ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author describes a religious party as a political party that takes religion as a reference point for its policy proposals to address the major political problems of its country. The three frameworks base their explanations for increasing religiopolitical activism on cultural, socioeconomic, political factors. Social movement literature draws a clear distinction between a social movement and political party with regard to their mode of operation, aims and organizational features. He uses a "most different" case design, one of the various research design strategies employed in case-oriented comparative analysis. He argues that the Social Movement Theory (SMT) provides a fuller picture of religiopolitical activism. While most SMT theorists focus on one or the other of these three theoretical aspects in explaining political mobilization, there is a need to advance comprehensive theories that look at the interaction. The political opportunity structure, which is also known as the political process model, suggests that prospects for political mobilization are context-dependent.
