The theoretical framing of a social problem: The case of societal reaction to cults in Israel

This article analyses the functions of societal reaction to cults in Israel from the 1970s to the end of 1980s through two different theoretical prisms: social functionalism and social constructionism. These two opposing perspectives shed different light on the form of this social reaction, its strategies and its instrumental and symbolic achievements. The functionalist analysis shows that opposition to cults characterized and united various disparate streams within Jewish society, spanning ultra-orthodox groups, secular activists, mental health professionals and civil servants. These anti-cult group actions led to a clarification of social norms and a realignment of conflicting sectors in society through disapproval, public degradation and the condemnation of so-called 'destructive cults'. By contrast, the more sophisticated social constructionist perspective leads to a different analysis and conclusion about the nature and the implications of this societal reaction. In this case, the groups involved in the anti-cult campaign emerge as typical moral entrepreneurs who discovered and raised the social problem of cults to the public level to promote their own agendas and to protect their own political and ideological interests. © 2008 Taylor & Francis.