Iulia BULEA
| Abstract: | This article explores the ways in which perceptions of Muslim migration in Europe have emerged rather than been shaped less by empirical accounts and more by symbolic narratives, institutional frameworks, and historically rooted anxieties. Using qualitative comparative research across the UK, France, the Netherlands and Germany the project demonstrates how national models of integration – multicultural, republican, pluralist, and structured – produce different understandings of religion, identity and security. It compares conceptually the differential aspects of Islam as a diverse religious tradition, Islamism as a political or radical ideology, and Muslim communities as diverse social formations. Most Muslim migrants experience integration, adaptation and civic participation empirically, while security problems arise mainly from the marginalized extremist groups. However, political rhetoric, media framing and welfare state pressures play a role in increasing symbolic risk, by transforming cultural difference into threat through securitization. It also shows how systems of welfare, urban contexts, and informal community networks come together to form inclusion and misperception. By placing three layers of risk, objective, symbolic, and politically amplified, the article shows how fears of Muslim migration are indicative of larger uncertainties about social cohesion, institutional capacity and cultural change. It ends on a note of advocacy for inclusive governance, intercultural competence and cooperation with community leaders to increase resilience and ensure more balanced governing of security. |
| Keywords: | Muslim migration, securitisation, risk perceptions, integration policies, welfare state, identity and diversity |