Religious elites are active for peace in many violent conflicts. Normative explanations of‐ ten do not suffice to explain their engagement. In this paper we draw on the findings of social‐movement research to identify the factors that induce rationally acting religious el‐ ites to be active for peace. It is their relationships to the government, other religious elites, and believers that c...

This paper criticizes Hirschman's interpretation of •gthe events of the autumn of 1989•h that is representative of the popular interpretation. According to the popular interpretation, the process started just by change of the Hungarian west border in May, 1989. Hirschman (1995) has written the same. Using only this framework he studied why and how the Exodus and the reform movement tied up in E...

This essay seeks to contribute to work on moral agency of religious women through the creative naming of a dynamic that is emerging in recent scholarship. Drawing on fieldwork in Iran in 2004, I argue that prominent models of agency based on autonomy, heteronomy, and theonomy are unable take into account both religious influence on and individual creativity of women's actions. I propose the neo...

various factors are engaged in broadening the culture and structures related to individualism, humanism and egoism which have provided humans with a uniform lifestyle leaving the religious in confrontation with their environs. in order to get out of this situation, the principles of a religious life must be read out and structured as ignoring any principle may have considerable qualitative and ...

This article strives to use the institutional and discursive strategies employed by the Islamic Movement in Israel in the soccer sphere to illustrate wider theoretical arguments about setting boundaries of inclusion and exclusion in the public sphere. The Islamic Movement uses an isolationist strategy, by creating the independent Islamic Soccer League. In contrast, social agents who strive to p...

I. Continuity or Rupture: How Did Vatican II Understand the Church’s Relation with the Modern World?1 IN A notable Christmas message given before the Roman Curia on December 22, 2005, Pope Benedict XVI cautioned against a widespread interpretation of the Second Vatican Council which would posit that the Church after the Council is different than the “preconciliar” Church. Benedict called this e...