ABSTRACT
Religious groups are fertile soil for social movement birth and growth because they are face-to-face groups that are constituted around some commonly held beliefs. This chapter discusses how movements may be more or less based upon religious groups and addresses social movements within religious groups examining the forces that create social movements and political conflict within religious organizations. It discusses the interplay of social movements and religious movements within the context of a global system of nations. The chapter relies upon the insights of a resource mobilization perspective toward social movement processes. It provides attention to the insights of a political economy perspective toward organizations, the social and political processes of statemaking, and a world-systems perspective. The study of the emergence and transformation of social movements owes much to Weber's early formulations, and, it will be recalled, religious movements were a special focus of the analyses he carried out.
