Intermarriage and the demography of secularization

One way of measuring religious affiliation is to look at rites of initiation such as baptism. English statistics show that for the first time since the Church of England was founded, less than half the nation is Anglican on this criterion. The pattern of formal religious transmission changed during the Second World War. Previously christening was quasi-universal, and the Church of England was the preferred provider. By the end of the war baptism was evidently optional, and chosen principally by parents whose religious identities matched. Further analysis suggests that affiliation now tends to be lost following marriage to someone from a different religious background, though the USA differs from Europe in this respect. A demographic theory of advanced secularization is outlined that specifies a proximal cause for declining religious affiliation, and provides tools for predicting the changes to be expected over future decades. The theory also helps to explain why affiliation may fall most quickly where there is most religious diversity.     

The Rohingya of Myanmar: theoretical significance of the minority status

The Rohingya of Myanmar have been experiencing a range of human rights violations including state-sponsored genocide and ethnic cleansing. Many argue that the genesis of the crisis lies in the denial of their legal status and granting citizenship would offer a solution. This article argues that apart from such legal dynamics, significant theoretical aspects of this crisis require analysis. From a theoretical perspective, the Rohingya’s identity as a minority is important as it leads to their persecution. This article demonstrates that their minority identity has been (re)constructed over time. Four factors such as (i) development of Burmese nationalism; (ii) politicisation of identity for Burmese majority; (iii) taking away of the citizenship of Rohingya; and (iv) ethnic divisions in Myanmar society have played significant roles in (re)constructing their identity as a minority. They give rise to a type of citizenship in Myanmar, which fails to include the religious minority within its ambit.     

Formal Polity and Power Distribution in American Protestant Denominations*

The purpose of this paper was to determine whether differences in religious denominations' formal polity structures (i.e., congregational, presbyterian, and episcopal patterns) contribute to vertical power differentials among their structural levels. Formal polity structure was measured as authority of local churches to hire and fire their ministers. Data from 26 Protestant denominations suggest a relationship between formal polity and the power distribution which was operationalized as the location of the pastoral placement bureau. This relationship was obtained independent of such important variables as size, administrative specialization, and bureaucratic formalization. The findings suggest that when studying power distributions, especially in purposive organizations, constitutionally defined and normatively shaped aspects of organizational polity (i.e., formal polity structures) should be taken into account.     

Identification of Ethnic Settlement Regions: Amish-Mennonites in Ohio

Abstract The persistence of ethnic settlement in rural regions of the United States is well documented. Yet, there has been little discussion of techniques which allow the identification of the geographic extent and concentration of distinctive ethnic populations. Amish-Mennonite settlement constitutes a unique component of the rural landscape. A wide range of visual clues alert the observer to their presence, but without painstaking field surveys it is difficult to establish their geographic extent. This paper examines four approaches to the identification of Amish-Mennonite settlement. These are county-based population data on religious affiliation, the location of Amish church districts and Mennonite churches, topographic maps, and surnames and cadastral maps. Topographic maps proved unsuitable, but each of the other approaches produced reasonable approximations of the areal extent of Amish-Mennonite settlement. Surnames and cadastral maps present good possibilities for the identification of other ethnic populations in rural regions.     

Sociology,the public sphere,and modern government: a challenge to the dominance of Habermas

There is an unfortunate tendency within some branches of sociology – particularly those usually called ‘critical’, that is, those associated with ‘critical social theory’– to treat with disdain the understanding of the public sphere that many modern governments use daily in making and implementing public policy. The majority of sociologists in those branches seem to prefer, as part and parcel of their normative commitments, Jürgen Habermas's Kantian understanding of the public sphere, which focuses primarily on reason and morality and insists that these two forces are of a higher order than politics and law. This paper offers a set of criticisms of the Habermas–Kant understanding, arguing that its focus on reason and morality, were it to become more widespread, would steer sociology into public policy irrelevance. The paper goes on to describe a very different understanding of the public sphere, a politico‐legal or civil‐peace understanding which operates as the public policy focus of those governments that have relegated questions of salvation (whether religious or ideological) to the private sphere. This understanding emerged from early modern attempts to carve out a domain of relative freedom and security against the deadly violence of religious disputation sweeping across Europe. The paper readily acknowledges that some ‘non‐critical’ branches of sociology already employ a version of this understanding.     

