The Uncoercible Citizen: Religious Resistance to Secular Authority

Why do some citizens pursue their religious convictions at any cost, while others obey secular authorities even when it restricts their religious practices? At a time of rising religious extremism and religious-nationalist populism, this question is critical to policymaking and democratic governance. A growing body of research has focused on the behavior of "devoted actors," actors whose identities are fused with sacred values and who make extreme sacrifices in the name of duty rather than calculated self-interest. However, while devoted actor theory largely focuses on violence and radicalism, in practice most minority religious groups do not resort to violence when the law restricts their beliefs. The theory also tends to treat the group as the unit of analysis, while individuals within the same religious community often respond very differently to legal pressures. Furthermore, much of the empirical evidence relies on surveys and hypothetical scenarios rather than real-world behavior. As a result, there is little systematic clarity on why some individuals defy state authority when it imposes restrictions on their religious practices, while others with identical beliefs submit to the law. To address this puzzle, I shift the analytical focus from group identity to the self. When sacred values are fully integrated into a person’s identity, a condition I call full identity saturation, they replace any other conception of self-interest. In contrast, non-saturated individuals treat religious adherence as one option among many. But those with fully saturated identities do not frame their actions as radicalization or sacrifice; full identity saturation functions as an internal moral anchor that renders the actor impervious to the standard "carrots and sticks" of state policy. This perspective explains why some individuals remain uncoercible, and challenges the assumption that citizens prioritize self-interest when faced with significant costs. I argue that full identity saturation naturally produces fundamentalist-like behavior. This argument is backed by two studies surrounding minority religious resistance to military conscription in two very different contexts. The first study is a qualitative comparative analysis of Christian pacifists (Amish, Quakers, Mennonites) in the U.S. during World War I, comparing the original accounts of individuals who chose prison with those who chose to go against religious mandates of nonviolence. The second study analyzes interviews with Ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) Jewish men in Israel about their reasoning whether to serve time in prison or to comply with compulsory military service. Across both cases, I operationalize "full identity saturation" through linguistic markers and show that willingness to incur severe legal or economic costs is predicted less by cost-benefit calculations than by the totalizing structure of their religious beliefs. This research reveals a blind spot in contemporary models of statecraft: for the identity-saturated actor, traditional policy incentives are irrelevant. To ignore the existence of this kind of "uncoercible actor" is to risk a cycle of failed deterrence and escalating state repression. Understanding this cognitive structuring gives policymakers a vital tool for diffusing conflict before it spirals into radicalization and offers a roadmap for democratic societies navigating the global rise of religious-nationalist populism.