e-Madina, Khan linked Pakistani nationalism to Islamic historical nostalgia while presenting his political struggle as a continuation of the Prophet’s mission. This merger effectively expanded the antagonistic frontier of populist discourse beyond national boundaries, creating horizontal divisions between Islamic civilization and threatening Western “others” alongside the traditional vertical division between “pure people” and “corrupt elites.”

As explained above, the content of “the people” is usually contextually dependent, and this selection of civilizational framing by Khan should be seen as a pragmatic political strategy, rather than an ideologically driven discourse. Pakistan’s founding in 1947 was itself a civilizational project. The Two-Nation Theory posited that Muslims and Hindus constituted not merely different religious communities but distinct civilizations that could not coexist within a single nation-state (Batool 2025). Subsequent constitutional developments reinforced this civilizational framework: the 1949 Objectives Resolution declared sovereignty belonged to Allah alone, the 1956 Constitution designated Pakistan an “Islamic Republic,” and the 1973 Constitution (still operative) mandates that no law shall be repugnant to Islam. It went through further intensification through Bhutto’s Pan-Islamism and the religious amendment in the 1973 constitution, and through Zia’s Islamization project (Haqqani 2005). The educational reforms proved particularly consequential: textbooks systematically portrayed Pakistan’s history as a continuation of Islamic civilization’s struggle against Hindu civilization, embedding civilizational antagonism in generational consciousness (Aziz 1993).

Khan’s civilizational populist discourse succeeded precisely because it articulated what was already embedded in Pakistani political consciousness through six decades of state ideology and geopolitical positioning (Yilmaz and Batool 2025). He did not invent Pakistan’s Islamic civilizational identity; he populist-ized it by connecting elite corruption to civilizational betrayal, transforming an abstract state ideology into a mobilizing narrative of popular resistance. His rhetoric found fertile ground because it resonated with both lived experiences of religious–national identity and the accumulated grievances from Pakistan’s subordinate position in US geopolitical strategies.

The analysis also showed that while the civilizational framework was integral to Khan’s populist discourse and the main themes and nodal points of Pakistani Muslim Nationalism remained consistent, there were notable changes in the selection of discourse topics and topoi as well as discursive strategies used to create us-versus-them binaries. While in power, Khan used civilizational discourse to legitimize policy decisions and present himself as the authentic guardian of Islamic values within democratic institutions. Out of power, he employed the same civilizational framework to delegitimize his successors and justify resistance tactics.

Throughout 2022, Khan consistently called for peaceful protests and democratic resistance. His Azadi March emphasized constitutional means of challenging what he termed the “imported government”. However, the discourse analysis reveals a more troubling dynamic. Khan’s post-ouster rhetoric systematically intensified the civilizational stakes of Pakistan’s political crisis, transforming a constitutional dispute into a divine battle between forces of good and evil. He started increasingly portraying the state institutions and opposition parties as part of a coordinated assault by foreign powers on Pakistan’s sovereignty. Then, by framing political struggle as religious obligation (jihad) and linking his ouster with colonization, he transformed it from a singular event of power shift to a broader conflict between the West and Islam.

Most critically, the analysis reveals how Khan’s civilizational populist discourse creates pathways to religious extremism through the normalization of exclusionary logic. First, his systematic demonization of political opponents as civilizational traitors provided extremist groups with ready-made enemy categories. Groups targeting government officials, military personnel, or religious minorities could invoke Khan’s civilizational framework to justify their actions as a defense of Islam. Second, his emphasis on foreign conspiracy created a siege mentality that makes violent resistance appear necessary for civilizational survival. Third, his religious authorization of political struggle blurred the boundaries between legitimate political opposition and religious warfare.

Importantly, Khan himself never advocated violence. His discourse maintained democratic language and peaceful tactics. However, Khan created a discursive framework that authorizes increasingly radical interpretations of defensive action. Followers who fully internalize the civilizational threat narrative may conclude that peaceful resistance inadequately responds to the civilizational emergency. The discourse provides both the motivation (civilizational defense) and the target identification (enemies of Islam) that extremist actors require.

This dynamic explains Pakistan’s deteriorating security environment since Khan’s ouster. Just as was noted by Thompson (2021), in the case of the UK, the increase in terrorist attacks, vigilantism, blasphemy allegations, and forced conversion of minorities cannot be attributed directly to Khan’s discourse, but his civilizational populism contributed to the ideological atmosphere that makes religious extremism appear justified. However, the findings are not limited to Pakistan alone and demonstrate the particular dangers when civilizational populism operates in societies with weak institutional constraints on religious rhetoric. The research suggests that preventing religious extremism requires attention not only to direct incitement but also to the broader discursive environments that make extremist interpretations plausible.