Same but Different? Secularism, Citizenship and State in Israel and Turkey

Religion in Israel and Turkey influenced political regime formation in the 20th century when secular regimes had to contend with the pervasiveness of religion in the old order and with the difficulty to separate new or renewed national identity from religion. The religion-state arrangements formed, compromised or enforced, seem in recent years to lose ground in face of global and local challenge. In Turkey, the recent events are the culmination of tensions between the secular state and the ruling religious party. In Israel, secularization and religious resurgence are part of an ongoing governance crisis that renders old arrangements obsolete. Seemingly, Israel and Turkey, in spite of the similarities that recent developments demonstrate, are also diametrically opposed, a secular state “imposed” on a religious population (Turkey) and a religious state imposed on a secular population (Israel), yet both seem to struggle with contemporary challenges. These differences rooted in institutional history may be over-stated but they provide for a comparison of Israel and Turkey and for the renewed role of religion in politics and society. Israel and Turkey repeatedly engage with questions regarding the role of religion in public and private lives and are in a constant search for new accommodations between religious and secular. Old accommodations, imposed or compromised, face social, political and economic changes, global and local, that undermine their stance and foster new struggles between religious and secular over control of public and private domains. First, the challenges of modern nationalism and state building to accommodate religion. Second, institutional arrangement, “status quo” in Israel and Laicism in turkey that defined authority and the division of labor between religious and secular. And, third, both institutional arrangements, in different ways and for different reasons are challenged by contemporary developments and demands for change.