In Western Europe, Islamophobia is closely tied to Radical Right resentment but is unrelated to religiosity

Over the last couple of years, the Radical Right has emerged as the most dynamic party family in Western Europe. Within 18 months, Marine Le Pen (National Rally) secured more than 40% of the vote in the run-off for the French Presidency, Giorgia Meloni (Brothers of Italy) was sworn in as Prime Minister of Italy, and Geert Wilders' PVV became the strongest party in the Dutch parliament. The link between support for these parties on the one hand, and authoritarianism, populism, general nativism, and more specifically Islamophobia on the other is well-documented. What is less clear, however, is why exactly Muslims and Islamophobia play such an important role for the Radical Right vote. In North America, there is a long tradition of research going back all the way to Allport that demonstrates a link between certain types of religiosity and ethnic prejudice, and more recently, interest in so-called Christian Nationalism as an important source of support for the Radical Right has grown. Western European societies, however, are much more secular than the US, and supporters of the radical right are often amongst the most secular voters. Moreover, in many countries, the churches actively support refugees (many of them Muslims), promote good interfaith relations, and speak out against hate and intolerance. This suggests that modern-day Islamophobia in Western Europe is not grounded in religiosity. In our paper, we use a rich comparative dataset to test this hypothesis in four countries where rightist resentment has a significant impact on politics: France, Germany, Great Britain, and the Netherlands. More specifically, we use Confirmatory Factor Analysis to model the interrelationships between right-wing attitudes and religiosity. Our results show that the latter is unrelated or even negatively related to all facets of rightist sentiment, including Islamophobia. Conversely, Islamophobia is so closely related to nativism, authoritarianism, and populism that it should be considered an essential part of this cluster of attitudes. Taken together, this suggests that for the Radical Right and their supporters, Christianity and Europe's Christian heritage have become markers of identity devoid of any religious content.