How Faith-Based Human Rights Work Gets Done in Moscow

Churches and other faith-based communities have taken the lead in the human rights sector in Russia. At a time when many secular activists have been harassed, imprisoned, forced into exile, and even murdered, interfaith partnerships working on civil rights for minorities and migrants have been tolerated and officially recognized. Part of a long history of civic–oriented religious activism, they benefit from their legacy as moral leaders. While some religious activists have publicly challenged the Russian state’s authority and values, most have been careful to present themselves as partners of the state, even if their beliefs are not always fully aligned.

Narratives in Action: Modelling the Types and Drivers of Sikh Activism in Diaspora

Using data gathered for an investigation of “Sikh radicalisation in Britain”, in this article I develop a typology of different types of activism among Sikhs in diaspora based on an analysis of historic and contemporary media sources (newspapers, radio, television, online), academic literature, ethnographic fieldwork and a series of semi-structured interviews with self-identifying Sikh activists. I assess the reasons behind a variety of different incidents involving Sikh activists, how Sikh activists view the drivers of their activism and to what extent this activism can be regarded as being “religiously motivated”. I critique existing typologies of “religious activism” by developing a typology of Sikh activism which challenges the distinction often made between “religious” and “political” action. I argue that “religiously motivated actions” must be understood in conjunction with narratives, incidents and issues specific to particular religious traditions and that generic motivations for these actions cannot be applied across all religious traditions.

Distinction through Religious Activism: How Capital Shapes the Organizational Repertoires of Transnational Protestant Outreach

How religious organizations distinguish themselves from one another influences the extent to which they compete (or cooperate) with other similar organizations, thus serving to shape both their survivability and efficacy in achieving their goals. Although theological differences provide one source of distinction, organizations also strategically distinguish themselves not only by what they do but also what they avoid doing. Adopting a Bourdieu(s)ian field theory approach to the study of transnational American Protestant mission agencies, this article explores how agencies’ ministry activities are organized into symbolically distinctive repertoires of activism that vary by agencies’ differing levels of religious and economic capital. Based on how these repertoires are diversified (versus concentrated) and focused on inner- (as opposed to other-worldly) goals, the article discusses the implications of these organizational patterns for the survivability and efficacy of agencies in the transnational missions field, as well as their prospects for interorganizational cooperation and coordination.

RELIGIOUS ACTIVISM IN MUSLIM COMMUNITIES: RETHINKING IN THE POST-SECULAR ERA

The article presents an attempt to understand Islamic activism, a phenomenon where the differentiation between social and political components is difficult. New perspectives of analysis are associated with the research context of socio-cultural transformations in Muslim communities that have begun since the 19th century. Secularization was important process that affected Muslim communities, but not reinterpreted implicitly at the theological and philosophical level. The process of secularization is not considered by author as a phenomenon of inevitable “atheization” of Muslim communities, but associated with differentiation of various spheres of public life and emergence of new forms religious activism that developed during the mutual competition.

Political Mission of the ‘Clericalized Laity’ : Religion and Politics in the Catholic Student Movement in the Netherlands, 1918-1940

This article addresses the political engagement of Catholic students in the Netherlands during the inter-war period. Recently there has been an increased academic interest both nationally and internationally, in juvenile and radical Catholicism in the inter-war years. In the Netherlands, the magazine De Gemeenschap and the girls’ movement De Graal are important examples of the radical Catholicism of the youth. Though the religious activism of these Catholic youth groups has been studied extensively, we still do not know much about their involvement in politics and more specifically, their interaction with the Catholic party. This article looks at how the activation of the laity affected the political engagement of Dutch Catholic students. Based on ideas about Catholic Action and the importance of a lay apostolate for the rechristianization of society, Catholic students established new groups for religious and political activism. As these groups were neither installed nor controlled by the hierarchy, they formulated alternative political interpretations of Catholicism. Thus, the youth challenged the religious legitimacy of the Catholic party, whose politicians listened to them only reluctantly.

Managing Salafism in Tunisia

This chapter charts the complex relationship between the changing nature of state power and management of religious activism in Tunisia. In particular, it provides insight into a unique situation in the Arab world where, for the first time, jihadist ideologies and democratic experience intermingled, arousing greater passions, hopes, and fears. For a brief moment, Tunisia became the theater to test the political and ideational impact of democratization on antisystemic groups with jihadist ideological visions. The chapter examines the novelty of this case and provides insights on the factors that affected and mediated jihadist interactions with both the Islamist Ennahda-led government and other groups with opposing moral and ideological stances. Such an analysis of intrajihadi dynamics, jihadi-regime dynamics, and intergroup dynamics with other social and political actors helps elucidate the choice of strategies that jihadists adopted and how those choices were deeply affected by their own internal contradictions and ambiguities.