ABSTRACT
We seek to account for why religious groups in the United States during the past three decades have increasingly turned to the courts to achieve their public policy goals. Most conventional theories of organized rights advocacy in the courts suggest that groups mobilize as a rational response to their political environment or the availability of resources.
While recognizing the importance of such factors, our study contends that an important ideational variable has been left out of the analysis. We argue that the changing attitudinal and normative orientations about the law and its potential implications shape the decision-making process of religious organizations and are critical for whether courts are used as a means for pursuing policy goals.
To test the robustness of our theory, not only do we focus on religious groups in the United States, but we also look at the activities of such organizations in two other countries, Israel and India. Because of the important variations Israel and India offer in terms of religious legal mobilization, both countries serve as methodologically key cases for our comparative study. Our conclusion is that the significance of the ideational variable transcends national boundaries and therefore should be seriously considered by future scholars who study law, religion, and legal advocacy.
