Immigrant Integration and Religious Pluralization as Issues in Party Competition in the Western World

Abstract

In recent years the impact of immigration processes has become a contested issue in party competition in Western democracies. This can be particularly traced back to increasing reli-gious pluralization or, more concretely, to the establishment of Muslim communities and the enhanced visibility of their religion in societies which have portrayed themselves as Christian and/or secular. The new debates are not only about the integration of these ‘immigrated’ reli-gions and their affiliates. Instead, the visible presence particularly of the ‘new’ religion of Islam has also caused a party-political discourse on the more fundamental issue of national cultural identities. In this discourse, mainstream parties of different party families have been prompted to (re)position themselves. Furthermore, newly established right-wing populist parties have increasingly referred to “Christian” and/or “secular values” in order to construct national iden-tities and exclude Islam by definition from this collective. This panel focuses on party competition on immigrant integration and religious pluralization in the Western world. The aim is to get a better understanding of cleavages across party systems regarding these issues. In this context, subjects of interest are especially integration issues con-cerning Muslims and Islam as well as the significance of religion and/or secularity as national identity markers. Furthermore, papers are welcome that apply an institutionalist perspective looking on the impact of national context factors such as church state regimes, party systems or traditions of immigrant integration.

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