International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the place of religion in civil society and how that relates to the problem of social order.

Design/methodology/approach – An exploratory comparative case study was conducted of flood relief in Mumbai with the relief following the Katrina disaster in the summer of 2005, using a qualitative content analysis of regional media documents.

Findings – A more fluid and less clearly defined division between religion and government in the USA was found that created opportunities by which a much larger response by religious institutions occurred. Religiously-based disaster relief in the US case is conducted more through groups and networks, while in the Indian case, religious-based relief takes place more through values and norms. These conditions led to more immediate social order following the floods in Mumbai but less intensive cooperation and coordination that was not tied to religious institutions. After Katrina in the US case, coordination and cooperation were less immediate but of higher intensity and explicitly tied to religious institutions.

Research limitations/implications – This research offers new categories for understanding the role of religion in civil society by focusing on disaster relief in a comparative manner, proposing a framework based on qualitative and exploratory research for pursuing more deductive and explanatory quantitative analyses in the future.

Originality/value – Finally, instead of assuming religion as either a source of conflict or a source of social order, dependent on the nature of a given religious group, this paper shows the additional complexity and variation in social order that is dependent on the relationship between religion and state and the social context in a given time and place.