Abstract
To understand religion’s relation to social solidarity, scholars frequently rely on the neo-Tocquevillian synthesis. This approach assumes that the number of citizen associations or volunteer groups in a society is a good indicator of social solidarity. In addition it invokes a “unitary actor model” of religion that treats individuals and groups either as continuously religious or non-religious. The neo-Tocquevillian synthesis has become an increasingly inadequate way to understand religion’s relation to social solidarity in societies characterized by porous institutions and loose, detachable social ties, rather than tightly bound groups. In this post-Tocquevillian scenario, religious expression may cross group or institutional boundaries more readily, and voluntary, solidarity-sustaining activities take a variety of forms, some of them very individualized. In light of these realities, this essay proposes an alternative, “pragmatist” approach that studies religious expression in different public settings rather than taking individual or collective religious actors as the object of study. Different settings are organized by different group styles that shape opportunities for religious expression. Those styles give different opportunities for participants to connect religion to acts of solidarity—be those casual volunteering or projects carried out by more traditional associations. A case of a church-sponsored organization that advocates for homeless people’s needs in a large US city illustrates the benefits of the pragmatist approach.
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Notes
- 1.
For a fuller development of this argument, with additional empirical material beyond the case in this essay, see Lichterman (2012b).
- 2.
Different studies (for instance, Hustinx et al. 2012; Lichterman 2006; Eliasoph 2011) have identified individual choice-driven volunteering with somewhat different examples. They are not all exactly the “plug-in volunteering” illustrated in US examples by volunteers who sign up for short shifts of voluntary work once a week under the direction of a volunteer recruiter. They are similar enough to warrant being considered together for this discussion’s purposes, especially when compared to club-style or “collectivistic” (Eckstein 2001) volunteering.
- 3.
In the USA, widely read social critics argued in the 1980s that a growing focus on individual expression and choice was diminishing social solidarity, perhaps weakening collective efforts for social change too (Bellah et al. 1985); from this viewpoint, the growth of plug-in volunteering might signal declining solidarity. From a different point of view, another critic (McKnight 1996) argued, analogous to Habermas, that administrative planning disempowered the collective will of American citizens. Given that plug-in volunteering depends on planners and recruiters who direct volunteers and often are state-employed (Wuthnow 1998), we might infer, again, that participating in this kind of volunteering is a weaker act of solidarity than the older kind, in which citizens decided on and carried out charitable or pro-social deeds together. On the other hand, plug-in volunteering accommodates a highly mobile society (Wuthnow 1998) and other kinds of individualized participation welcome socially diverse people who do not all share the same expectations and cultural experiences (see Lichterman 1996).
- 4.
- 5.
For a full presentation and conceptual justification, see (Lichterman 2012b).
- 6.
For the main expositions of this viewpoint and methodological guidelines for using it, see Eliasoph and Lichterman (2003), Lichterman (2005, 2012b), and Eliasoph (2011). For other applications of the group style concept to cases in the USA, South America, and western Europe, see Lichterman (1995, 1996, 2007, 2008), Mische (2008), Faucher-King (2005), Yon (2009), Luhtakalio (2009), Citroni (2010).
- 7.
The discussion here refers to Robert Putnam’s distinctive version of the social capital concept, the most widespread one. For extensive reviews and critiques, see Somers (2005), Lichterman (2006).
- 8.
Alexis de Tocqueville (1969 [1835]) made the argument elegantly 170 years ago; modern observer Robert Bellah (1967) re-articulated and updated the argument in a classic essay on American “civil religion”. Research suggests that Americans hold atheists in lower repute and trust them less than many other widely identifiable groups, such as African Americans or Muslims (Edgell et al. 2006).
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Lichterman, P. (2015). Religion and Social Solidarity. In: Hustinx, L., von Essen, J., Haers, J., Mels, S. (eds) Religion and Volunteering. Nonprofit and Civil Society Studies. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-04585-6_12
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