Religious institutions and state building: Incorporation vs. exclusion

This dissertation explains why institutional and financial relationships of the religious establishment to the state vary across countries. The variation is none, but the direct consequence of different patterns of state building reforms. This study observes two ideal-typical patterns of state building reforms. Either the state incorporates religious institutions into its apparatus or excludes them in due course. In this endeavor, Turkey and Iran served as my cases in which we observe this variation in state-building strategies. The former approximates the ideal case of incorporation while the latter approximates the ideal case of exclusion. The dissertation employs analytical narratives and comparative historical analysis frameworks. The analysis shows that state building with regard to religious institutions took place in a context of harsh political competition between the new state rulers and their opponents in Turkey. In contrast, the new state rulers were fairly safe with regard to their position when they initiated state building in Iran. Hence, there was a strong incentive for the state rulers in Turkey to incorporate religious institutions in order to undermine a possible coalition base upon which their opponents could challenge them. The Turkish state also had the institutional and financial capacity to absorb the religious institutions thanks to relatively successful Ottoman state building. The extremely disunited internal structure of Turkish religious community also decreased the cost of incorporation in Turkey. In terms of state structure and internal organization of religious community, Iran stood apart from Turkey. The lack of successful state building in the 19th century Iran and relatively well-organized religious community made the incorporation of religious institutions costly in Iran. The variation across Turkey and Iran in state building reforms left different legacies, putting Turkey and Iran on different trajectories in terms of subsequent evolution of state-religion relations.