Islamophobia in the West

Measuring and Explaining Individual Attitudes

Marc Helbling

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781136900792
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Islamic Theology

Since the late 1980s, growing migration from countries with a Muslim cultural background, and increasing Islamic fundamentalism related to terrorist attacks in Western Europe and the US, have created a new research field investigating the way states and ordinary citizens react to these new phenomena. However, whilst we already know much about how Islam finds its place in Western Europe and North America, and how states react to Muslim migration, we know surprisingly little about the attitudes of ordinary citizens towards Muslim migrants and Islam. Islamophobia has only recently started to be addressed by social scientists.

With contributions by leading researchers from many countries in Western Europe and North America, this book brings a new, transatlantic perspective to this growing field and establishes an important basis for further research in the area. It addresses several essential questions about Islamophobia, including:

• what exactly is Islamophobia and how can we measure it?
• how is it related to similar social phenomena, such as xenophobia?
• how widespread are Islamophobic attitudes, and how can they be explained?
• how are Muslims different from other outgroups and what role does terrorism and 9/11 play?

Islamophobia in the West will be of interest to students and scholars of sociology, religious studies, social psychology, political science, ethnology, and legal science.

1 Islamophobia in the West

An introduction

Marc Helbling

When asked what comes to mind upon hearing the words ‘Islam’ and ‘Muslims’, many people answer with names like Osama bin Laden, events such as 9/11 and other terrorist attacks, sources of terrorist violence such as Palestinian suicide bombers, and ideas and practices related to oppression, including jihad, veiling, Islamic law, and the like (Park et al. 2007; Gottschalk and Greenberg 2008: 3).

The term ‘Islamophobia’ is often invoked to label such negative connotations and associations, and the word has enjoyed an extraordinary vogue over the past decade; indeed, it has come to appear regularly in both academic and political debates. Its success, however, is not free of problems. The term has been used by a considerable variety of people and in remarkably different ways, leading to controversy over what it really means, and whether it is useful. As Cesari (2006: 6) has noted, the term is ‘imprecisely applied to very diverse phenomena, ranging from xenophobia to anti-terrorism.’

In a similar vein, Maussen (2006: 100) argues that: ‘“Islamophobia” is a reductive “catchall” – pulling together diverse forms of discourse, speech and acts, and suggesting that they all emanate from an identical core (in this case, a “fear” or a “phobia” of Islam)’. He is right to suggest that a distinction should be made between different kinds of discourses – differentiating, for instance, between academic discussions on the relations between Islam and modernity, public discussions on whether Islam recognizes the principle of separation of state and church, and public exclamations about Islam being ‘a backward religion’ or a ‘violent religion’. For this reason, it is important to clarify straight away what is understood by Islamophobia as we are discussing it, and thus what this book is about.

Maussen’s statement remarks upon Islamophobia’s frequent conceptual applications – how it is used to investigate public and media debates, political discourses and policy decisions. In such use, it refers to the general social climate and the positions of political actors. It certainly goes without saying that Islamophobia can also be found at the micro level among ordinary citizens. However – even though these two levels are highly interconnected – the attitudes of ordinary citizens have not been investigated as thoroughly as social debates and policies have been, so far.

With this in mind, this volume reunites a group of researchers who have been working on ordinary Western Europeans’ and North Americans’ attitudes toward Muslim immigrants and Islam, by means of survey data. The main goals of the various chapters include studying how pervasive Islamophobic attitudes are and deducing how best we can measure and explain them. The goal of this introduction is to clarify and discuss why we should study Islamophobia and how we can define and measure it.

Why study Islamophobic attitudes of ordinary citizens?

Since the beginning of the twenty-first century, Islam has become an increasingly important religion in Europe, with growing immigration from Muslim countries. Depending on which estimation one uses, between 10 and 15 million Muslims now live in Western Europe (Modood 2003; Fetzer and Soper 2005). According to Cesari (2010b: 10), approximately 5 per cent of the European Union’s 425 million inhabitants are Muslims. Smith (2010: 29) considers four to seven million Muslims living in the US to be a reasonable estimate.

In many West European countries Islam has become the third largest religion (Hollifield 1992; Nielsen 1992, 1999). Islam’s growing presence has also led to new conflicts. While in the past, guestworkers typically formulated claims that were predominantly social and political in nature, some Muslim immigrants are now demanding religious and cultural rights as a consequence of their permanent settlement. Western societies must now deal with religious rules and customs – something that can be very difficult for parties that perceive such rules and customs as at odds with the norms of a secular liberal state. As Cesari (2010b: 17) and many others have pointed out, Western European states tend to consider faith as misplaced and illegitimate in secular societies. This kind of conflict is perhaps best summarized in the provoking title of Sniderman and Hagendoorn’s (2007) book, When Ways of Life Collide – a volume that investigates attitudes toward Muslims in the Netherlands, and also Muslims’ perceptions of Western Europeans. In the US, by contrast, religion is often seen as a bridge rather than a barrier (Clark et al. 2010: 19; Foner and Alba 2008).

