To the surprise of both academics and policy-makers, religion has not been relegated entirely to the private sphere; quite the contrary. Over the last few decades, religion has begun to play a significant role in public affairs and, in many cases, directly in political systems. This edited volume analyses in detail how religion and religious precepts inform the ideology, strategies and electoral behaviour of political parties. Working with an original and innovative typology of religiously oriented political parties, the book examines cases from different regions of the world and different religious traditions to highlight the significance of religion for party politics. This interest for religiously oriented parties is combined with an interest in processes of democratic change and democratic consolidation. Political parties are central to the success of processes of democratization while religion is seen in many circles as an element that prevents such success because it is perceived to be a polarising factor detrimental to the consensus necessary to build a liberal-democratic system. Through the different case-studies presented here, a much more complex picture emerges, where religiously oriented political parties perform very different and often contradicting roles with respect to democratic change. This book was published as a special issue of Democratization.

This book analyses the influence of religion on political parties and party politics in contemporary democracies. To do so, it compares five cases of democracies belonging to different geographic-cultural areas, and marked by different religious majorities: India, Israel, Italy, Turkey, and the US. The time span of the analysis is the period between 1980 (year which can be conventionally regarded as a turning point for the return of religion in the public and the political spheres at the global level), and the present day. Unlike most works on religion and parties, this book does not simply take into account officially "religious" parties, but all "religiously oriented parties" (with an influence of religion on party manifestos, constituencies and/or factions) even if they are officially secular. The theoretical framework is provided by the "cleavages theory", which considers some relevant traumatic social events as the origin of specific kinds (or families) of political parties; and by a typology of religiously oriented parties dividing them into five categories: conservative, fundamentalist, progressive, nationalist, and camp party.

This third edition of the successful Routledge Handbook of Religion and Politics provides a definitive global survey of the interaction of religion and politics. From the United States to the Middle East, from Asia to Africa, and beyond, religion continues to be an important factor in political activity and organisation. Featuring contributions from an international team of experts, this volume examines the political aspects of the world's major religions, including crucial contemporary issues such as religion and climate change, religion and migration, and religion and war. Each chapter has been updated to reflect the latest developments and thinking in the field, and the handbook also includes new chapters on topics such as religious freedom, religion and populism, proselytizing, humanism and politics, and religious soft power. The four main themes addressed are: • World religions and politics • Religion and governance • Religion and international relations • Religion, security and development References at the end of each chapter guide the reader towards the most up-to-date information on these key topics. This book is an indispensable source of information for students, academics, and the wider public interested in the dynamic relationship between politics and religion.

The Politics of Religious Party Change examines the ideological change and secularization of religious political parties and asks: when and why do religious parties become less anti-system? In a comparative analysis, the book traces the striking similarities in the historical origins of Islamist and Catholic parties in the Middle East and Western Europe, chronicles their conflicts with existing religious authorities, and analyzes the subsequently divergent trajectories of Islamist and Catholic parties. In examining how religious institutional structures affect the actions of religious parties in electoral politics, the book finds that centralized and hierarchical religious authority structures - such as the Vatican - incentivize religious parties to move in more pro-system, secular, and democratic directions. By contrast, less centralized religious authority structures - such as in Sunni Islam - create more permissive environments for religious parties to be anti-system and more prone to freely-formed parties and hybrid party movements.

Although regarded as a single community of Islamists, Islamic political movements utilise vastly different means to pursue their goals. This book examines why some Islamic movements facing the same socio-political structures pursue different political paths, while their counterparts in diverse contexts make similar political choices. Based on qualitative fieldwork involving personal interviews with Islamic politicians, journalists, and ideologues - conducted both before and after the Arab Spring - author Esen KirdiAY draws close comparisons between six Islamic movements in Jordan, Morocco and Turkey. She analyses how some Islamic movements decide to form a political party to run in elections, while their counterparts in the same country reject doing so and instead engage in political activism as a social movement through informal channels. More broadly, the study demonstrates the role of internal factors, ideological priorities and organisational needs in explaining differentiation within Islamic political movements, and discusses its effects on democratisation.

