What factors explain anti-Muslim prejudice? An assessment of the effects of Muslim population size, institutional characteristics and immigration-related media claims

Abstract

ABSTRACTWhat factors explain majority members’ anti-Muslim prejudice? This is an increasingly important question to ask, but to date only relatively few studies have sought to provide answers from a cross-national comparative perspective. This study aims to help fill this gap. Using data from the seventh round of the European Social Survey (ESS) linked with country-level characteristics, our results indicate that (a) a larger Muslim population size, (b) more liberal immigrant integration policies and (c) greater state support of religion are all associated with lower levels of majority members’ negative attitudes towards Muslim immigration – our indicator of anti-Muslim prejudice. Such attitudes, however, prove to be unrelated to (d) cross-national differences in the frequency of negative immigration-related news reports as measured by the ESS media claims data. Collectively, these findings bring us one important step closer towards a better understanding of interethnic relations between majority members and Muslim immigrants in European host societies.