Demands for the construction of mosques, Islamic religious education and gender-separated sports lessons – as well as provisions for the protection of cultural practices, such as forced marriages and female circumcision (which are also heavily disputed within Islam) – pose new challenges to some actors and groups in the host societies (for example, Cesari 2005b; Koopmans et al. 2005: 149; Wohlrab-Sahr and Tezcan 2007). The headscarf affair in France is probably the most prominent issue in this context, since it sparked heated political debates in France and other countries, and also led to academic debates on the limits of liberalism (Thomas 2006; Bowen 2007; Joppke 2007; 2009a). As much as the issue of wearing of the veil can be debated, it also remains an open discussion as to whether critical views on Islam – for example, those expressed in the Danish newspaper cartoons featuring the prophet Mohammed – should be allowed in the name of freedom of speech (Levey and Modood 2009).

Unfortunately, as relevant as these debates on normative issues may be, we cannot address them here. Following Sniderman and Hagendoorn (2007: 29), the real problem at the core of this volume is not that certain cultures might not be compatible with each other – or that one group misunderstands the culture of another – but, rather, that ‘it is a misunderstanding to suppose that there is a culture, a definite set of beliefs and values to be understood’.

Since the terrorist attacks of 9/11, debates on Muslim integration have often been linked to questions of public security (Bleich 2009a; Cesari 2010b). One would do well not to forget, however, that even before 9/11 Islam had often been regarded as a particularly violent religion. Events such as the Iranian revolution and the occupation of the American embassy in Tehran, the Salman Rushdie fatwa and the Palestinian suicide bombings in Israel have shaped the picture of Muslims for many West Europeans and North Americans.

That fact that Muslim issues have become more controversial, taking ‘centre stage’ over the past two decades, is also due to political mobilization by populist and radical right parties. Concerns over Islam and Muslim migration have had an important impact on the success of populist and radical right parties in Western Europe (Allen 2006: 72; Skenderovic 2006; Mudde 2007: 84–6; Shooman and Spielhaus 2010: 203–4). Many parties have profited from increasing fear of Islam and have mobilized to exploit this issue. Shooman and Spielhaus (2010: 204) have even argued that Islam has allowed various national populist and radical right parties to establish contacts with each other and to cooperate at the European level; in sum, they suggest that Islam serves as a unifying topic and a common enemy.

As one might expect, these developments have led to extensive research on Islam and Muslim migration in Western Europe, and – to a lesser extent – in North America (see Buijs and Rath 2002 as well as Maussen 2007 for extensive overviews). Maussen (2007: 4) identifies two broad fields of study. The first field has dealt predominantly with the dynamics of Islamic beliefs, values, everyday religiosity and practice. These studies focus on types of religious belongings, differences between generations or the emergence of a ‘European Islam’ (for an overview see Peter 2006). There is already a series of excellent books and edited volumes on the topic of Muslims in Western countries (Haddad 2002; Haddad and Smith 2002; Hunter 2002; Cesari 2004; Klausen 2005; Modood 2005; Abdo 2006).

The second strand of this literature is concerned with various aspects of the regulation of Islam – or, ‘the way in which societies create opportunities for the development of Islam, or oppose them’ (Bujis and Rath 2002: 9, quoted in Maussen 2007: 4). These, mostly comparative, studies are interested in how West European states react to Muslim migration and accommodate Islam (Pauly 2004; Fetzer and Soper 2005; Koopmans et al. 2005: ch. 4; Joppke 2007; 2009a; Dolezal et al. 2010; Cesari 2010a; Triandafyllidou 2010).

While we know quite a bit about how Islam finds its place in Western Europe and North America, and about how states react to Muslim migration, we know surprisingly little about the attitudes of ordinary citizens toward Islam and Muslim migrants. Research on individual attitudes has been neglected for a long time and remains scarce today. Only recently, and in the context of the events and developments mentioned above, have social scientists begun to describe and analyze Islamophobic attitudes. Most of these initial papers were not published until the second half of the 2000s (Leibold and Kühnel 2003; 2006; Stolz 2005; Dekker and Van der Noll 2007; Kühnel and Leibold 2007; Strabac and Listhaug 2008; Velasco González et al. 2008; Bevelander and Otterbeck 2010; Helbling 2010).

