Support for democracy and liberal sexual mores among Muslims in Western Europe

Abstract

There is an on-going debate whether a 'clash of civilizations' exists between Islam and the West, in particular in relation to support for democracy and endorsement of liberal sexual mores. This study aims to explain Muslim minorities' support for democracy and their attitude towards these mores by making a comparison with majority members and by considering the level of religiosity and sense of national belonging. Using data from four European countries (Belgium, Germany, U.K., Switzerland), we found that Muslims compared to majority members were less supportive of democracy and of liberal sexual mores. Furthermore, these differences could be explained by Muslims' higher level of religiosity and weaker national belonging (for liberal sexual mores). These findings demonstrate that the so-called 'clash' is more prominent in the case of liberal sexual mores than democracy and that not only religiosity but also the development of a sense of national belonging is important.

What Shapes Attitudes Toward Homosexuality among European Muslims? The Role of Religiosity and Destination Hostility

“…To conduct such studies, specific immigrant surveys, preferably longitudinal surveys, will be required, rather than general population samples. Immigrant surveys typically do not include as many destination and origin countries as the data used here, but they do allow for more in-depth analysis as they generally include more specific items on religiosity, experiences of discrimination, and integration in migrant communities, as well as other potential drivers of anchoring and retention (Carol and Milewski 2017; Eskelinen and Verkuyten 2020).…”

“…The ESS includes information on attitudes toward sexuality, religiosity, perceived discrimination, and the origin country of first- and second-generation migrants. Moreover, it covers more origin and destination countries and years destination contexts (country-years) than other cross-national datasets, such as the EURIslam data, which focuses on Muslims but covers only six countries in one round (see Carol and Milewski 2017; Eskelinen and Verkuyten 2020). Given our theoretical focus, we selected respondents who lived in Western Europe, who identified as Muslim, and who were born abroad or had parents born abroad.…”

To Be Both (and More): Immigration and Identity Multiplicity

“…When it comes to loyalties, values and worldviews, a sense of compatibility between multiple group identifications is often much more difficult to achieve. For example, to the extent that immigrants adhere to morally traditional and patriarchal beliefs, these beliefs will be less compatible with a sense of belonging to countries in Western societies that emphasize liberal values including gender equality and sexual minority rights (Eskelinen & Verkuyten, ; Maliepaard & Verkuyten, ). Similarly, identity incompatibility is more likely if the behavioral implications of the two group identities are contradictory (Hirsh & Kang, ), which could be the case, for example, for immigrant Muslim youth at an age when alcohol use becomes common among their peers, and youngsters have to make a choice between following the behavioral norms of their religious or conational ingroup.…”

Researching religion and migration 20 years after ‘9/11’: Taking stock and looking ahead

“…In contrast, the relation with religiosity is consistently negative with regard to specific social attitudes that demarcate the boundary between conservative and progressive factions of the population. Thus, more religious (Muslim) immigrants hold more conservative values regarding issues of sexual liberalism, such as the acceptance of premarital sexual relations, homosexuality and abortion (Becher and El-Menouar 2014 ; Beek and Fleischmann 2019 ; Eskelinen and Verkuyten 2018 ; Kogan and Weißmann 2019 ). Regarding gender equality, findings are more mixed and include negative (Becher and El-Menouar 2014 ; Diehl et al.…”