Religious parties and democracy

A comparative assessment of Israel and Turkey

Bibliographic Data

ID6253044
AuthorsSultan Tepe (0000-0002-9552-4282, University of Illinois Chicago, corresponding author)
Year2005
Volume12
Issue3
Pages283-307
Publication date2005-06-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueDemocratization (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1351-0347 • E-ISSN: 1743-890X
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/13510340500126731
OpenAlexW2027265156
LanguageEN
Citations received13

Discussions of the role of religious parties in democracies can be highly misleading when they take the parties' ideologies at face value and assign them to the binary categories of moderate vs radical. Only by a careful review of how religious parties use religious and secular symbols in defining their political stances can we evaluate their roles vis-à-vis liberal democracy. The competing political ideologies of the Mafdal and Shas Parties in Israel and the National Action Party, the Prosperity Party and the Justice and Development Party in Turkey are foci of this analysis. Two controversial concepts, 'redemption' in Israel and 'secularism' in Turkey, are used to question how these parties appropriate religious symbols in their policies towards secular public and institutions. The arguments draw on a set of interviews with the religious party leaderships and a content analysis of party ideologues' views. The findings suggest that parties that adopt the strategy of sacralization (that is, assigning religious meanings to secular ideas thereby treating them as sacred) appear more moderate yet they are more likely to support authoritarian policies. However, the so-called radical religious parties tend to be more inclusive and are more likely to secularize their respective religious tradition internally by redefining secular terms. Despite their novel political agendas both groups fail to exhibit principled commitment to liberal values and fail to provide inclusive and coherent alternatives to their secularist counterparts

Authoritarianism · Democracy · Ideology · Islam · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Prosperity · Religious values · Secularism · Sociology · Value (mathematics · Jewish and Middle Eastern Studies · Law · Religion and Society Interactions · Turkey's Politics and Society

Tools

Open DOISci-Hub