"Discrimination against Muslim Americans has soared over the last two decades with hostility growing especially acute since 2016 - in no small part due to targeted attacks by policymakers and the media. Outsiders at Home offers the first systematic, empirically driven examination of the status of Muslim Americans in U.S. democracy, evaluating the topic from a variety of perspectives. To what extent do Muslim Americans face discrimination by legislators, the media, and the general public? What trends do we see over time, and how have conditions shifted? What, if anything, can be done to reverse course? How do Muslim Americans view their position, and what are the psychic and sociopolitical tolls? Answering each of these questions, Nazita Lajevardi shows that the rampant, mostly negative discussion of Muslims in the media and national discourse has yielded devastating political and social consequences"--
In my dissertation, I focus on one question: to what extent do Muslim Americans face discrimination by legislators, the media, and masses? As such, it provides the first comprehensive analysis of Muslim American political discrimination. This question is important because while anecdotal signs of increasing Islamophobia in each of these domains are pervasive, they are unsupported by quantitative evidence. In contrast, my dissertation uses quantitative methods, including survey experiments, field experiments, and text analysis of media transcripts, to sys- tematically develop a nuanced theory of America's racial hierarchy that (a) takes into a account a new group (Muslim Americans) and (b) demonstrates that racial groups exhibit malleable status relative to other groups over time.There are 3.3 million Muslims in the U.S., about 1% of the total population. Attacks on Muslim Americans have become increasingly common, particu- larly since the attacks of September 11, 2001, and have surged in response to episodes of violence perpetrated by Islamic extremists and to the political rhetoric by GOP pres- idential nominee Donald Trump (Abdelaker 2016). Despite their increasing political relevance, however, very little is known about the treatment of and political attitudes towards Muslim Americans. I argue this rampant racialization of Muslim Americans – that is observable in the media, by legislators, and among White attitudes – has led to a shifting racial hierarchy where Blacks no longer are at the bottom, but which is malleable over time and in different contexts. The shift in mass attitudes has likewise moved the racial hierarchy to situate Muslim Americans near the bottom and has stark implications for their status in American democracy.Through two audit studies, the first part of my dissertation evaluates the quality of legislator responsiveness to Muslim Americans. The first experiment was conducted on all state legislators and evaluates responses to individual constituents who ask for an application for a political internship. The second was run on state legislators from states with large Muslim American populations, and evaluated responses to requests for a legislative visit by a Muslim American religious leader in that state. These two experiments find widespread discrimination against Muslim Americans across the country. However, in states with larger Muslim American populations, Democratic legislators exhibit less discrimination, supporting a theory of substantive representation.Next, my dissertation examines how public attitudes towards Muslim American candidates for political office. Little information exists on how the public assesses and treats Muslim candidates for political office. To fill this gap, I ran multiple candidate evaluation survey experiments to answer the question: "Do individual Ameri- cans demonstrate discriminatory behavior against Muslim-American candidates relative to Whites?" In Democratic primaries, respondents are significantly less likely to vote for the Muslim American as opposed to the White candidate. In Republican primaries, however, Muslim American candidates were not statistically disadvantaged compared to their White counterparts. All of this supports the theory that minority Republicans can be uniquely advantaged.Finally, my dissertation examines how television news has framed Muslim Americans in its broadcasts, relative to other groups, and how this coverage, in turn, affects public's attitudes. For this project, I collected all available CNN, MSNBC, and FOX news broadcast transcripts from 1992-2015, conducted sentiment analysis, and ran a survey experiment on a nationally representative sample of Whites. I find evidence for a shifting racial hierarchy that has varied over time and has situated Muslim Americans at the bottom. I also find that negative coverage increases resentment towards Muslim Americans and increases support for policies restricting their freedoms, while positive coverage has no effect.These bleak findings have stark implications for the quality of Muslim American participation and representation in American democracy. Moreover, my method of reconstructing America's racial hierarchy through the sentiment each racial group experiences in its media coverage repositions groups and argues for a more fluid racial hierarchy that is tied to the events of the day.
This Element examines just how much the public knows about some of America's most stigmatized social groups, who comprise 40.3% of the population, and evaluates whether misinformation matters for shaping policy attitudes and candidate support. The authors design and field an original survey containing large national samples of Black, Latino, Asian, Muslim, and White Americans, and include measures of misinformation designed to assess the amount of factual information that individuals possess about these groups. They find that Republicans, Whites, the most racially resentful, and consumers of conservative news outlets are the most likely to be misinformed about socially marginalized groups. Their analysis also indicates that misinformation predicts hostile policy support on racialized issues; it is also positively correlated with support for Trump. They then conducted three studies aimed at correcting misinformation. Their research speaks to the prospects of a well-functioning democracy, and its ramifications on the most marginalized.