Religion and Substance Use among Youths of Mexican Heritage: A Social Capital Perspective

Despite elevated levels of substance use among many Latino youths, there has been little research on protective factors against such use. In keeping with federal commitments to address health disparities, this prospective study examined the protective influence of religion on substance use among a school-based sample (N = 804) of youths of Mexican heritage in the American Southwest. Drawing from the social capital literature, the authors posited that both integration into religious networks and trust in religious values at time 1 (Tl) would predict less likelihood of using substances at time 2 (T2) but that exposure to religious norms at Tl would not predict subsequent substance use at T2. The hypotheses regarding religious networks and religious norms were largely confirmed, whereas little support emerged for the hypothesis regarding religious values. The results are discussed in light of the various pathways through which religion may exhibit a protective influence.     

Religious involvement, religious context, and self-assessed health in Europe

In the present study, the authors examine the extent to which effects of individual religious involvement on self-assessed health are influenced by the religious context (i.e., religious involvement at the country level). The authors test their expectations using individual level data (N = 127,257) on 28 countries from the European Social Surveys (2002-2008). Results of multilevel analyses show that individual religious attendance is positively related to self-assessed health in Europe. Protestants appear to feel healthier than Catholics. Moreover, modeling cross-level interactions demonstrates that religious denominations at the national level are influential: The health advantage of Protestants as compared to Catholics is greater as the percentage of Protestants in a country is higher, yet smaller as countries have a higher percentage of Catholics. The association between religious attendance and self-assessed health does not depend on the national level of religious attendance.     

The Quaker Ethic and the Fixed Price Policy: Max Weber and Beyond*

Max Weber undertook his research on the Quakers and their fixed price policy as part of his attempt to understand the role of the Puritan sects in the rise of early modern capitalism. Although his comments on the group were sympathetic and penetrating, they suffered from inattention to the historical context. He failed to see, for instance, that the Quakers’economic policies in large part reflected their resentful frustration over the Puritans’failure to institute popular political, economic, and religious proposals. This paper corrects Weber's portrait of the Quakers and their unique fixed price policy by paying close attention to the social climate in which they formulated this economic innovation. In doing so the research establishes an important relationship between religious doctrines and social frustrations that Weber himself did not see, but that existed in Nietzsche's theory of “resentment,” and in Eduard Bernstein's analysis of the earliest Quakers.     

Governing Migrant Workers at a Distance: Managing the Temporary Status of Guestworkers in Taiwan

This paper explores how a liberal democratic state keeps migrant workers in temporary status by preventing their permanent settlement. Using Taiwan’s guestworker policy as an example, we argue that through expertise discourses and strategies of “governance at a distance” involving private sector, the Taiwan government has formulated policies and implemented measures that effectively kept guestworkers in temporary status. Analyzing Taiwan’s guestworker policy helps us to understand how the state and its collaborators work together to enhance the control capacity over migrants, while at the same time, enabling the state to keep its liberal pretense.     

Towards a New Paradigm of Religious Organizations

Abstract  In contemporary Japan, religion is an important issue. Various types of religions such as new religions, occultism, the new age movement, traditional religions etc., attract supporters and exerts a favorable influence on certain aspects of their lives. But, such circumstances are not restricted to Japan. All over the world today, religions have the power to sway national policy and are indispensable in influencing human consciousness and behavior.
Religion is alive and influential even in the secularized world. As such, a cross-cultural study of religions is increasingly needed. Furthermore, the typology of religious organizations provides a means with which to make a comparative study of religion throughout the world.
However, we cannot help but conclude that the theoretical framework developed so far cannot sufficiently deal with the subject in question. This is primarily due to its strong bias towards Christianity, which renders it invalid for analyzing religions in non-Christian regions. This paper will focus on the "cult". The term cult, unlike church-sect-denomination, seems to be applicable to any religious tradition and culture. It is not confined to a specific one such as the Christian tradition and culture.
It should be noted that the cult as previously treated is problematic, too, because it is not free from a bias towards Christianity, and has too negative a connotation for a scientific concept. In this paper, utilizing the merits of the concept of cult, I would like to elaborate a new paradigm of religious organizations. This should allow for a cross-cultural comparison between religious phenomena.     

