Maciej Potz

Through analysis of doctrine, cult, social and political organisation and the relations with the outside world, the article traces a dual development in the history of Shakerism, an American communitarian religious group: its rise and decline as a religion that has led to its almost complete extinction, and the accompanying process of its absorption into the mainstream of American culture. This became possible when, in the 20th century, Shakers – celibate communitarian pacifists – ceased to be perceived as a serious challenge to the American values of individualism, private property and the traditional model of family. Instead, their image was romanticised and material aspects of their culture emphasised, thus making Shakerism a sort of antiquarian curiosity, despite the survival of a small community of believers.

The article presents political science of religion as an explanatory framework of the political role of religion, grounded in political science. It proceeds from the critique of the prevailing legal and theological approaches as being normatively overloaded and failing to grasp the actual impact of religion on power relations, to formulating metatheoretical/methodological postulates of the political science of religion as an empirical subdiscipline of social science. It then proposes a multilevel approach to the study of the political role of religion. It consists of three distinct – but integrated – theoretical perspectives: the economic or transactional approach, grounded in rational choice theory and economic theories of religion; the social movements theory (SMT) approach, looking at the internal assets, organization and dynamics of religious actors; and the cultural/humanistic approach, exploring evolutionary, psychological and sociological determinants behind individual propensity to religion-inspired political mobilization.