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Perceptions of Plurality: The Impact of the Refugee Crisis on the Interpretation of Religious Pluralization in Europe

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Religion in the European Refugee Crisis

Part of the book series: Religion and Global Migrations ((RGM))

Abstract

Combining theoretical and empirical approaches, this chapter examines the impact of the current so-called refugee crisis on the perception of plurality in Europe. Using socio-psychological and sociological theories, Gert Pickel analyzes the connections between religious plurality, religious identity, and political identity. He presents comparative empirical results that demonstrate both obstacles and opportunities for these theories with regard to a variety of European countries. Results from recent surveys are analyzed in order to offer (some) answers to the questions of how European citizens view refugees, religion, and religious pluralization; what challenges result from these views for the Christian churches; and what conclusions are to be drawn for the relation between politics and religion in Europe today.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    See Steve Bruce, God Is Dead: Secularization in the West (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002); Pippa Norris and Ronald Inglehart, Sacred and Secular: Religion and Politics Worldwide (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004); Gert Pickel, “Secularization as a European Fate? Results from the Church and Religion in an Enlarged Europe Project,” in Church and Religion in Contemporary Europe: Results from Empirical and Comparative Research, eds. Gert Pickel and Olaf Müller (Wiesbaden: Springer VS, 2009), 89–122; Gert Pickel, “Religiosität in Deutschland und Europa—Religiöse Pluralisierung und Säkularisierung auf soziokulturell unterschiedlichen Pfaden,” Zeitschrift für Religion, Gesellschaft und Politik 1 (2017), 37–74; The Social Significance of Religion in the Enlarged Europe: Secularization, Individualization and Pluralization, eds. Detlef Pollack, Olaf Müller, and Gert Pickel (Farnham: Ashgate, 2012); and Detlef Pollack and Gergely Rosta, Religion in der Moderne: Ein internationaler Vergleich (Frankfurt: Campus, 2015).

  2. 2.

    See Matthias Koenig, “Incorporating Muslim Migrants in Western Nation States: A Comparison of the United Kingdom, France and Germany,” Journal of International Migration and Integration 6/2 (2005), 219–234.

  3. 3.

    See Martin Dolezal, Marc Helbling, and Swen Hutter, “Debates over Islam in Austria, Germany and Switzerland: Between Ethnic Citizenship, State-Church Relations and Right-Wing Populism,” West European Politics 33/2 (2010), 171–190; Islamophobia in the West: Measuring and Explaining Individual Attitudes, ed. Marc Helbling (London: Routledge, 2012); Gert Pickel, “Religiöse Pluralisierung als Bedrohungsszenario? Stereotypen, Ängste und die Wirkung von Kontakten auf die Integration von Menschen anderer Religion,” in Religionen. Dialog. Gesellschaft: Analysen zur gegenwärtigen Situation und Impulse für eine dialogische Theologie, eds. Katajun Amirpur and Wolfram Weiße (Münster: Waxmann, 2015), 19–56; and Zan Strabac and Ola Listhaug, “Anti-Muslim Prejudice in Europe: A Multilevel Analysis of Survey Data from 30 Countries,” Social Science Research 37 (2007), 268–286.

  4. 4.

    See Jonathan Fox, Religion, Civilization, and Civil War: 1945 Trough the New Millennium (Lanham: Lexington, 2004); Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996).

  5. 5.

    See Gert Pickel, Religionsmonitor 2013: Religiosity in International Comparison (Gütersloh: Bertelsmann, 2013).

  6. 6.

    See Christian Welzel, Freedom Rising. Human Empowerment and the Quest for Emancipation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013).

  7. 7.

    See Richard Wike, Bruce Stokes, and Katie Simmons, “Europeans Fear Wave of Refugees Will Mean More Terrorism, Fewer Jobs: Sharp Ideological Divides Across EU on Views About Minorities, Diversity and National Identity,” PEW Research Center, available at http://www.pewglobal.org/2016/07/11/Europeans-fear-wave-of-refugees-will-mean-more-terrorism-fewer-jobs (accessed 04/2017).

  8. 8.

