The Discursive Side of Sociological Institutionalism in the Study of Religion

This article introduces sociological institutionalism and proposes a discursive addition for enhancing its utility for the study of religion. The article reviews neoinstitutionalist social theorizing and underlines its argument that agentic actorhood is constituted by and embedded in a world-spanning culture. We point out that the potential of this line of scholarship for the study of religion remains unexplored partly because it does not say much about the actual discursive practices that motivate actors to behave in concrete situations. We illustrate how a discursive approach to sociological institutionalism can fill this gap by highlighting the relational context that all actors intuitively take account of. We then offer a brief programmatic agenda for the study of religion under the rubric of epistemic governance, indicating the potential for new theoretical insights into the category of religion, some methodological implications, and empirical studies.