Abstract

Political participation is an important aspect of the integration of Muslim citizens into western societies. However, Muslims’ formal political participation is often met with resistance from the majority population. In two studies, we investigated among national samples of majority Dutch whether the level of resistance to the democratic political organizations of Muslim citizens is associated with political orientation and level of education. Furthermore, we examined whether these associations are mediated by the endorsement of multiculturalism. Findings from both studies show that the higher educated and politically left-wing individuals are more supportive of Muslim political organisation and that this association is (partly) explained by the endorsement of multiculturalism. Additionally, in Study 2 it is found that attitudes toward cultural tradition and group equality mediate the relations between education and political orientation with multiculturalism.

Highlights

  • Political participation is an important aspect of the integration of Muslim citizens into western societies

  • A set of Wald’s tests showed that the estimated mean of endorsement of multiculturalism did not significantly differ from the neutral mid-point of the scale (Wald χ2(1) = 0.885, p = .347), while it was below the mid-point on support for Muslim political organisation (Wald χ2(1)

  • This latter finding indicates that on average respondents were rather negative towards the democratic political organization of Muslim citizens

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Summary

Introduction

Political participation is an important aspect of the integration of Muslim citizens into western societies. Similar to for example Spain, Belgium and Denmark, there are and have been several political parties in the Netherlands that participate in politics by explicitly presenting themselves as Islamic, or that claim to draw inspiration from Islam. Some of these political parties have secured seats in municipality councils in the last Dutch local elections (2018; e.g., “NIDA” in Rotterdam, and “Islam Democrats” in The Hague) and in the national parliament in the national election of March 2017 (“DENK”)

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