Constitutions and Religion is the first major reference work in the emerging field of comparative constitutional law and religion. It offers a nuanced array of perspectives on various models for the treatment of religion in domestic and supranational legal orders.

Turkey's growing international profile, candidacy for the EU, and persistent democracy has led to a growing interest in how that country is governed. This book provides portraits of the seven main political parties by Turkish experts who are close observers of these institutions. In addition to providing an analytical survey of Turkish politics today, this volume also provides a fascinating case study on the problems of developing deep-rooted democracy, conflicts between state interests amd interest groups, and the evolution of party systems.

Explaining Religious Party Strength explores why religious political parties are electorally successful in some countries but not in others. Drawing on insights from political science and sociology, this book argues that religious parties are typically formed for defensive reasons, reacting against state-builders’ attempts to secularize public services such as education, welfare, and healthcare. Building on these findings, the author argues that the strength of religious parties is determined by the infrastructural power of the state. Weak states that fail to provide adequate public services open up space for religious communities to build a dense network of private schools, hospitals, and charities, which translates into votes for religious political parties. By contrast, strong states that provide efficient public services squeeze out private welfare providers, undermining the electoral strength of religious political parties. The author tests this theory through statistical analysis, using a new dataset on all religious parties which have participated in national parliamentary elections between 1800 and 2015. He includes comparative historical analyses of Roman Catholic political parties in France and Italy and Sunni Islamic political parties in Egypt, Turkey, and Albania. This book will interest students and scholars of religion and politics, specifically those interested in party formation, voting, and political activism, as well as policymakers.

This fully updated new edition empirically assesses the relationship between religion and democracy, looking at global, regional, and individual countries’ perspectives. Using a wide range of quantitative data, the author tests the validity of Huntington's claim that democracy and religion are tightly connected, and that western Christianity is the only religion capable of supporting democratic institutions. He evaluates both the broader assumptions that the introduction and the stability of a democratic form of government is dependent on the dominating religion in the country at the macro level, and the suggestion that, at the individual level, religious adherence is related to pro-democratic values. Examining religions including Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Chinese folk religion, and Judaism, this book demonstrates that geographical and political contexts are more important than religious affiliation for explaining levels of, and attitudes towards, democracy. As well as offering a broad empirical picture of the relationship between religion and democracy, this new edition delves deeper into the religion–state nexus, focusing particularly on events that have taken place during the last decade. The author explores how religion is used instrumentally by political leaders in different parts of the world. He also discusses the extent to which religious minorities are under increasing pressure in secularized environments; prospects for democracy in the MENA region a decade after the Arab Spring; the growing influence of evangelical Christianity in Latin America; and how increasing levels of religious conflict in Asia and the Pacific as well as in Sub-Saharan Africa pose a threat to the emergence and survival of democracy. This book will be of great interest to students, academics, and researchers within the field of comparative politics, as well as journalists and various theological associations.

As religion and politics become ever more intertwined, relationships between religion and political parties are of increasing global political significance. This handbook responds to that development, providing important results of current research involving religion and politics, focusing on: democratisation, democracy, party platform formation, party moderation and secularisation, social constituency representation and interest articulation. Covering core issues, new debates, and country case studies, the handbook provides a comprehensive overview of fundamentals and new directions in the subject. Adopting a comparative approach, it examines the relationships between religion and political parties in a variety of contexts, regions and countries with a focus on Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Judaism and Hinduism. Contributions cover such topics as: religion, secularisation and modernisation; religious fundamentalism and terrorism; the role of religion in conflict resolution and peacebuilding; religion and its connection to state, democratisation and democracy; and regional case studies covering Asia, the Americas, Europe, Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and North Africa. This comprehensive handbook provides crucial information for students, researchers and professionals researching the topics of politics, religion, comparative politics, secularism, religious movements, political parties and interest groups, and religion and sociology.