Recruitment Strategies, Ideology, and Organization in the Hare Krishna Movement

Studies of recruitment to social movements have focused mainly on the social psychological reasons for joining or the interaction between members and prospective recruits. This paper examines the inter-relationship between recruitment strategy, ideology, movement structure, and external social forces in the development of the Hare Krishna movement. A survey of over 200 Hare Krishna devotees shows that opportunistic exploitation of local conditions, rather than ideology or structure, has been responsible for the growth of the Hare Krishna movement in the United States.