Religion, Politics, Society, and the State

This book focuses on the role of religion in politics in several distinctive ways. Most books on religion and politics tend to have a narrow focus - usually on a single country or region or, alternatively, on a limited aspect of religion's influence on politics such as secularism, conflict, terror, or state policy. This book, in contrast, takes a wider perspective. First, and perhaps most importantly, it recognizes and emphasizes that religion interacts with politics on multiple levels. These influences may be divided into the influence of the state and the influence of society on politics. Second, this volume covers multiple countries in major world regions. The chapters cover the United States, Israel, Turkey, North Africa, and Western Europe, and two chapters include information from the entire world. Although this book will be of interest to scholars, its wide coverage of different topics, relevant theories, and different world regions also makes it excellent as a textbook for a survey course on religion and politics. All of the contributors have published extensively in prominent refereed journals on the topic of religion and politics, adding to the scholarly authoritativeness of the volume and its desirability as a textbook written by recognized experts.