DOI : 10.3917/anso.212.0429.

This article proposes a discussion of the uses of the concept of 'institution' in the social sciences of religion, based on a comparison of three empirical surveys of different religious communities and fields (Pentecostalism in Sweden, Buddhism in Southern Europe, Catholicism in Italy). Institutionalization as a continuous social process is not incompatible with forms of de-institutionalization of the religious, if this notion presented by Danièle Hervieu-Léger is reworked to describe situations of redeployment of constraints in a sociology of religious action rather than as a paradigm for understanding secularization. Paradoxical institutionalizations of the religious can be studied in socio-political categorizations, roles and practices redefined by external dynamics, and inter-institutional trajectories of actors.

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