Towards Coherence of EU External Migration Policy? Implementing a Complex Policy

The “Global Approach to Migration” represents the European Union's most advanced attempt to integrate non‐member states' interests into its policy agenda. Despite ambitions to achieve policy coherence, assessments of EU policy show that security measures, such as border control and readmission, dominate over “migration and development” and labour migration measures. The article addresses the questions why different components of migration policy differ in their implementation and how this impacts the effectiveness and coherence of the “Global Approach”. The main findings of EU interventions in Morocco and Ukraine show that implementation partners, logic of action and available resources shape policy components' implementation, with profound impact on coherence. Since preventive measures are more greatly affected by amibiguities than control measures, a more balanced EU policy requires EU practitioners to consider how feasible interventions are under each policy component and scale down migration control projects rather than undermine preventive measures and long‐term coherence.     

Communal Decline: The Vanishing of High-Moral Servant Leaders and the Decay of Democratic, High-Trust Kibbutz Cultures

What is the connection between leaders’morality and the output performance of organizations? Can their morality explain, through trust, continuity, and change of organizational cultures? Is periodic rotation of managers the right solution for the distrust caused by self‐serving conservatism due to Michels's “Iron Law of Oligarchy”? An anthropological study of kibbutzim, whose innovative and adaptive cultures declined recently, found that past success was dependent on high‐moral servant leaders who backed democracy and promoted high‐trust cultures that engendered innovation by creative officers in some kibbutzim, which others imitated. However, conservatism of continuous leaders as heads of low‐trust kibbutz federative organizations, which were ignored by customary kibbutz research, engendered oligarchization which rotation enhanced rather than prevented. However, creativity deteriorated only after decades of growing oligarchy, with the vanishing of the high‐moral old guard. Thus, the crux of democratic communal culture sustainability is pinpointed in the superiority of trusted, high‐moral leaders. A preliminary idea for achieving that aim, predicated on officers’continuation in office being conditional on periodic tests of trust, is herein presented.     

Volunteering in a voluntary community: Kibbutz members and voluntarism

The way in which kibbutz members define voluntarism, their attitudes toward it, the volunteering they do, their reasons for doing it, and the helping mechanisms and obstacles that the kibbutz offers were explored in a sample of four Israeli kibbutzim. This is a preliminary study of the way a unique society deals with a well-known field. Between-kibbutz differences were found mainly between the religious kibbutz and the others. No satisfactory explanations for between-person differences with regard to volunteering could be found, and it is hypothesised that the difference may lie in orientation to traditional kibbutz ideology. Our grateful thanks are given to Benjamin Gidron and our anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments. We also acknowledge the contribution of Nahum Goldshneider, Varda Rappaport, Yigal Nachtomi, Yishai Koom, Yoram Margai, Shoshana Cohen and Avi Ofir who participated in the data collection and provided welcome input to the research process.     

Balm for The Soul: Immigrant Religion and Emotional Well‐Being

Immigrants can face insurmountable odds in their acculturation to the new society, and subsequently suffer from poor emotional/mental health. Using immigrant data from the United States, Australia, and Western Europe, this paper tests the relationship between immigrant religious involvement and emotional well‐being. Results demonstrate that regular religious participation is associated with better emotional/mental health outcomes. Conversely, non‐religious group involvement (i.e., ethnic associations, leisure groups, work groups) do not have as equally a positive association with emotional well‐being. This pattern is consistent across all countries examined in this study, suggesting that religion has a unique relationship with immigrant emotional well‐being regardless of national context. Therefore, it is posited that in easing the emotional/mental adjustment of immigrants, religion is not an artifact of context or of a particular religious group, but a generality of immigrant adaptation. Policy implications for the study’s findings are discussed. Yet to him, in his troubled state, Christianity brought also the miracle of redemption. Poor thing that he was, his soul was yet a matter of consequence. For him the whole drama of salvation had been enacted: God had come to earth, had suffered as a man to make for all men a place in a life everlasting. Through that sacrifice had been created a community of all those who had faith, a kind of solidarity that would redress all grievances and right all wrongs, if not now, then in the far more important aftermath to life. ( Handlin, 1973 [1951]:93 )     

