A Qualitative Comparative Analysis of Conversion to Venezuelan Evangelicalism: How Networks Matter

Abstract

While the influence of networks in conversion is among the most established findings in the sociology of religion, relatively little is known about how and why they have their influence. In this study the author finds the social conformity theorization most often used in network analysis important but incomplete. Network ties are frequently influential despite little or no direct contact between ego and alter and little or no motivation to conform. Similarly, “structural availability” works not only by freeing an actor from conformity‐inducing constraints but also by indicating a relative absence of social and cultural support. This absence motivates individuals for religious innovation. Finally, while network location strongly determines who converts, the individual experience of life problems remains a causal factor, and, in a small but irreducible number of cases, actors clearly exercise agency over their network locations.

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