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The Rise of Religious Parties in Israel and Turkey: A Comparative Study

Sarfati, Yusuf

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2009, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, Political Science.

In the past three decades, religiopolitical actors have asserted themselves as significant political forces in a variety of countries around the world. This dissertation examines the question of why the electoral strength of religious parties increases in democratic societies. In order to answer this question, I use a “most different” case design and compare the rise of the Shas party in Israel and the National Outlook parties in Turkey in the 1990s. The findings suggest that the interaction of three variables accounts for the rise of the religious parties in both countries. This dissertation argues that the existence of a historical sociocultural cleavage, the recent politicization of this cleavage as a result of social change, and the secular states’ co-optation of religion have led to the strengthening of the religiopolitical parties in both countries.

Using interviews with party activists, government officials, and other societal actors, the study delineates a causal narrative that links these explanatory variables to the dependent variable. I discuss how Shas and the National Outlook Movement emerged in the context of a politicized sociocultural divide and how these two movements addressed the grievances of the socioculturally marginalized segments of their society by using religion as a meta-narrative in their ideology and in their communication with their constituents. Then, I illustrate how the secular states’ co-optation of religion (in the form of including religious actors in the government and increasing state funding for religious education) has unintentionally contributed to the success of the religiopolitical actors by enabling them to have access to the material and cultural resources of the state.

This dissertation contributes to several theoretical debates in the social sciences. In the literature on political religion, which has focused on the role of economic, political, and cultural variables, the role of the secular state is understudied. Even scholars who have focused on state policies have not systematically established a causal link between secular state strategies and the growth of religious movements. By systematically illustrating how state strategies of co-optation lead to religiopolitical mobilization, this dissertation aims to expand the boundaries of the literature. By specifying an exact context under which modernization leads to the emergence of religiopolitical actors, the study also contributes to the secularization debate, which lacks any contextualization of the modernization-secularization relationship. Additionally, the dissertation speaks to the theoretical debate in the comparative politics literature about the role of institutions vs. ideas in shaping political outcomes. Through its analysis of ethnoreligious discourses formed around state-funded religious schools, this dissertation reveals how ideas and institutions interact in affecting political change. Finally, through its comparative analysis of religious politics in Israel and Turkey, the dissertation provides insights regarding various arguments made in the literature on democracy and religion.

R. William Liddle (Advisor)
Carter V. Findley (Committee Member)
Goldie Shabad (Committee Member)
318 p.

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Sarfati, Y. (2009). The Rise of Religious Parties in Israel and Turkey: A Comparative Study [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1244742003

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Sarfati, Yusuf. The Rise of Religious Parties in Israel and Turkey: A Comparative Study. 2009. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1244742003.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Sarfati, Yusuf. "The Rise of Religious Parties in Israel and Turkey: A Comparative Study." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2009. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1244742003

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)