Sultan Tepe, Beyond Sacred and Secular: Politics of Religion in Israel and Turkey.

Abstract

How religious parties in Israel and Turkey steadily broadened their electoral support and became pivotal actors in both countries is the subject of Sultan Tepe's book. Ultraortodox Shas and the justice and Development Party. AT the outset, Tepe tries to spare not only the sacred secular dichotomy as an analytical tool for the social scientific understanding of the phenomenon but also the secular evolutionary, convergence, and confrontation explanation offered by political scientist. These models are wanting, she says, because they "do not allow us to capture how the state and religion often engage in mutually transformative and dependent relationship". She tries to support this thesis