My research focuses on social change amid precipitating events that rapidly accelerate the course of change, such as the Gulf War, the 1980s farm crisis in the United States, Vatican Council II in the Catholic Church, and cycles of repression and dissent. With macro-level events like these as background, I study processes and outcomes in three main areas: political participation and mobilization, restructured power and authority relationships, and inequality.

In each area, the analyses center on gender, religious beliefs and practices, structured inequalities, and the role of organized groups. This research contributes to the following sub-fields in Sociology: social change, political sociology, religion, gender and rural sociology.

The projects that are my focus now and for the near future investigate democratization and change, cycles of conflict in the Middle East, and restrictions on religious practices and beliefs in the context of precipitated, rapid social change.