Religion, moral authority, politics, and policy are inextricably linked in Pakistan and other majority-Muslim democracies, and the implications of this are not well understood in the West. Based on extensive field work in Pakistan, Haroon Ullah analyzes the origins, ideologies, bases of support, and electoral successes of the largest and most influential Islamic confessional parties in Pakistan. He develops a new typology for differentiating between types of Islamic parties, from moderate and democratic to hardline and violent. He also analyzes and compares the discourses put forth by these parties in the hopes of addressing a fundamental question: what drives some Islamic confessional parties to become extreme, encourage violence, and inhibit democratic reform? This is an important work on Pakistan's politics with wider implications for the politics of other Islamic countries.