A t least since de Tocqueville, autonomy from |the state has been considered a core feature of American civil society and a source of its many virtues. Recent historical and sociological research, however, shows that civil society and the state are deeply intertwined (Salamon 1995;Skocpol 1999;Smith and Lipsky 1993). Indeed, from some perspectives, it is more accurate to say that at least parts of civil society are dependent on the state rather than autonomous from it, prompting questions about the conse-quences of that dependence for the nature and functioning of civil society. But "dependence" and "autonomy," not to mention "civil society," are vague concepts that require specification to develop sound knowledge about the consequences for civil society of more or less dependence on or autonomy from the state. We contribute to knowledge about this relationship by focusing on a specific sector of civil society (nonprofit organizations), a specific form of dependence on the state (government funding),
Secularization is most productively understood not as declining religion, but as the declining scope of religious authority. A focus on religious authority (1) is more consistent with recent developments in social theory than is a preoccupation with religion; (2) draws on and develops what is best in the secularization literature; and (3) reclaims a neglected Weberian insight concerning the sociological analysis of religion. Several descriptive and theoretical "pay-offs" of this conceptual innovataion are discussed: new hypotheses concerning the relationship between religion and social mozements; the enhanced capacity to conceptually apprehend and empirically investigate secularization among societies, organizations, and individuals; and clearer theoretical connections between secularization and other sociological literatures. Ironically, these connections may indeed spell the end of secularization theory as a distinct body of theory, but in a different way than previously appreciated. The central analytical question has been: "What is religion?" and the difficulty of providing a satisfactory answer to that question has consequently dominated the debate about secularisation in industrial societies.... The question is, without doubt, significant in both the philosophy and sociology of religion, but it has had the effect of inducing a certain theoretical sterility and repetitiverness within the discipline. The endless pursuit of that issue has produced an analytical cul-de-sac. (Turner 1991:3) Hitherto, too many studies in the sociology of religion have been interested in meaning systems. It is my contention that the study of structural changes is more important and is in closer alignment with the great sociological traditions. (Dobbelaere 1989:42) A longstanding consensus around classical versions of secularization theory has broken down in recent decades. Religion's stubborn refusal to disappear has prompted major reevaluation of inherited models of secularization. The "facts" are not much disputed: New religious movements continue to arise; older movements like Pentecostalism and Mormonism are expanding; religious i The University of North Carolina Press Social Forces, March 1994, 72(3):749-774
Virtually every discussion of secularization asserts that high levels of religiosity in the United States make it a decisive counterexample to the claim that modern societies are prone to secularization. Focusing on trends rather than levels, we maintain that, for two straightforward empirical reasons, the U.S. should no longer be considered a counterexample. First, it has recently become clear that American religiosity has been declining for decades. Second, this decline has been produced by the generational patterns underlying religious decline elsewhere in the West: each successive cohort is less religious than the preceding one. The United States is not an exception. These findings change the theoretical import of the U.S. for debates about secularization.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.