Perceptions of Children’s Parental Preferences in Lesbian Two‐Mother Households

This study explores how lesbian mothers perceive their 3½‐year‐old children’s parental preferences in families in which one mother is genetically linked to the child. Thirty lesbian couples (60 women) were interviewed about their children’s parental preferences, their explanations of why preferences for one parent existed (or not), and their affective and behavioral reactions to such preferences. Many women acknowledged that their children, as infants, preferred their birth mothers due to biological factors (i.e., breastfeeding) or differential time spent with the child. Despite this initial preference, most women perceived little stability in children’s preferences over time, such that children preferred both mothers equally. Findings support the power of “social motherhood” in fostering maternal connections that transcend biological relatedness over time.     

Seeking Connection Versus Avoiding Disappointment: An Experimental Manipulation of Approach and Avoidance Sexual Goals and the Implications for Desire and Satisfaction

Previous correlational research has demonstrated an association between people’s reasons for having sex (i.e., their sexual goals) and their sexual desire and sexual and relationship satisfaction. Across two studies of people in romantic relationships (N = 396) we extend previous research and demonstrate, for the first time, that manipulating the salience of approach sexual goals (i.e., engaging in sex to pursue positive outcomes, such as enhanced intimacy) compared to avoidance sexual goals (i.e., engaging in sex to avert negative outcomes, such as a partner’s disappointment) or a control condition leads people to feel higher sexual desire for their romantic partners and to report higher sexual and relationship satisfaction. In addition, in Study 2 we demonstrate that focusing on approach sexual goals over the course of a week leads people to report more satisfying sexual experiences during that week, as well as higher desire and overall relationship satisfaction, compared to a control group. The current findings advance approach–avoidance theory by providing evidence that it is possible to manipulate people’s sexual goals and, in turn, impact their feelings of desire and satisfaction. Results are promising for the development of interventions to promote sexual and relational well-being.     

International Migration and Religious Participation: The Mediating Impact of Individual and Contextual Effects1

Supported by previous empirical work, theory from sociology of religion and migration provide testable hypotheses in predicting changes in immigrant religious participation surrounding the migratory event. Due to data constraints, however, these hypotheses have escaped broad‐based analysis. Using the New Immigrant Survey (NIS), religious participation from pre‐ to postmigration time periods is found to decrease among recent immigrants to the United States. Individual‐level characteristics (i.e., gender, familial conditions, employment) do not substantially explain this decline; alternatively, contextual‐level factors (i.e., religious pluralism and religious concentration) partially mediate this drop in immigrant religiosity.     

REREADING THE PASSING OF TRADITIONAL SOCIETY

This paper employs a proposed alterity discourse analysis (ADA) framework to argue that The Passing of Traditional Society – the bible of the modernization paradigm of development communication research – exemplifies far less a discourse on the relationship between empathy and development, as it does on the political/ideological imperatives governing the construction of the Other (i.e. the Middle East) by the Self (i.e. the US). To substantiate this claim, the paper debunks the book's claim to social scientific objectivity by pinpointing the methodological shortcomings of the empathy model and of the Middle East project from which the model was derived, and highlights the paradigm's dogma by revealing the religious metaphors with which the book's narrative is infused.     

Urbanization policy: Lessons from South America for South Africa?

South African cities are currently moving through a critical period in the history of their development. Rates of growth over the last few years have been unprecedented and many of the factors which shape urban development (legislation, institutional structures, government spending patterns and so on) are currently undergoing significant transformation. Factors such as these have given rise to a concern that South African cities may face collapse if emerging problems are not addressed, and there has been intensified interest in the arena of urban policy. A significant feature of many of these current policy initiatives is that they look to other parts of the world (and frequently to South American countries) for “lessons” in solving the problems of urban settlement. This paper examines the feasibility of adopting policy models from elsewhere io address local development problems, and focuses specifically on the question of a national urban settlement strategy for South Africa. The paper concludes that a high degree of local specificity exists, and the simplistic adoption of foreign policy models can have a negative impact on attempts here to meet growing urban needs.