This is not to say that Islamophobia did not exist in earlier periods, naturally. Anti-Muslim or anti-Islamic phenomena have existed at various points in time in European history. Since we lack the space to expand on this aspect of Islamophobia in our current project, I must make do with a reference to Edward Said’s (1978) seminal study on Orientalism – which brought into focus how, over the past several centuries, western cultural, academic and imperial projects have created a negative and stereotypical representation of an exotic and barbarous Orient that exists in opposition to the enlightened Occident. Cesari (2010a: 1) refers to Mamdani’s (2004) concept of ‘cultural talk’ to describe how Muslims have been ‘petrified’ in history and occupy a mould from which they cannot escape (see also Love 2009).

The recent increase in studies on Islamophobic attitudes can be explained by two related reasons: first, Muslim migrants have been present in West European and North American societies for almost half a century now, and second, Muslim issues have been on the political agendas of Western states since the 1980s. Muslims have seldom been defined by their religion, however (Bleich 2009a: 353). Rather, they were more often considered an ethnic or economic group – seen as ‘guestworkers’, ‘Turks’ or ‘blacks’. In the aftermath of 9/11, however, the category of ‘Muslim’ has become much more relevant in political and academic debates. As a result, data availability has also undergone a change. Until recently, most surveys on attitudes toward immigrants typically included only general questions on respondents’ perceptions of immigrants, with other categories deemed irrelevant. Today, however, there are more and more surveys that include specific questions on attitudes toward Muslims. Data from some of the first studies – focusing exclusively on attitudes toward Muslims and Islam – are presented in this volume.

Defining Islamophobia

While the term ‘Islamophobia’ had appeared as early as the 1920s, it became extremely popular in the 1990s (Allen 2006: 68–71). According to Otterbeck and Bevelander (2006) the term appeared for the first time in 1918 in French. Until the 1990s, however, it was used in a very general way without a clear definition. The Runnymede Trust report on Islamophobia – published in 1997 in Great Britain – now stands as one of the first major contributions in this field, and one that has proven extremely influential on subsequent works (Runnymede Trust 1997). Allen (2010: 3) speaks of the ‘first decade of Islamophobia’ that began with the publication of this report. According to Allen (2004: 71), it has been the most often cited source on Islamophobia since its publication. In it, Islamophobia is defined as the fear of or aversion to Islam and Muslims. It also differentiates between a narrow and open view on Islam. The former view, it holds, considers Islam either to be monolithic and static, or to be aggressive and ideological. The latter view, by contrast, recognizes that Islam – as much as Christianity – is dynamic and consists of various aspects and ideologies. Accordingly, attitudes toward ‘Islam’ and ‘Muslims’ can be attuned to different aspects. This is one reason why research on Islamophobia has started to differentiate between attitudes toward different immigration groups from Muslim countries, and between general attitudes concerning groups of migrants and their cultural practices (see below).

As Bleich (2011) has noticed, many scholars deploy the term Islamophobia without explicitly defining it (MacMaster 2003; Kaplan 2006; Bunzl 2007; Poynting and Mason 2007; Cole 2009; Halliday 1999) or by using rather vague, narrow and generic definitions, such as ‘fear of Muslims and Islam’, ‘rejection of the Muslim religion’ or ‘a form of differentialist racism’ (Geisser 2003:10; Werbner 2005: 8; Gottschalk and Greenberg 2008: 5). The absence of a more thorough discussion on how to define and conceptualize Islamophobia is even more problematic in the light of the fact that it refers to very different social phenomena, as we have seen above.

Shyrock (2010: 4–8) even speaks of a ‘troubling term’. For some people it is not even clear whether it is rather ‘good’ or ‘bad’ to be Islamophobic. Islamophobia can stand for a justified criticism of Islamic fundamentalism, or just certain aspects of Islam. Bleich (2011) presents examples of writers and newspaper columnists who publicly declare that they are proud to be Islamophobic. For them, Islamophobia means distrust of Islam as a doctrine, rather than hostility toward Muslims. Thus, it is unclear whether Islamophobia stands for negative attitudes toward a group of people – and thus a concept comparable to those of prejudice and xenophobia – or reflects a critical and reflexive position toward Islam.

One could also argue that the term is completely useless and even dangerous as there is no new social phenomenon, and thus no need for a new term to describe one. Quite the opposite, in fact: the term ‘Islamophobia’ is sometimes politically loaded, serving only to stigmatize a certain group instead of describing a social reality. Thus, the term might create a social reality that had not existed before. Proponents of this view feel there is nothing particular about Muslim immigrants; hostilities against them can be described using existing terms, such as prejudice and xenophobia. More generally, it is unclear whether Islamophobic attitudes – if they exist at all – are turned toward Muslims as immigrants and an ethnic group, or Muslims as a religious group, or Islam in general, or specific aspects of Islam or Muslim cultural and religious practice, and so on.

