Maciej Potz
Biographic Data
| ID | 3087405 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Maciej Potz |
| GIVEN NAMES | Maciej |
| FAMILY NAME | Potz |
| SIGNATURE | POTZ M |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Lodz |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-4546-5699 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 10 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 1 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 10 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2012 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
Human rights under pressure
The Religious Order as Illiberal Heterotopia? Human Rights and Contemporary Catholic Monasticism
In the West, Catholic religious orders function within liberal political systems, yet are founded on a radically different set of values: they are communitarian rather than individualistic, rely on strong authority, and create total social structures with permanent control of behaviour. As a consequence, it is often charged that the monastic environment is inconsistent with human rights, because of its oppressive disciplinary practices and unacce…
Voluntary Costly Signals in Religious Communities
The article advances a political interpretation of ritual behavior in religious communes, grounded in costly signaling theory of religion. Both asceticism, often involving self-inflicted pain or severe deprivation, and ecstatic behavior, incurring considerable energetic and emotional expenditure, can perform the role of voluntary costly signals ( VCS ) – uncoerced displays broadcasting features that predispose the signaler to higher status or pos…
Symbolic Conflict in the Public Sphere
This article explains the public engagement of the Catholic Church in Poland in the post-Communist period (from 1989 to approximately 2015) as a symbolic challenge to the state. It draws on Simon Harrison’s theory of symbolic conflicts—conflicts over symbolic capital—applied to power struggles involving religious actors in contemporary political systems. The Polish Church engaged in a valuation contest against the state in which it tried to champ…
Costly Commitments “Under His Eye”
Costly signaling theory of religion has been proposed to explain the evolutionary adaptiveness of religion in general and, specifically, its prosocial effects, including the relative longevity of religious communes vis-à-vis their secular counterparts. This article focuses on two crucial aspects of this relationship: the features and functions of signals and the mechanism through which signaling translates into enhanced prosociality. It identifie…
Political Science of Religion
Political agency and violence
In contrast to political power – a generalised capacity for modifying the behaviour of other actors – the article conceptualises political agency as the actions of political actors which actually cause other actors to behave in a certain way. Analysing agency consists of identifying agents, actual veto players whose (in)actions lead to the outcomes in question, and explaining the causal relation between their (in)actions and the behaviour of othe…
Political Science of Religion
Perspektywy badawcze w politologii religii
The article presents political science of religion as an explanatory framework of the political role of religion, grounded in political science. It proceeds from the critique of the prevailing legal and theological approaches as being normatively overloaded and failing to grasp the actual impact of religion on power relations, to formulating metatheoretical/methodological postulates of the political science of religion as an empirical subdiscipli…
Legitimation mechanisms as third-dimension power practices
Using source material on the Shakers, an American communitarian religious group with a theocratic system of government, the article charts the sociopolitical development of a religious sect from charismatic to traditional authority. While focusing upon these forms of authority, the article also examines the techniques used by the power holders to establish and maintain the legitimacy of the system (theological justifications, procedures of succes…
Perspektywy badawcze w politologii religii
The article presents political science of religion as an explanatory framework of the political role of religion, grounded in political science. It proceeds from the critique of the prevailing legal and theological approaches as being normatively overloaded and failing to grasp the actual impact of religion on power relations, to formulating metatheoretical/methodological postulates of the political science of religion as an empirical subdiscipli…
Legitimation mechanisms as third-dimension power practices
Using source material on the Shakers, an American communitarian religious group with a theocratic system of government, the article charts the sociopolitical development of a religious sect from charismatic to traditional authority. While focusing upon these forms of authority, the article also examines the techniques used by the power holders to establish and maintain the legitimacy of the system (theological justifications, procedures of succes…
Political agency and violence
In contrast to political power – a generalised capacity for modifying the behaviour of other actors – the article conceptualises political agency as the actions of political actors which actually cause other actors to behave in a certain way. Analysing agency consists of identifying agents, actual veto players whose (in)actions lead to the outcomes in question, and explaining the causal relation between their (in)actions and the behaviour of othe…
Political Science of Religion
Perspektywy badawcze w politologii religii
The article presents political science of religion as an explanatory framework of the political role of religion, grounded in political science. It proceeds from the critique of the prevailing legal and theological approaches as being normatively overloaded and failing to grasp the actual impact of religion on power relations, to formulating metatheoretical/methodological postulates of the political science of religion as an empirical subdiscipli…
Political Science of Religion
Costly Commitments “Under His Eye”
Costly signaling theory of religion has been proposed to explain the evolutionary adaptiveness of religion in general and, specifically, its prosocial effects, including the relative longevity of religious communes vis-à-vis their secular counterparts. This article focuses on two crucial aspects of this relationship: the features and functions of signals and the mechanism through which signaling translates into enhanced prosociality. It identifie…
Voluntary Costly Signals in Religious Communities
The article advances a political interpretation of ritual behavior in religious communes, grounded in costly signaling theory of religion. Both asceticism, often involving self-inflicted pain or severe deprivation, and ecstatic behavior, incurring considerable energetic and emotional expenditure, can perform the role of voluntary costly signals ( VCS ) – uncoerced displays broadcasting features that predispose the signaler to higher status or pos…
Symbolic Conflict in the Public Sphere
This article explains the public engagement of the Catholic Church in Poland in the post-Communist period (from 1989 to approximately 2015) as a symbolic challenge to the state. It draws on Simon Harrison’s theory of symbolic conflicts—conflicts over symbolic capital—applied to power struggles involving religious actors in contemporary political systems. The Polish Church engaged in a valuation contest against the state in which it tried to champ…
The Religious Order as Illiberal Heterotopia? Human Rights and Contemporary Catholic Monasticism
In the West, Catholic religious orders function within liberal political systems, yet are founded on a radically different set of values: they are communitarian rather than individualistic, rely on strong authority, and create total social structures with permanent control of behaviour. As a consequence, it is often charged that the monastic environment is inconsistent with human rights, because of its oppressive disciplinary practices and unacce…
Human rights under pressure
Politics (7 works) · Law (6 works) · Political science (6 works) · Religion and Society Interactions (6 works) · Sociology (6 works) · Law (4 works) · Philosophy (3 works) · Social science (3 works) · American Constitutional Law and Politics (2 works) · Economics (2 works)