    It is necessary to point briefly to the limitations of the data available for comparison. Using a variety of statistical sources to illustrate the phenomenon is limited by the selective choice of the countries in different data sets.

  9. 9.

    See Ruud Koopmans, Bram Lancee, and Merlin Schaeffer, Social Cohesion and Immigration in Europe and North America (London: Routledge, 2016).

  10. 10.

    Although the refugee crisis is often dealt with under the umbrella concept of migration, the problem actually lies in the integration of migrants. Of course, this should not devalue the debate on the circumstances of migration, but, for the controversies within host countries, this debate is not particularly contentious.

  11. 11.

    See Richard Alba and Nancy Foner, Strangers no More: Immigration and the Challenges of Integration in North America and Western Europe (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2015); Paul Sniderman and Louk Hagendoorn, When Ways of Life Collide (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007).

  12. 12.

    See Henri Tajfel, Social Identity and Intergroup Relations (Cambridge: University Press, 1982).

  13. 13.

    See Henri Tajfel and John C. Turner, “The Social Identity Theory of Intergroup Behavior,” in The Social Psychology of Intergroup Relations, eds. Stephan Worchel and William Austin (Chicago: Nelson-Hall, 1986), 7–24.

  14. 14.

    See Walter G. Stephan and C. Lausanne Renfro, “The Role of Threat in Intergroup Relations,” in From Prejudice to Intergroup Emotions: Differentiated Reactions to Social Groups, eds. Diane M. Mackie and Elliot R. Smith (New York: Psychology Press, 2002), 191–207; and, from a different angle, Eva Jonas and Immo Fritsche, “Destined to Die but Not to Wage War. How Existential Threat Can Contribute to Escalation or De-Escalation of Violent Intergroup Conflict,” American Psychologist 68 (2013), 543–558.

  15. 15.

    See Sarah Carol and Ruud Koopmans, “Dynamics of Contestation over Islamic Religious Rights in Western Europe,” Ethnicities 13/2 (2013), 165–190; Joel Fetzner and Christopher C. Soper, Muslims and the State in Britain, France, and Germany (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005).

  16. 16.

    Karina Velasco Gonzalez, Maykel Verkuyten, Jeroen Weesi, and Edwin Poppe, “Prejudice Toward Muslims in the Netherlands: Testing Integrated Threat Theory,” British Journal of Social Psychology 47 (2008), 667–685.

  17. 17.

    See Frank Asbrock, Oliver Christ, John Duckitt, and Chris G. Sibley, “Differential Effects of Intergroup Contact for Authoritarians and Social Dominators: A Dual Process Model Perspective,” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 38/4 (2012), 477–490.

  18. 18.

    See Herbert G. Blumer, “Race Prejudice as a Sense of Group Position,” Pacific Sociological Review 1/1 (1958), 3–7; Hubert M. Blalock, Toward a Theory of Minority Group Relations (New York: John Wiley, 1967).

  19. 19.

    See Lincoln Quillian, “Prejudice as a Response to Perceived Group Threat: Population Composition and Anti-Immigrant and Racial Prejudice in Europe,” American Sociological Review 60 (1995), 586–611.

  20. 20.

    See Thomas F. Pettigrew, “In Pursuit of Three Theories: Authoritarianism, Relative Deprivation, and Intergroup Contact,” Annual Review of Psychology 67 (2016), 1–21.

  21. 21.

    See Markus Freitag and Caroline Rapp, “Intolerance Towards Immigrants in Switzerland: Diminished Threat Through Social Contacts,” Swiss Political Science Review 19/4 (2013), 425–446; Bruce Hunsberger and Lynne Jackson, “Religion, Meaning, and Prejudice,” Journal of Social Issues 61 (2005), 807–826; Lynne Jackson and Bruce Hunsberger, “An Intergroup Perspective on Religion and Prejudice,” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 38/4 (1999), 509–523; Koopmans, Lancee, and Schaeffer, Social Cohesion and Immigration in Europe and North America; Nasar Meer and Tariq Modood, “Refutations of Racism in the ‘Muslim Question’,” Patterns of Prejudice 43/3–4 (2009), 335–354; and also Marta Nussbaum, The New Religious Intolerance: Overcoming the Politics of Fear in an Anxious Age (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012).

