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Many religious and spiritual movements mobilize to establish sacred fields which influence everyday life in multiple social domains. Because these devout groups operate across many institutional fields, scholars of religiously motivated movements are uniquely poised to contribute to scholarship on multiinstitutional politics and on how institutional change can be initiated and influenced by external cultural movements. In this paper, I bring attention to how religious movements can mobilize through unobtrusive political tactics which build upon extant social structures in multiple institutional fields, rather than through contentious tactics which are the focus of most movement research. Based on prior scholarship on religious movements and my own research, I identify how religious movements can expand through unobtrusive, nonconfrontational tactics such as “discursive politics,” developing a “state within a state,” “burrowing into” targeted organizations, and “assimilating into” mainstream organizations. These mechanisms identified in religious movement scholarship contribute to underdeveloped areas of scholarship at the intersection of social movement mobilization, organizational change, and field development, and provide a platform upon which future research can build. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Collective action can be problematic for two reasons -- we may get little or no additional benefit from our own efforts should we choose to contribute (the "efficacy problem"), yet we will enjoy the benefits of others' efforts even if we fail to contribute (the "free-rider problem"). Movement mobilizers address the free-rider problem by issuing crisis messages that call attention to impending disaster and the urgent need for action. These messages discourage free riding by making clear that soon there may be no more public resources to enjoy for free. Mobilizers address the efficacy problem by issuing empowerment messages that emphasize the fact that positive change is possible and is, in fact, happening. Crisis messages are especially prominent in the "tragedy of the commons" because of the accelerating impact of overconsumption. The "mobilizer's dilemma" is that crisis messages may actually backfire by undermining belief in the ability to "make a difference," while empowerment messages affirm efficacy but encourage free riding. We tested the hypothesized effects of crisis and empowerment messages under controlled conditions in the laboratory. In two separate experiments, members of a large group were confronted with a resource depletion problem under conditions of uncertainty. We manipulated the content of persuasive messages and measured the effect on self-restraint in harvesting the commons. The results confirmed the mobilizer's dilemma and pointed to a way out. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]