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In the last 10 years or so, a growing body of research has highlighted the importance of social movements as the mechanism through which fields change or new fields emerge. This article contributes to this body of research by studying how an organization was able to promote institutional change from the center of a field by channeling the legitimacy generated by local religious movements. Data comes from the archives of a special commission within the Catholic Church that developed rules for adjudicating miracles performed by candidates to sainthood. The social movement is composed of candidates and their supporters who mobilized local communities using miracles. The period of the analysis was the aftermath of the Protestant Schism, when long-established practices and beliefs were fundamentally challenged. By approving miracles that created ties between individuals that spanned across kinship and social status boundaries, the commission was able to channel legitimacy into the wounded core of the Church. At the same time, receiving Rome’s approval reduced the competition the candidate’s supporters faced from other religious activists. The noncontentious interaction that occurred between the two actors gave birth to the field of modern sainthood. The main implication for organization theory is that, even in the absence of conflict, a new environment and ideology can emerge endogenously from the center of a field and transform both the organization and the social movement.

This article reviews the historical development of the treatment of religious organizations in journals centered on religion.

The article asks four questions: (1) Are religious organizations different from other kinds of organizations? (2) What factors produce differences or similarities between religious and other organizations? (3) Are religious organizations different from each other?

Differences from other kinds of organizations are based in beliefs/theology. But there is a constant concern with the bureaucratization of religious organizations as they are subject to general organizational influences such as scale and geographical dispersion. However, it is argued that these general influences emanate from belief systems. We suggest the need for a renewed attention to a comparative organizations perspective in organization theory – one that appreciates the similarities and differences between sectors and within sectors.

Not only are there differences between religious and nonreligious organizations, but there are also substantial differences between religious organizations. There are also similarities between religious and nonreligious organizations, as well as similarities between religious organizations. The way forward for both the study of religious organizations and organizational theory in general is to look for explanations for these similarities and differences.

This chapter is intended to elaborate on the existing academic literature addressing the migration of constitutional ideas. Through an examination of ongoing efforts to enshrine “defamation of religion” as a violation of international human rights, the author confirms that the phenomenon of migration is not restricted to positive constitutional norms, but rather also encompasses negative ideas that ultimately may serve to undermine international and domestic constitutionalism. More specifically, the case study demonstrates that the movement of anti-constitutional ideas is not restricted to the domain of “international security” law, and further, that the vertical axis linking international and domestic law is in fact a two-way channel that permits the transmission of domestic anti-constitutional ideas up to the international level.

In reaching the findings presented herein, the chapter also adds to the universalism–relativism debate by demonstrating that allowances for “plurality consciousness” on the international level may in certain instances undermine fundamental norms previously negotiated and accepted as authoritative by the international community. From this perspective, the movement in favor of prohibiting “defamation of religion” is not merely a case study that helps to expand our understanding of how anti-constitutional ideas migrate, but also indicative of a reenergized campaign to challenge the status, content, and stability of universal human rights norms.

The “economics of religion” has grown into a new and groundbreaking approach to the study of religious beliefs, preferences, attitudes, belongings, organizations, and dynamics. This chapter circumscribes its epistemological area, outlines some of the major developments in the field, allows place for the presentation of both important theoretical models (market theory, rational choice, supply-and-demand) and crucial criticisms that have been directed toward them. If the “economics of religion” partakes of an attempt to explain religion in ancient or recent history, in the conceptual prism of economics, the general movement known as globalization has accelerated the convergence of economics and cultural/social analysis in religious studies. Anthropology, however, has gone its own way regarding economic issues. It has been somewhat reluctant to espouse the principles of “economics of religion,” even while being convinced of its relevance. Some recent anthropological works on globalization and religion are presented here as examples of this ambivalent contribution of anthropology to the economics of religion in global settings.

