ABSTRACT

Why do some religious political actors continue to pursue a closed and rigid religious worldview, ‘immoderation’, in their party platforms? To examine this issue, this chapter utilises a ‘most different systems approach’ and looks at what factors explain the similar use of immoderation in the party platforms of two religious political actors, the Christian Right coalition within the Republican Party in the United States and the pro-Islamic movement-parties in Turkey, in two dissimilar political regimes. The chapter is organised into four parts. The first part delineates the methodology and research design of this study, while the second and third parts analyse the strategic and ideological use of immoderation by religious political actors in the United States and in Turkey comparatively. The fourth part concludes with a discussion of this chapter’s findings.