Muslims and Arabs in Western Politics

The “Muslims and Arabs in Western Politics” conference, held at Indiana
University, Bloomington, on September 22-24, 2005 and organized by
Abdulkader Sinno (assistant professor, political science and Middle Eastern
studies, Indiana University), was highly enriching and intellectually stimulat-
ing. The two public lectures and five panels, ranging from civil rights and lib-
erties to public perceptions of Muslims, shed light on various aspects of the
complexities of this field and acquainted the participants with cutting-edge
research by leading scholars from North America and Western Europe. 

James Zogby and David Cole delivered the two public lectures on “The
Emergent Arab-American Political Constituency” and “Paradigms of
Prevention: The Rule of Law and the War on Terror,” respectively. Zogby

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covered the development of the Arab-American community’s political
mobilization and inclusion in mainstream American politics throughout the
twentieth century. He narrated his personal experience as a Lebanese immi-
grant who had experienced the “hard times” of discrimination and exclusion.
In addition, he reported on the significant increase in the political mobiliza-
tion of Muslim minorities in the United States over the last few decades,
combined with a growing interest from politicians. His speech ended on a
positive note: He is convinced that the community’s trajectory will continue
to move forward. On the other hand, David Cole’s talk focused on the state
of constitutional law after 9/11. He argued that substantial negative inroads
have been made to the five pillars of the rule of law, namely, equality before
the law, transparency of procedures, fairness of procedures, checks and bal-
ances, and commitment to basic human rights. 

In the first panel, “A Comparative Overview of Political Development
of Muslim Minorities in the West,” Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad presented her
paper “Muslims in the American Political Maelstrom: 1776-2005.” Jorgen
Nielsen discussed “Religion, Muslims, and the State in Britain and France:
From Westphalia to 9/11” and called into question traditional typologies that
pose Britain as an integrationist model and France as an assimilationist
model. 

In the second panel, “Participation, Cooption, or Marginalization?
Muslims and the Different Institutions of the E.U. and the U.S.,” Abdulkader
Sinno posed an intriguing question: “Is There a Glass Ceiling for Muslims in
American Politics?” He posited possible explanations for the absence of any
nationally elected Muslim officials. Data on the number of elected Muslim
members of selected western parliaments suggest that the electoral system,
whether the country has a first-past-the-post or a proportional representation
system, along with the size of districts and pressure from certain Christian
and Jewish groups, seems to impact the number of elected Muslims. On the
other hand, Christopher Soper examined why the state’s accommodation of
Muslim religious practices differed in three West European countries.
Overlapping extensively with his recent co-authored book, Explaining the
Accommodation of Muslim Religious Practices in France, Britain, and
Germany, Soper presented the important addition of four possible scenarios
of how this relationship might look in the future. 

Panel 3 focused on a highly debated issue, particularly after 9/11: “Are
There Tradeoffs between Security and Civil Rights and Could Both Be
Enhanced Simultaneously?” David Cole spoke on “Balancing Liberty and
Security for All,” and was followed by Kent Roach, who, in his paper

Conference, Symposium, and Panel Reports 151



“Canadian National Security Policy and Canadian Muslim Communities,”
analyzed Canada’s national security and immigration policies post-9/11,
especially their effects on Canada’s Muslim minorities. Lastly, Anja
Dalgaard-Nielsen analyzed “Security and Civil Liberties in the European
Union.”

Panel 4 was on “Comparative Attitudes towards Political Mobilization
and Participation among Western Muslim Minorities.” Zahid Bukhari talked
on “Ethnicity and Muslim Political Experience in the United States,” and
Jocelyne Cesari presented a comparative paper titled “Public Discourse on
Islam: A Transatlantic Comparison.” The last paper of this panel, “The
Racialization of Arab and Muslim Americans: 9-11 and Civil Liberties,”
belonged to Amaney Jamal, who examined why there is extensive support
for policies that target and discriminate against Arab and Muslim
Americans. She argued that the most durable explanation for the sustained
support for infringing upon civil rights and liberties is the racialization of
Arabs as the “enemy other,” along with such domestic policies and geopo-
litical realities as wars taking place in these populations’ native lands. 

The conference’s final panel, “Public Perceptions of Muslim Minorities
in the West,” began with Erik Nisbet’s “Shaping the Islamic Threat: The
Influence of Ideology, Religiosity, and Media Use on U.S. Public Opinion
toward Islam and Muslim Americans” (co-authored with James Shanahan
and Ronald Ostman) and was followed by Paul Sniderman’s “Multi-cultur-
alism, Muslims, and Identity Politics.” Nispet presented the findings of a
November 2004 national survey that measured the impact of Christian reli-
giosity, the mass media’s use of the public’s perception of Muslims and
Islam as well as support for the restrictive policies directed at Muslims. He
reported that Christian religiosity, conservative ideology, Republican party
affiliation, and exposure to television all impact the public’s perceptions of
Muslims. 

Overall, this timely conference provided an opportunity for participants
to exchange cutting-edge research on various topics concerning Muslims in
the West. I believe that the presentations revealed the need to conduct exten-
sive cross-national studies on the experiences of Muslim minorities in
Europe and North America. Even though a few such studies have been con-
ducted, they are rather small in scale and limited to only two or three coun-
tries. Rigorous research and findings are still waiting to be undertaken. 

Eren Tatari
Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Political Science 

Indiana University, Bloomington, IN

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