Religious Parties Essay ⋆ Political Science Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

Religious or confessional parties are political formations that promote religious ideas, symbols, policies, and goals. Whereas religious parties make religion central to their activity, other parties use religion and religious symbols to gain additional electoral support, without making religion their main concern. Their social base is represented by the religious group whose interests they represent, but often their sympathizers include religiously neutral or inactive individuals.

In the past century, religious parties have emerged in democracies and nondemocracies alike. The historical context of anticlericalism, the political role of the clergy, the minority or majority status of the religion, and the structure of the political and party systems have contributed to their appearance. Religious parties are differentiated not so much by the form of government in which they operate as by the religion they advocate for and the role they envision for religion in society.

Christian Religious Parties

Christian religious parties originated in the nineteenth century. In his 1891 encyclical Rerum nova rum, Pope Leo XIII advocated the creation of Catholic popular organizations, a call heeded by Catholics in Europe and Latin America. In time, Catholic organizations turned into parties seeking to determine their countries’ political agendas. Christian Democrat parties have played important political roles after World War II (1939–1945). While European Christian Democrats advocate center-right policies, Latin American Christian Democrats are center-left in orientation.

In western Europe, Christian Democratic parties emerged in countries where Catholics constituted a large part of the population, but secular forces (Belgium and Italy) and Protestant ones (the Netherlands) challenged the Catholic influence on social and educational policy. In Italy and Germany, Christian Democrats represented the mainstream social-conservative political forces tied to the dominant Catholic Church; in Sweden, they surged as a center-right force linked to the minority evangelical Free Churches. While the proportion of Catholics in western Europe remains high, few of them are practicing, thus leaving room for the mobilization of liberal or socialist secular political forces. In eastern Europe, Christian Democratic parties appeared as a result of renewed religiosity. While in the 1990s Christian Democrats briefly formed the government in Romania and Bulgaria, they could not retain the support of societies that believed that religion should be separate from politics. Though present in other postcommunist countries, Christian Democrats have played no significant political role.

In Latin America, Christian Democrats embrace a liberation theology agenda, rising against formations that challenge the place of religion in society and advocating a capitalist economy. Among the strongest is the Chilean Christian Democrat Party, which supports a strong national government and legislative proposals that bridge communism and capitalism. In other countries, Christian Democrats have embraced statism and have abandoned their roots in Catholic social thought.

Jewish And Islamic Religious Parties

In Israel, religious parties have aimed to establish a Jewish state governed by the Jewish religious code, the halacha. These parties consider the Jewish colonization of Greater Israel (Eretz Israel) legitimate and oppose the creation of a Palestinian state. Religious parties registered their greatest success in the 1999 elections, when together they won 21 percent of Knesset seats. The oldest party, Agoudat Israel, was created as an ultraorthodox Ashkenazi party to advocate strict observance of religious law. Its successor, the Sephardic Torah Guardians (Shas), advocates Jewish colonization of the occupied territories. Until its dissolution in 2008, the National Religious Party (Mafdal) supported all government coalitions, occupying the Ministry of Interior and Religion and initiating most religious legislation in Israel.

Islamic religious parties have gained prominence in reaction to U.S. policies in the Middle East. U.S. intervention has radicalized some Muslims in Algeria, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Pakistan, Palestine, and Turkey. The rise of political Islam has been most marked in the countries most closely linked to the United States. In Iraq, the Da’wa and the Islamic Mission Party represent the southern Shiite community. In 2002, a right-wing coalition of Pakistani religious parties (the Muttahida Majlis Amal) won parliamentary representation and formed ultraconservative and pro-Islamist provincial governments in two provinces bordering Afghanistan. In Egypt, the nominally banned Muslim Brotherhood became the official opposition in 2005. The poor often feel that religious parties represent justice, integrity, and equitable resource distribution, hence the strong showing of Hamas in Palestine, the dramatic rise of Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the electoral triumph of the Justice and Development Party in Turkey.

The persistence of religious parties baffles researchers. The increased secularization of European societies should drastically reduce the social basis of Christian Democratic parties, while the rise of Islamic parties following the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan should diminish these parties’ support once the foreign intervention is over. Despite expectations, Christian Democrats have registered tremendous success and have showed resilience in secular and democratic Europe, discarding their initial principles and objectives to become secular forces governing secular societies. Similarly, voters continue to support parties that advocate a greater role for Islam in the political and social life of Middle Eastern countries.

Despite worries that they oppose tolerance and pluralism, moderate religious parties can coexist with democracy. The institutional context, electoral politics, party unity, party rules and leadership, and political learning explain why religious parties become moderate or radical (extremist), regardless of the religion to which they adhere. This observation is important because moderate religious parties may contribute to democratic stability, but the extremist ones can undermine liberal democracy. As studies on religious parties in secular Israel and Turkey demonstrate, religious parties do not emerge as a religious liberal alternative to authoritarian secular nationalist ideologies, despite their capacity to expand the boundaries of political discourse. In emerging democracies, by contrast, the rise of religious parties is more worrisome. When radical religious parties win critical elections in emerging democracies, they can stall and even reverse democratization by imposing theocratic authoritarian institutions.

Bibliography:

Kalyvas, Stathis. Rise of Christian Democracy in Europe. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1996.
Lynch, Edward. Latin America’s Christian Democratic Parties: A Political Economy. New York: Praeger, 1992.
Rosenblum, Nancy. “Religious Parties, Religious Political Identity, and the Cold Shoulder of Liberal Democratic Thought.” Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 6, no. 1 (2003):23–53.
Tepe, Sultan. “Religious Parties and Democracy: A Comparative Assessment of Israel and Turkey.” Democratization 12, no. 3 (2005): 283–307.

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