This edited volume brings together chapters that offer theoretically pertinent comparisons between various dimensions of Israeli and Turkish politics. Each chapter covers a different aspect of state–society interactions in both countries from a comparative perspective, including the public role of religion, political culture, women rights movements, religious education, religious movements, marriage regulation, labor market inclusion, and ethnic minorities. Israel and Turkey share significant similarities, such as state formation under nationalist ideologies, familiarity with democratic governance since the 1940s, strong affiliation with the West, recent resurgence of religious parties, ongoing conflict with ethno-national minority groups that challenge the dominant national project, contemporary popular protests against the incumbent regime, and recent serious erosion of democratic rights. At the same time they differ on major variables, such as size, majority religion, geopolitical location, level of economic development, policy towards ethnic minorities, and institutional arrangements to managing the state–religion relations. The presence of these differences in face of common backgrounds facilitates analytically grounded comparisons in a host of dimensions. Therefore, employing a case-oriented comparative method, this book provides historically interpretative and causally analytic accounts on the politics of both societies. The contributions reveal the dynamic and complex—rather than one-dimensional and linear—nature of political processes in both settings. This empirically rich and theoretically sophisticated volume should contribute to a better understanding of these two important states, and, no less important, stimulate new directions for comparative research, especially on Middle East regimes, social movements, and democratization.

Is the world facing a serious threat to the protection of constitutional democracy? There is a genuine debate about the meaning of the various political events that have, for many scholars and observers, generated a feeling of deep foreboding about our collective futures all over the world. Do these events represent simply the normal ebb and flow of political possibilities, or do they instead portend a more permanent move away from constitutional democracy that had been thought triumphant after the demise of the Soviet Union in 1989? Constitutional Democracy in Crisis? addresses these questions head-on: Are the forces weakening constitutional democracy around the world general or nation-specific? Why have some major democracies seemingly not experienced these problems? How can we as scholars and citizens think clearly about the ideas of "constitutional crisis" or "constitutional degeneration"? What are the impacts of forces such as globalization, immigration, income inequality, populism, nationalism, religious sectarianism? Bringing together leading scholars to engage critically with the crises facing constitutional democracies in the 21st century, these essays diagnose the causes of the present afflictions in regimes, regions, and across the globe, believing at this stage that diagnosis is of central importance - as Abraham Lincoln said in his "House Divided" speech, "If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could then better judge what to do, and how to do it."

An examination of the Israeli regime, looking at its diverse aspects in order to explore its democratic nature - or otherwise.

In this comparative study of the religion-state relationship in Turkey and Israel in the modern era, Bounded Integration reveals the influence this dynamic interaction has had on democratic performance in both countries. In societies where a dominant religion serves as an important component of individual and collective identity, the imposition of secular policies from above may not facilitate democratization but may rather impede the embedding of democracy in society. Moreover, the inclusion or exclusion of religion following statehood may facilitate a certain type of path-dependent political culture, one with long-term political consequences. Aviad Rubin's refreshing analytical approach comparing and contrasting the region's only two longstanding democratic entities and the dynamics of religion and the state in two different religions, Islam and Judaism, facilitates generalizable lessons for emergent political regimes in the post–Arab Spring Middle East.

The Routledge Handbook of Minorities in the Middle East gathers a diverse team of international scholars, each of whom provides unique expertise into the status and prospects of minority populations in the region. The dramatic events of the past decade, from the Arab Spring protests to the rise of the Islamic state, have brought the status of these populations onto centre stage. The overturn of various long-term autocratic governments in states such as Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Yemen, and the ongoing threat to government stability in Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon have all contributed to a new assertion of majoritarian politics amid demands for democratization and regime change. In the midst of the dramatic changes and latent armed conflict, minority populations have been targeted, marginalized, and victimized. Calls for social and political change have led many to contemplate the ways in which citizenship and governance may be changed to accommodate minorities – or indeed if such change is possible. At a time when the survival of minority populations and the utility of the label minority has been challenged, this handbook answers the following set of research questions.What are the unique challenges of minority populations in the Middle East? How do minority populations integrate into their host societies, both as a function of their own internal choices, and as a response to majoritarian consensus on their status? Finally, given their inherent challenges, and the vast, sweeping changes that have taken place in the region over the past decade, what is the future of these minority populations? What impact have minority populations had on their societies, and to what extent will they remain prominent actors in their respective settings? This handbook presents leading-edge research on a wide variety of religious, ethnic, and other minority populations. By reclaiming the notion of minorities in Middle Eastern settings, we seek to highlight the agency of minority communities in defining their past, present, and future.

Examines the political dynamics of constitutional review in hybrid regimes in the context of China's Special Administrative Regions.

This book explores the existence of gaps between public preferences and institutional designs in democracies, and specifically cases in which such gaps are maintained for a long period of time without being challenged by the electorate. Gaps such as these can be seen in the complex relations between the state and religion in Israel and Turkey, and more specifically in their policies on marriage. This line of investigation is interesting both theoretically and empirically, as despite their poles apart policies, Israel and Turkey share a similar pattern of institutional dynamics. Existing explanations for this phenomenon suggested either civil society-based arguments or intra-institutional dynamics, as reasons for the maintenance of such gaps. This book enriches our understanding of policy dynamics in democratic systems by introducing a third line of argument, one that emphasizes the effective role state institutions play in maintaining such arrangements for long periods, often against the public will.

Winner of the 2016 NYASA Book Award presented by the New York African Studies Association When students are introduced to the study of diversity and social justice, it is usually from sociological and psychological perspectives. The scholars and activists featured in this anthology reject this approach as too limiting, insisting that we adopt a view that is both transdisciplinary and multiperspectival. Their essays focus on the components of diversity, social justice, and inclusive excellence, not just within the United States but in other parts of the world. They examine diversity in the contexts of culture, race, class, gender, learned ability and dis/ability, religion, sexual orientation, and citizenship, and explore how these concepts and identities interrelate. The result is a book that will provide readers with a better theoretical understanding of diversity studies and will enable them to see and think critically about oppression and how systems of oppression may be challenged.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 7th International Conference on E-Democracy, E-Democracy 2017, held in Athens, Greece, in December 2017. The 18 revised full papers presented were carefully selected from 44 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on e-democracy; privacy; information dissemination and freedom of expression; social networks; electronic identity authentication; ICT in government and in the economy.

Hushbeck defends American constitutional government by focusing on specific ideas rather than personalities, being ideologically sharp, yet nonpartisan in tone, and by using clear and simple arguments.