POPULIST TRENDS IN 21 ST CENTURY: CHALLENGES FOR PAKISTAN

Abstract

Emergence of populism in 21 st century poses a threat to a number of states including Pakistan. Populism always managed to exist in the history of international politics in various forms but the recent wave of populism is more impactful than previous ones as the 21 st century politics is all about ‘Identity Politics’. Recent populist wave emerged in Pakistan is believed to be the right-wing populism like populist trends in Western Europe, US, Turkey and India. This right-wing populism is exclusionary in nature and leads toward a polarization and radicalization of politics and society by generating the idea of ‘Us vs Them’ and emphasizing upon ‘Good vs Bad’. In the case of Pakistan, the recent populist trend started to emerge in response to the failure of conventional political Set-up. The rising populist party, PTI, claimed to redress the grievances of masses and marginalized groups by flourishing democracy but once they came into power, their political approach deepened the already existing fissures by augmenting polarization and radicalization. Pakistani society is already fragmented at multiple levels including ethnicity, culture, language, economy and also experiencing a religious radicalization since 1970s. Geo-strategic location of Pakistan is also sensitive in the presence of tough immediate neighbors. So, Pakistan cannot bear the brunt of any populist experiment in recent scenario, especially in relation to the right-wing populist ideology.