Abstract
AbstractTotal institutions are by definition totalitarian, but not necessarily authoritarian. Voluntary total institutions consist of members who have chosen to enter, but what opportunities do they have to leave? This article addresses opportunities for exit and voice in Catholic monasteries within the Cistercian Order of Strict Observance. Monasteries have institutionalized important democratic processes regarding membership and leadership. Members are involved in decision-making through community bodies and discussions, but in many practical concerns, superiors may wrest control by neglecting to ask the community for alternative opinions. The superior’s decision-making style therefore crucially affects the range of democratic decision-making in individual monastic communities. Complete exits are common during the initial entry process. The cost of leaving is higher for full members, and the internal exit option to other monastic communities in the Order is therefore of great importance. It means that monastic communities cease to operate as monopolies.
Highlights
TOTALINSTITUTIONS are geographically delimited places of residence and work, where people live a regulated life for extended periods of time, separated from the outside world [Goffman 1961]
By investigating communities within one of the strictest monastic orders of the Catholic Church from the point of view of opportunities for voice and exit, this article adds to the sparse knowledge on the politics of total institutions in general, and on decision-making procedures in particular
In this article on monastic politics, I have focused on the opportunities for voice available to members, what they expect from these opportunities, and how they engage in them
Summary
European Journal of Sociology, 61, 1, (2020), pp. 103–127—0003-9756/20/0000-900$07.50per art + $0.10 per page ã European Journal of Sociology 2020. I focus on Catholic monasteries within the Cistercian Order of Strict Observance as a specific case of voluntary total institution. In a much less recent study, Hillery [1969] pointed out important organizational differences between monasteries and coercive types of total institutions, but did not address the issue of decision-making. By investigating communities within one of the strictest monastic orders of the Catholic Church from the point of view of opportunities for voice and exit, this article adds to the sparse knowledge on the politics of total institutions in general, and on decision-making procedures in particular. Perhaps surprisingly given ideas of total institutions as authoritarian, (voluntary) total institutional conditions provide incitements for political participation, counteracting monastic promises to abandon will
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