Public Opinion Backlash to Liberal Policy: The Case of Muslim Political Rights in the UK

Abstract

Focusing on one specific aspect of immigrant political integration - how authorities deal with their political right to demonstrate - we show in a large-scale survey experiment that liberal policy decisions per-mitting demonstrations lead to a polarization in attitudes: Citizens who agree with a permission become more sympathetic, while those in favor of banning become more critical of immigrants. This notion of opinion backlash to policy decisions adds a new perspective to the literature on immigration attitudes which has either assumed a congruence between public opinion and policy or ignored political sources of anti-immigrant sentiment altogether. By exploring the unintended consequences of policy decisions, we provide an alternative view and demonstrate the inherent dilemma of balancing citizen opinion and minority rights.