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

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.