ABSTRACT
The chapter is divided into four parts. The first provides a brief review of the literature on religion, political parties and motivations of voters in young democracies. Second, it examines how in Turkey the Islamist Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) aligned with and articulated the interests of liberal, ultra-nationalist, ethnic and anti-military constituents. The third chapter’s third part probes the case of Indonesia to discuss how moderate religious parties originally garnered the votes of corruption-weary middle-class voters. The chapter explains that over time, Islamist parties began losing this support due to rising corruption in their own ranks and increase in competition over the religious constituencies with secular parties that more effectively built coalitions to incorporate voters who care both about religious and other policy issues. The fourth section summarises and concludes the concerns of the chapter.