  22. 22.

    See Zan Strabac and Ola Listhaug, “Anti-Muslim Prejudice in Europe: A Multilevel Analysis of Survey Data from 30 Countries,” Social Science Research 37 (2007), 268–286.

  23. 23.

    See Gert Pickel, Muslime und Demokratie—Die Auswirkungen religiöser Pluralisierung auf die politische Kultur von Demokratien: Ergebnisse des Bertelsmann Religionsmonitor 2017 (forthcoming).

  24. 24.

    The term Islamophobia is contentious in its interpretation, since criticism of Islam can in fact be objectively justified. See Jörg Stolz, “Explaining Islamophobia. A Test of Four Theories Based on the Case of a Swiss City,” Schweizer Zeitschrift für Soziologie 31/3 (2006), 547–566; see also the contributions to Islamophobia in the West.

  25. 25.

    Erik Bleich, “What Is Islamophobia. And How Much Is There? Theorizing and Measuring an Emerging Comparative Concept,” American Behavioral Scientist 55 (2011), 1581. See also Chris Allen, Islamophobia (Farnham: Ashgate, 2010), 123–138; Fred Halliday, “Islamophobia Reconsidered,” Ethnic and Racial Studies 22 (1999), 892–902.

  26. 26.

    See Marco Cinnirella, “Think ‘Terrorist,’ Think ‘Muslim?’ Social-Psychological Mechanisms Explaining Anti-Islamic Prejudice,” in Islamophobia in the West, 179–189.

  27. 27.

    See Claire L. Adida, Davin Laitin, and Marie Ann Valfort, Why Muslim Integration Fails in Christian-Heritage Societies (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2016); and Fetzner and Soper, Muslim and the State in Britain, France, and Germany.

  28. 28.

    See, again, Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations.

  29. 29.

    Unlike Huntington, Fox, Religion, Civilization, and Civil War, does not assume that religions cause conflicts, but sees them as potential conflict enhancers. For Fox, conflicts arise mostly for ethnic reasons, but then often come into contact with religious differences between population groups. Here, religious affiliations are used politically by elites as features of the differentiation between groups that are opposed to each other, so as to cause or confirm a desired conflict . However, this “instrumentalization” of religion only succeeds if religious differences have the potential to mobilize populations.

  30. 30.

    See Mikael Hjerm, “National Identities, National Pride and Xenophobia: A Comparison of Four Western Countries,” Acta Sociologica 41 (1998), 336–347.

  31. 31.

    See also, for Germany, Petra-Angela Ahrens, Skepsis und Zuversicht. Wie blickt Deutschland auf Flüchtlinge? (Hannover: Sozialwissenschaftliches Institut der EKD, 2017).

  32. 32.

    Chart 2.2 focuses on 2004 and 2014 (at present, the last available point in time). If one considers the data points from 2002 to 2012, however, one can identify a stable development of the values in most countries.

  33. 33.

    See Werner Schiffauer, Parallelgesellschaften: Wieviel Wertekonsens braucht unsere Gesellschaft (Bielefeld: Transcript, 2008).

  34. 34.

    The concept of self-segregation is to be used with great caution since it introduces the idea of a self-exclusion, thus often “blaming” Muslims for the problems connected to their integration into European societies.

  35. 35.

    See Detlef Pollack, Olaf Müller, Gergely Rosta, Nils Friedrichs, and Alexander Yendell, Grenzen der Toleranz: Wahrnehmung und Akzeptanz religiöser Vielfalt in Europa (Wiesbaden: Springer VS, 2014).

  36. 36.

    See Gert Pickel and Alexander Yendell, “Islam als Bedrohung? Beschreibung und Erklärung von Einstellungen zum Islam im Ländervergleich,” Journal of Comparative Political Science 10 (2016), 273–309.

  37. 37.

    This also shows why the attitude toward religious pluralization is generally ambivalent: the negative assessment of Islam is combined with positive assessments of other religions.

  38. 38.

    See again Pickel, “Muslime und Demokratie.”

  39. 39.

    See Carol and Koopmans, “Dynamics of Contestation over Islamic Religious Rights in Western Europe,” 185.

