Muslim Americans are increasingly integrated into American life, displaying high socioeconomic status, political participation, and adherence to American values. However, they are evaluated more ...negatively than many other racial, ethnic, and religious minorities and are frequent targets of discrimination. This article examines the mismatch between the integration of Muslims and their poor reception. Drawing on theories of cultural fluency and cognitive dissonance, we argue that cultural integration can exacerbate, rather than mitigate, perceived discrimination because integrated individuals are socialized to expect fair treatment and can recognize and decode even subtle forms of discrimination due to high levels of cultural and language fluency. Using three nationally representative surveys and an opt‐in, online study of American Muslims between 2007 and 2017, we find that integrated Muslims are consistently more likely than their counterparts to report individual‐ and group‐level societal and political discrimination. The paradox between adopting the host culture and feeling marginalized poses a challenge to the assumption that integration naturally leads to a sense of belonging among minorities, with important implications for liberal democracies.
The Politics of the Headscarf in the United States investigates the social and political effects of the practice of Muslim-American women wearing the headscarf (hijab) in a non-Muslim state. The ...authors find the act of head covering is not politically motivated in the U.S. setting, but rather it accentuates and engages Muslim identity in uniquely American ways.
Transcending contemporary political debates on the issue of Islamic head covering, The Politics of the Headscarf in the United States addresses concerns beyond the simple, particular phenomenon of wearing the headscarf itself, with the authors confronting broader issues of lasting import. These issues include the questions of safeguarding individual and collective identity in a diverse democracy, exploring the ways in which identities inform and shape political practices, and sourcing the meaning of citizenship and belonging in the United States through the voices of Muslim-American women themselves.
The Politics of the Headscarf in the United States superbly melds quantitative data with qualitative assessment, and the authors smoothly integrate the results of nearly two thousand survey responses from Muslim-American women across forty-nine states. Seventy-two in-depth interviews with Muslim women living in the United States bolster the arguments put forward by the authors to provide an incredibly well-rounded approach to this fascinating topic.
Ultimately, the authors argue, women's experiences with identity and boundary construction through their head-covering practices carry important political consequences that may well shed light on the future of the United States as a model of democratic pluralism.
Abstract Confronted by a number of home-grown Islamic terrorist attacks, many Americans incorrectly assume that Muslim religiosity correlates with anti-American values and that the American mosque is ...the center of radical socialization efforts. This paper examines the nature of the relationship between mosque involvement and political engagement. It finds that mosque attendance is positively associated with political engagement only when the attendance engages congregants in ways beyond religious ritual. Attending mosque to pray does not significantly impact political identities or engagement like following politics, registering to vote, voting, or party membership, while participation in other social or religious activities at a mosque is associated with an increased probability of engagement. These results suggest that not all mosque involvement is equally beneficial for promoting political engagement and that religious participation must proactively engage with the social lives of the congregants to have a substantive political effect.
Political gender quotas have become the institutional solution for most governments hoping to increase women's descriptive and substantive representation in national and local government, despite the ...lack of consensus over whether quotas have a consistent positive effect on the lives of women. We argue that the different forms in which quotas are implemented result in diverse effects in the substantive representation of women's issues. Using women's health to illustrate the substantive effect of women's political participation through quotas, we utilize multilevel models to find that quotas are effective at placing women into legislative office and that this descriptive representation is associated with positive conditions for women's health. However, the strength of the relationship depends on the type of quota implemented. Countries implementing candidate quotas exhibit more consistent but weaker relationships between representation and women's health outcomes than in countries with reserved seat quotas. These results affirm the quota's objective to place women in political office but suggest that the policy effectiveness of the individual female legislators may depend on the quota system in place.
“The Project” outlines the development of the Scottish brand of liberal civic nationalism and connects it to the politics of immigration within Scotland. It begins by defining the scholarly ideal ...types of civic and ethnic nationalism and describes how elites attempt to implement civic nationalism in Scotland with somewhat contradictory results. The second half of the chapter focuses on how immigration fits into notions of Scottish nationalism and discusses how openness to immigration is framed as a reflection of Scottish values and a solution to Scottish problems. It illuminates the way Scottish elites mobilise domestic audiences in support of both nationalism and immigration through collective memories of the Scottish diaspora and the Highland Clearances. The chapter provides the foundation of the central argument of the book, which links the politics of immigration in Scotland to the political ambitions of the nation.
“The Past” reviews Scotland’s historical experience of migration and describes the Scottish government’s efforts to build a multicultural and immigrant-receiving nation in the new millennium. It ...describes how emigration was a central feature of Scottish life until the 1990s, even as the country experienced large immigration flows, especially from Ireland. The chapter then reviews trends in modern immigration flows that have racially and culturally diversified Scotland. It describes the demographic profiles of immigrant populations in England and Scotland, which explains why immigration is less visible in Scotland. The second half of the chapter outlines the Scottish approach to immigration, with which the Scottish government pursues its interest in increased migration through specific policies that incrementally push devolution further by enhancing Scotland’s competencies within the UK-wide system of immigration.
“The Problem” explores whether increased immigration threatens social or community cohesion, which is defined as the ability of a community to foster a sense of belonging. The chapter describes ...models of immigrant integration and Scotland’s multicultural policy of acculturation, before discussing racism, its variants of Islamophobia and Anglophobia, and the threat they present to Scotland’s community cohesion and immigrant integration. Evidence from the UK and Scotland contradicts the view that diversity resulting from immigration has a corrosive influence on social cohesion, but only where discrimination is suppressed and social connections link members of diverse groups. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the Scottish Government’s anti-racism efforts.
“The Politics” reviews the immigration policy preferences of Scottish political parties and politicians in Westminster, the site of the Parliament in the UK, and Holyrood, the location of the ...Scottish Parliament. The chapter opens with a brief summary of partisan approaches to immigration before examining the way Scottish Members of Parliament in Westminster (nearly all of them members of the Scottish National Party) discuss immigration in party manifestos, debates, and maiden speeches. It then reviews the more diverse representation of Scottish interests in Holyrood and the discussion of immigration in Scottish party manifestos. Partisan stances are much clearer and more oppositional in Westminster, where the issue is politicised. In Holyrood, Scottish parties depart from the positions of their parent parties to achieve partisan consensus about the desirability of immigration. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the strategic and ideological reasons for persistent political consensus about immigration across Scottish politicians from many different political parties.
