Populism in Pakistan: The Exclusionary-Inclusionary Divide in the Politics of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and Imran Khan

Abstract Prior research on Latin American and European populism has used the inclusionary and exclusionary distinction to differentiate between Left- and Right-wing populism. As Right-wing populists demand exclusion of immigrants and foreigners and Left-wing populists demand inclusion of the lower social class in the political landscape, the former is described as exclusionary and the latter as inclusionary. In this paper, I test this typology, comparing the populism of two political leaders in Pakistan across two different eras: Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto during 1967–77 and Imran Khan during 1996–2022. I argue that in the absence of an overarching liberal discourse, the inclusionary-exclusionary distinction has no meaning because populists of illiberal democracies can rely upon a greater ideological malleability, swinging between inclusionary to exclusionary politics in accordance with the demands of the moment.