  40. 40.

    See Ruud Koopmans, “Fundamentalismus und Fremdenfeindlichkeit. Muslime und Christen im europäischen Vergleich,” WZB Mitteilungen 142 (2013), 21–25.

  41. 41.

    See ibid., 22.

  42. 42.

    It should be noted that in the study “Muslims in Germany,” the percentage of Muslims with fundamentalist attitudes does not exceed 28. See Katrin Brettfeld and Peter Wetzels, Muslime in Deutschland. Integration, Integrationsbarrieren, Religion sowie Einstellungen zu Demokratie, Rechtsstaat und politisch motivierter Gewalt. Ergebnisse von Befragungen im Rahmen einer multizentrischen Studie in städtischen Lebensräumen (Hamburg: Bundesministerium des Inneren, 2007), 117–118.

  43. 43.

    See Pickel, “Muslime und Demokratie.”

  44. 44.

    This may also explain the high approval of Turkish Muslims in Germany for the referendum held on the changes to the Turkish Constitution in 2017. The centralization of power suggested by these changes might be viewed as conforming to democracy in the context of the social and economic recovery of Turkey.

  45. 45.

    See Donald Horton and Richard R. Wohl, “Mass Communication and Para-social Interaction: Observations on Intimacy at a Distance,” Psychiatry 19 (1956), 215–229.

  46. 46.

    This negative media reporting is due to the logic of media coverage and possibly unavoidable because of the obligation to report on conflicts. At the same time, however, the negative representation of Islam shapes the image that most European citizens have of this religion, especially when they have no direct contacts to Muslims. See Kai Hafez and Sabrina Schmidt, Die Wahrnehmung des Islam in Deutschland (Gütersloh: Bertelsmann, 2015).

  47. 47.

    See Cinnirella, “Think ‘Terrorist,’ Think ‘Muslim?’,” 189.

  48. 48.

    According to the contact hypothesis, developed by Grodon W. Allport, The Nature of Prejudice (New York: Perseus, 1979), personal contact with members of the out-group leads to the reduction of prejudices. The extent of this reducing effect depends on the type of relationship (collegial, acquaintanceship, friendship, kinship) and the quality of the contacts. See Gordon W. Allport and Michael J. Ross, “Personal Religious Orientation and Prejudice,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 5/4 (1967), 432–435; Thomas F. Pettigrew, “Intergroup Contact Theory,” Annual Review of Psychology 49 (1998), 65–85. A credible transmission of knowledge about the respective foreign group can also have prejudice-reducing effects. See Henk Dekker and Jolanda van der Noll, “Islamophobia and Its Explanation,” in Islamophobia in the West, 112–113. It is to be assumed that not only contacts contribute to reducing prejudices, but that persons with reduced prejudices also tend to seek more contacts with others. Thomas F. Pettigrew and Linda Tropp, “A Meta-Analytic Test of Intergroup Contact Theory,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 90 (2006), 751–783, have shown in a comprehensive analysis that contacts always have a prejudice-reducing effect.

  49. 49.

    Pace José Casanova, Public Religions in the Modern World (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994).

  50. 50.

    See Gert Pickel and Anja Gladkich, “Religious Social Capital in Europe. Connections between Religiosity and Civil Society,” in Transformations of Religiosity: Religion and Religiosity in Eastern Europe 1989–2010, eds. Gert Pickel and Kornelia Sammet (Wiesbaden: Springer VS, 2012), 69–94; Robert D. Putnam, Bowling Alone. The Collapse and Revival of American Community (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000); and Robert Wuthnow, America and the Challenges of Religious Diversity (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005).

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  1. Universität Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany

    Gert Pickel

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  1. Gert Pickel
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  1. Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Munich, Germany

    Ulrich Schmiedel

  2. University of Chichester, Chichester, United Kingdom

    Graeme Smith

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Pickel, G. (2018). Perceptions of Plurality: The Impact of the Refugee Crisis on the Interpretation of Religious Pluralization in Europe. In: Schmiedel, U., Smith, G. (eds) Religion in the European Refugee Crisis. Religion and Global Migrations. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-67961-7_2

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