Abstract
The incorporation of Muslim populations in West Europe, largely but not exclusively due to immigration, has resulted in a variety of changes. This chapter proposes a framework to think about the dynamics and politics of “host society” institutional changes in response to Islamic presence. Institutional changes include the creation of novel institutions and Islamic varieties of existing structures (such as Islamic religious schools or Muslim sections in graveyards), amendments of legal and constitutional arrangements, or changes in administrative practices. Of course, many institutional changes, for example in education, state-religion relations or health-care, are also, and often more strongly, caused and shaped by other factors, including demographic changes that are not primarily related to immigration (such as changes in the composition of the population in terms of age), social and cultural changes (individualization, greater social and physical mobility, secularization), technological changes, or “Europeanization” of policy domains. Still, the incorporation of Muslim populations did play a role, and it is on that role that I focus here.
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Notes
- 1.
- 2.
This position in defended, among others, by Paul Cliteur (2010).
- 3.
This position is defended, among others, by the antropologists Talal Asad and Saba Mahmood, see Jansen (2011) for a discussion.
- 4.
- 5.
- 6.
See Koopmans et al. (2012) for an attempt to develop a methodologically sound operationalization of institutional and policy changes in the domain of citizenship rights for immigrants.
- 7.
Normative pressures play an important role with regard to governance of cultural pluralism because institutional arrangements also aim to realize fundamental principles and ideas about the ways societies ought to handle religious pluralism. Normative ideas may affect institutional set-ups via different mechanisms: constitutional-legal (for example when by signing an international covenant countries oblige themselves to adjust their institutions in a particular domain), or political (for example when groups mobilize and manage to enforce institutional changes).
- 8.
See Duyvendak et al. (2013) for a critique that particular rights, such as the right to wear headscarves, should be considered as illustrative of granting cultural and religious “group rights” and hence of “multicultural policies”. See Shorten (2013) for an insightfull discussion of the relations between individual rights, groups rights and institutional exemptions.
- 9.
See Joppke (2013) for a discussion on the legitimacy of an explicit reference to Christian identity in the context of European states.
- 10.
Carol and Koopmans (2013, p. 167) have recently introduced a typology to distinguish between claims for religious rights that have more or less potential for conflict with the institutions and the dominant culture of the host society, and which may hence trigger intense contestation. They argue that claims will be more “obtrusive” if they demand religious rights in public institutions, and/or are related to non-mainstream Islamic practices, and/or when they refer to recognition of practices that have no uncontested equivalent in Christianity.
- 11.
See Maussen (2009). The latest directive dates of July 29 2011 and is entitled “Edifices du culte: propriété, construction, réparation et entretien, règles d’urbanisme, fiscalité” (NOR/IOC/D/11/21246C. Available via: http://www.legirel.cnrs.fr/IMG/pdf/110729.pdf. Retrieved January 15, 2014.
- 12.
See “L’ultimatum de Valls pour relancer la Fondation des œuvres de l’islam” Saphir News. January 13, 2013.
- 13.
In April 2011 the French Secretary of State on Housing, Benoist Apparu, seemed to re-open a debate on direct financing which, so he suggested, was a possibility to avoid the problem of “foreign financing” and of people worshipping “on the street”. No follow up was given to this idea. See “Il faut un pacte nouveau avec les religions” in Le Monde, April 2, 2011.
- 14.
See “Les lieux de culte musulmans ont doublé en vingt ans” in Le Figaro, August 31, 2011.
- 15.
The General Regulation for the Subvention of Prayer Houses (1976–1981), prolonged until 1983.
- 16.
For Spain regional differences play a greater role than for France and the Netherlands, due to the existence of “autonomous regions” and because governance of Islam is increasingly decentralized (Astor, this volume).
- 17.
Actually already between 1991–1993 the additional state money was supposed to be a loan, but given the fact that the debt of the Church grew dramatically in this period it was decided to make these into gifts (Garcinartín Montero 2006, p. 184).
- 18.
I am grateful to Maria del Mar Griera for enlightening me on this topic.
- 19.
In order not to create too many disadvantages for groups that have not concluded such a formal agreement the opportunity of claiming a status of being “deeply rooted” (notorio arraigo) in Spanish society also exists.
- 20.
Paradoxically in this period some large scale mosque projects, financed with foreign funds, were realized, notably in Madrid and Valencia, which were still framed as belonging to Spain’s natural openess to Islamic culture (Astor 2014, p. 8).
- 21.
This budget has been substantially reduced since 2011 due to the economic crisis.
- 22.
I use “hate speech legislation” as a short hand to refer to legislation that criminalizes incitement to violence, discrimination, “communal libel”, “group insult”, and so on (Maussen and Grillo 2014).
- 23.
I focus on Britain here, meaning laws that are binding on England and Wales, but not always on Scotland and Northern Ireland.
- 24.
As (Goodall 2007, p. 92) observes these special arrangements exist alongside some other, more general, legal provisions such as “religiously aggravated” offence under Sect. 5 of the Public Order Act or the common law criminalizing any incitement of another to commit a criminal act. However, amendations have also been made to these laws, for example the Crime and Disorder Act of 1998 had only included “racially aggravated” in its formulation, but the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act of 2001 also covered “religiously aggravated” offences (Grillo 2007, pp. 119–120).
- 25.
See the so-called “Mandla case” of 1982, which was about a Sikh boy who was refused entry to a school in Birmingham because he was wearing a turban. In this context the application of the concept “ethnic groups” to Sikhs in the context of racial discrimination legislation came up. I am grateful to Ralph Grillo for bringing this to my attention.
- 26.
The plan for a new law was initially proposed to be included as a part of the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Bill in 2001.
- 27.
Importantly, in its original formulation of 1965 this Act preceded the ratification by the UK of the ICERD. Whereas many other countries, such as France or the Netherlands, changed their hate speech legislation in the 1970s to cover incitement to hatred for membership of national, ethic, racial or religious groups, in the British context the focus remained on “race” and the phrasing it used was to define “racial grounds” as meaning “any of the following grounds, namely colour, race, nationality or ethnic or national origins”.
- 28.
The immediate context for this event was the conviction of a British school teacher in Sudan for naming a clasroom Teddy Bear “Mohammed” (Tomes 2010, p. 247).
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Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the participants in the seminar Political Theory at the University of Amsterdam and to Luara Ferracioli, Marian Burchardt and Ralph Grillo for comments on an earlier version of this paper. Special thanks to Veit Bader and Ines Michalowski for their suggestions and encouragements.
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Maussen, M. (2015). Institutional Change and the Incorporation of Muslim Populations: Religious Freedoms, Equality and Cultural Diversity. In: Burchardt, M., Michalowski, I. (eds) After Integration. Islam und Politik. Springer VS, Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-02594-6_5
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