In the Province of Faith: Disaggregating Pakistani Religious Parties’ Electoral Performance at the Sub-national and Denominational Levels

Abstract

This paper analyzes the performance of Pakistan’s religious parties in Senate and general elections, 1970–2021, to re-evaluate widely repeated claims of poor performance. Employing datasets of provincial assembly, Senate, and National Assembly results, I argue that performance has been consistently underestimated and overlooked as a result of “whole-nation bias” in a country with very significant regional diversity. Given that parties’ electoral power coalesces at the provincial level in Pakistan, and that religious parties are built around strong denominational identities, election data has been disaggregated along these lines. The results challenge conventional narratives of political Islam’s trajectories in the country.