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How have Donald Trump's rhetoric and policies affected Arab and Muslim American behavior? We provide evidence that the de facto effects of President Trump's campaign rhetoric and vague policy positions extended beyond the direct effects of his executive orders. We present findings from three data sources—television news coverage, social media activity, and a survey—to evaluate whether Arab and Muslim Americans reduced their online visibility and retreated from public life. Our results provide evidence that they withdrew from public view: (1) Shared locations on Twitter dropped approximately 10 to 20% among users with Arabic-sounding names after major campaign and election events and (2) Muslim survey respondents reported increased public space avoidance.
1. Introduction -- 2. American Muslims and the state: contexts and contentions -- 3. American Muslim women in the age of Trump (and beyond) -- 4. The unbearable whiteness of being Middle Eastern: causes and effects of the racialization of Middle Eastern Americans -- 5. What is more 'American' to do when the FBI knocks on your door? Muslim Americans' debates on engagement with law enforcement -- 6. Muslim expectations of U.S. law enforcement behavior -- 7. The 9/11 mosque and partisan polarization -- 8. Priming identity, framing community: Christians, Muslims, and intergroup trust -- 9. Performance politics: negotiating Muslim and American identities -- 10. Gauging political tolerance through a list experiment: findings from a survey of Muslim Americans -- 11. Best practices for gathering public opinion data among Muslim Americans -- 12. Conclusions and new directions for the study of Muslim Americans
Intro -- Contents -- List of Figures and Tables -- Preface and Acknowledgments -- 1. Introduction: Brian R. Calfano and Nazita Lajevardi -- 2. American Muslims and the State: Contexts and Contentions / Karam Dana and Matt A. Barreto -- 3. American Muslim Women in the Age of Trump (and Beyond) / Anwar Mhajne and Brian R. Calfano -- 4. The Unbearable Whiteness of Being Middle Eastern: Causes and Effects of the Racialization of Middle Eastern Americans / Nazita Lajevardi, Melissa R. Michelson, and Marianne Marar Yacobian -- 5. What Is More "American" to Do When the FBI Knocks on Your Door? Muslim Americans' Debates on Engagement with Law Enforcement / Ahmet Selim Tekelioglu -- 6. Muslim Expectations of U.S. Law Enforcement Behavior / Rachel M. Gillum -- 7. The 9/11 Mosque and Partisan Polarization / Kerem Ozan Kalkan -- 8. Priming Identity, Framing Community: Christians, Muslims, and Intergroup Trust / Brian R. Calfano, Oguzhan (Oz) Dincer, Danielle M. McLaughlin, and Yusuf Sarfati -- 9. Performance Politics: Negotiating Muslim and American Identities / Brian R. Calfano, Valerie Martinez-Ebers, Tony E. Carey Jr., and Alejandro J. Beutel -- 10. Gauging Political Tolerance through a List Experiment: Findings from a Survey of Muslim Americans / Youssef Chouhoud -- 11. Best Practices for Gathering Public Opinion Data among Muslim Americans / Matt A. Barreto and Karam Dana -- 12. Conclusions and New Directions for the Study of American Muslims / Brian R. Calfano and Nazita Lajevardi -- Contributors -- Index.
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Abstract Does American identity predict preferences for anti-democratic policies that aim to marginalize Muslim Americans? Absent significant priming of inclusive elements of American identity, we argue that individuals with stronger attachments to American identity will be less likely than their counterparts to reject a range of anti-Muslim policies that are antithetical to principles of religious liberty and equality. Across three surveys and multiple measures, American identity powerfully predicts preferences for curbing the civil liberties of Muslim citizens. Particularly striking is the finding that the effect of American identity spans the partisan divide; it consistently explains the endorsement of exclusionary policies among self-identified Democrats, who typically hold more progressive policy positions toward minority groups than Republicans. Overall, our study highlights the contradictory and exclusionary nature of American identity, which has important implications for minority groups constructed as outside the boundaries of Americanness.
AbstractWhile extant research has documented the existence of negative attitudes toward Muslim Americans, it is unclear whether old-fashioned racism (OFR) is at the root of contemporary Islamophobia, and whether beliefs in the inherent inferiority of Muslims are linked to support for political actors and policies that aim to further isolate them. Bringing to bear a unique dataset of 1,044 white, black, Latino, and Asian participants, we demonstrate that a nontrivial portion of survey respondents make blatantly racist evaluations and rate Muslim Americans as the least "evolved" group. Next, we illustrate that these dehumanizing attitudes are strongly linked to modern objections of Muslim Americans, which we measure with a new Muslim American resentment scale (MAR). Our mediation analysis reveals that the relationship between OFR, support for President Trump, and various policy positions is powerfully mediated by MAR. These results suggest that the relevance of OFR in contemporary politics should not easily be dismissed, and that the literature on racial attitudes, which has predominantly focused on the Black-white dichotomy, should also be extended to appraisals of Muslim Americans.
