Rise in public approval of religious extremism in Pakistan

This working paper aims to explain the rise in public approval of religious extremism in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. To focus on the religiopolitical parties who tend to have an extremist outlook and distinguish them from other religious parties, I present a scale for rating the religiopolitical parties on a spectrum of Moderate to Extremist by analysing their manifestos. Using the votes casted in General Elections of 2013 and 2018, and MICS surveys during the decade of 2010 – 2019 conducted all over Pakistan, and the Census held in 2017, I find a negative relationship between education and votes for religious extremists. On the contrary, there is a positive relation between wealth and the rise of popular support for religious extremism. The analysis of income tax reveals that the higher the income tax filed, the greater the support for religious extremists might be. The results also establish a significant positive relationship between income inequality and support for religious extremists. Furthermore, the urban middle class is more likely to vote for religious extremist parties than the rural poor. The results, however, are not homogenous across all provinces of Pakistan. Nonetheless, they raise important questions worth exploring the factors contributing to the heterogeneity.