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AbstractDespite calls from researchers for intersectional studies between religion and social movements over the past few decades, scholars have not engaged in fruitful conversation about integrating the two disciplines. This article aims to facilitate such discussion by examining the topic of new religious movements (NRMs). I first review the existing literature on NRMs and discuss why NRM research has been neglected in social movement studies. Then, I explore a few research areas where both NRM studies and social movement research could intersect and benefit from a synthetic approach. Specifically, I suggest that social movement studies could advance through the examination of some relatively ignored subjects of research, such as persistent participation and disengagement, by drawing on empirical cases of NRMs. I also propose ways in which the application of social movement theories would enhance our understanding of different aspects of NRMs, such as their leadership and coalition practices. In making these arguments, I refer to one of the prominent, long‐term NRMs, the Unification Church or Movement, to help illustrate my ideas.

Beginning in the 1960s, U.S. feminist movement litigators organized public-interest legal organizations to promote women's rights through legal mobilization in the courts. We investigate all U.S. Supreme Court decisions involving gender equality from 1965 to 2016 to discern the impact of involvement of these feminist movement litigation groups as legal counsel. Our findings show that organized feminist cause lawyers increase the likelihood of decisions expanding women's legal rights and/or promoting gender equality. Our results also indicate that broader legal and political opportunities combine with legal-activist efforts to produce these judicial outcomes. However, when the Supreme Court is highly conservative regarding abortion rights, feminist cause lawyers face difficulty winning cases. Our research suggests the importance for movement scholars of considering activist litigation, and our findings indicate that a theory of the joint effects of activist legal mobilization and broader legal/political opportunities can explain the judicial outcomes movement actors seek.

We investigate how cause lawyers articulate their demands in court. We do so by examining feminist legal briefs submitted in US Supreme Court cases from 1970 to the present, specifically focusing on the use of race–gender analogical legal framing. We explore the frequency and trends in the use of such arguments as well as the forms these arguments take, including how race–gender analogies parallel frame bridging and transformation. Additionally, we also investigate why activists choose to deploy race–gender analogies in their legal framing and discern that different political, legal, and social contexts can produce different uses of the race–gender analogy.