As Gottschalk and Greenberg (2008: 3) also show, most peoples’ geographic reference frames are limited to the Middle East when they hear the words ‘Muslims’ or ‘Islam’. As a matter of fact, however, more Muslims live east of Afghanistan, in countries such as Indonesia, Pakistan and India. Thus, it is unclear whether Islamophobia is about Islam and Muslims in general, or about immigrants from Arabic countries.

In contrast to the many vague, narrow and generic definitions, some authors employ rather precise definitions. According to Stolz (2005: 548), for example, a good definition of Islamophobia should be attuned to already-existing definitions from research in the field of racism and xenophobia, in order to enable a comparison between Islamophobia and other outgroup phobias. Furthermore, the definition has to be encompassing enough to include all phenomena meant by the term – for example, not just attitudes toward Islam, but also toward Muslim groups. Finally, he maintains, the definition should be devoid of any theoretical explanations of the phenomenon, as these must be tested empirically. On the basis of these criteria, for Stolz, ‘Islamophobia is a rejection of Islam, Muslim groups and Muslim individuals on the basis of prejudice and stereotypes. It may have emotional, cognitive, evaluative as well as action-oriented elements (e.g. discrimination, violence)’ (2005: 548).

Despite these various controversies, I believe Islamophobia is a useful concept. By this, I do not suggest that it is an indispensable term or a widespread social phenomenon, however. We might very well come to the conclusion that other concepts – such as prejudice and xenophobia – already adequately describe what Islamophobia is intended to describe, or that Islamophobia – if it is clearly distinguishable from concepts such as prejudice and xenophobia – is ultimately a rather minor social phenomenon. All these questions remain open for research, and the aim of this volume is to consider them in greater detail.

I decided to use the term Islamophobia mainly because it has already taken root in public, political and academic discourses. Ignoring a widely used term would only cause confusion, after all. At a roundtable of the 2006 World Convention of the Association for the Study of Nationalities, Charles Tilly – in his comments on Brubaker’s book, Ethnicity without Groups (2004) – voiced serious doubts about Brubaker’s suggestions to completely abolish terms such as ‘identity’ and ‘nation.’ While Tilly agreed that the use of such terms might create a certain (false) reality – as they are often linked to certain understandings of how the social world works – he prefers to define these concepts more comprehensively. This comes close to Spillman’s (1995: 144) argument concerning the limits that may be reached in questioning profound categories such as gender: ‘[I]t is much more possible to challenge meanings and values associated with gender than to constitute for oneself a genderless identity.’ I do not claim that Islamophobia is as established a concept as nation or gender. I am convinced, however, that, instead of abolishing a widely used term, supplying a definition upfront – one that makes clear what we are measuring form the beginning – is much more fruitful.

As a guiding definition, I like to invoke Erik Bleich’s (2011) definition of Islamophobia. I call it a guiding definition as each chapter will use its own. It was not possible to use exactly the same definition for all the studies presented here, for a simple pragmatic reason. Although all of the chapters present original work, the various analyses are based on surveys that were designed a long time before this book project was started. In spite of the number of studies that used the same or very similar questions, we cannot be sure whether they measure the exact same concept. Since we have no means of undertaking the necessary validation tests, we make do with a guiding definition, allowing each chapter to adapt it to its own needs and purposes.

Bleich (2011) defines Islamophobia as ‘indiscriminate negative attitudes or emotions directed at Islam or Muslims’. This definition consists of four key elements: First, Islamophobia is about attitudes or emotions and can therefore clearly be distinguished from behavior. While Islamophobic behavior can likely be explained to a large extent by Islamophobic attitudes, various other factors – such as opportunity structures and social control mechanisms – are crucial for explaining why and when attitudes lead to a specific behavior (Dahl 1956; Ajzen and Fishbein 1980; Offe and Preuss 1991). It has also been shown that even positive attitudes can sometimes lead to discriminative behavior (Sniderman and Hagendoorn 2007; Van der Noll et al. 2010). These studies show that there is a relatively large minority of people with positive attitudes who are nonetheless unwilling to attribute the same rights and liberties to certain outgroups.

Under Bleich’s definition, these attitudes and emotions must be indiscriminately directed at Islam and Muslims. This is a second crucial element in the definitions of parallel concepts, such as homophobi...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title page
• Series page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Figures
• Tables
• List of Contributors
• 1 Islamophobia in the West An introduction
• Part 1 How to measure Islamophobia
• Part 2 The scope of Islamophobia Public debates, attitudes and reactions
• Part 3 How to explain Islamophobia
• Part 4 Are Muslims different from other outgroups? Ethnocentrism and terrorism
• References
• Index