Government Religious Discrimination, Support of Religion, and Muslim Minority-Related Societal Violence in Western Democracies

2024/05/20 by Osman Suntay · 1 voice · 1 citation
Social Sciences · #Religion and Society Interactions #Terrorism, Counterterrorism, and Political Violence #Religion, Society, and Development

paper · pdf · doi:10.1177/00104140241252077

openalex publication_date 2024/05/20 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/22

Abstract

Does government-based religious discrimination against religious minorities and government support of majority religion affect religiously motivated societal violence between minorities and majority religious groups in Western democracies? Analyzing Muslim minorities, this study tries to answer the question by looking specifically at the religious violence perpetrated by and against these minorities in the West. Using a novel cross-national time-series data on 25 Western countries disaggregated by victim and perpetrator groups, this paper finds that while discrimination contributes to a country encountering religiously driven societal violence perpetrated by both Muslim and majority religious groups, government support for majority religion seems to pose no security threat. Furthermore, a case study analysis of the UK employing the synthetic control method corroborates the results of the cross-country analysis. The findings have important policy implications for counter-strategies against both Islamic and right-wing violent extremism in the West.

Citations

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Cited by

• How education shapes divergent identity responses to discrimination: Experimental and observational evidence from Muslim immigrants in Germany

Discussions

• In the first chapter (doi.org/10.1177/0010...), I examined how government policies regarding minority religions affect conflict between majority and minority groups in the West. In the second, I look [bsky, 1 points, 1 comments]

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