This chapter argues against the recent crystallization of “contentions politics” as the anchoring concept for the study of collective action on the grounds that it is overly restrictive, foreclosing consideration and analysis of much social movement activity not tied directly to government or the state and which thus falls beyond the bailiwick of the political arena. The problematic character of the contentious politics frame is discussed and illustrated both empirically and conceptually, and a more inclusive and elastic conceptualization is proposed and elaborated, one that conceives of movements broadly as collective challenges to systems of authority. This alternative conceptualization includes collective challenges within and to institutional, organizational, and cultural domains other than just the state or the polity. Not only are direct challenges to authorities included, but also movements that challenge authorities indirectly either through covert means, as in the case of terrorist movements, or by exiting the system, as in the case of separatist and communal movements and other-worldly religious “cults.”

A growing number of human rights NGOs have placed international volunteers in conflict zones from Guatemala and Colombia to Palestine and Iraq. This study samples from contemporary high-risk transnational activists and highlights the variation in biographical steps taken toward the shared outcome of participation in human rights work (HRW). Data was collected through 6 weeks of participant observation in Israel-Palestine, 21 in-depth interviews, and 28 shorter focused interviews with human rights workers (N=49). Oversampling from the International Solidarity Movement reveals how the unique constraints and opportunities presented by a particular conflict zone and NGO culture impacts self-selection into HRW. Grounded theory and Boolean methodology aided in identifying four main pathways (the nonviolent activist, peace church, anarchist, and solidarity pathways) to HRW as well as biographical patterns and complexities that have been underemphasized in the existing literature. These include the salience of transformative events and attitude changes in the process of constructing a cosmopolitan identity and committing to high-risk transnational activism.

The last three decades of the 20th century was a period of momentous social, economic, political and religious turmoil in many African societies. Nigeria is a prime example. Although the economic transformations of this period were perhaps bigger than other kinds of change, religious shifts probably had more remarkable social effects. One particularly noticeable development was the emergence of a new strand of Pentecostalism that serves as a source of political power and as a vehicle for economic mobilisation. Embedded in a theology of materialism and a redefinition of ‘money’, this new ideology found a fertile ground among local and global corporations struggling to cope with problems such as a devalued currency and political corruption and instability. Using data from ethnographic research on the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), with more than 10,000 congregations worldwide, this chapter shows how the near economic meltdown of the last decades of the 20th century precipitated a massive religious (re)engagement with economic structures and practices in Nigeria.

The aim of this chapter is to argue that charisma is a collective representation, and that charismatic authority is a social status that derives more from the “recognition” of the followers than from the “magnetism” of the leaders. I contend further that a close reading of Max Weber shows that he, too, saw charisma in this light.

I develop my argument by a close reading of many of the most relevant texts on the subject. This includes not only the renowned texts on this subject by Max Weber, but also many books and articles that interpret or criticize Weber’s views.

I pay exceptionally close attention to key arguments and texts, several of which have been overlooked in the past.

Writers for whom charisma is personal magnetism tend to assume that charismatic rule is natural and that the full realization of democratic norms is unlikely. Authority, in this view, emanates from rulers unbound by popular constraint. I argue that, in fact, authority draws both its mandate and its energy from the public, and that rulers depend on the loyalty of their subjects, which is never assured. So charismatic claimants are dependent on popular choice, not vice versa.

I advocate a “culturalist” interpretation of Weber, which runs counter to the dominant “personalist” account. Conventional interpreters, under the sway of theology or mass psychology, misread Weber as a romantic, for whom charisma is primal and undemocratic rule is destiny. This essay offers a counter-reading.

In this account of our long-term ethnographic investigation of the Burning Man Project, we examine the emergence of nomadic spirituality among the citizens of Black Rock City, Nevada. We describe this emergence as a reaction to consumers’ increasing dissatisfaction both with conventional religious denominations and with consumption as an existential ground of meaning. We provide an emic view of the pilgrimage experience at Black Rock City, from the perspective of participants in and organizers of the event. We propose a theory of the comedy of the commons to interpret the surface structure of the moment, and embed our deep structural interpretation of the nomadic spirituality of the phenomenon within the context of new religious movements (NRMs). In so doing, we shed new light on the topic of the sacred and profane in consumer experience.