To speak out or not to speak out? Exploring the reporting of discrimination among Muslims and Jews in Switzerland

Abstract

ABSTRACT Muslims and Jews are among the minorities in Switzerland who are most disliked and discriminated against, but the frequency with which the two groups report racist incidents to official bodies and initiate court proceedings differs greatly. The goal of this paper is to establish the extent of these differences and to explore the reasons for them. We use data from a representative survey, official datasets of reported cases of discrimination and legal proceedings, as well as 27 semi-structured interviews with representatives from Muslim and Jewish organisations, and from government centres that record incidents. We show that Muslims and Jews perceive discrimination at similar levels, but that the latter report discrimination and initiate court proceedings much more frequently than Muslims. We find that these differences can be explained by a divergence between the two groups in terms of perceived costs, in-group norms, structural factors, and organisational opportunities. In comparison to Jews, Muslims typically (1) are less confident that reporting discrimination will have a positive outcome; (2) are more concerned about being seen as ‘victims’; (3) are less well-informed about the possibilities available to them to report discrimination; and (4) come from communities that have lower organisational capacities in this regard.