From Exclusion to Inclusion? Islamic Organizations in Welfare Delivery in Germany, the Netherlands, and the UK

This paper analyses processes of reform with regard to the inclusion of Islamic organizations in welfare delivery in three countries with divergent state-church regimes and welfare state traditions: Germany, the Netherlands, and the UK. The focus is on the (changing) role of Islamic organizations as providers of social services on behalf of the state against the background of European wide trends such as secularization and religious pluralization in general and decentralization and marketization in welfare policy in particular. Referring to assumptions of actor centered institutionalism the project asks under what conditions political decision-making processes on the inclusion of Islamic organizations in welfare delivery take place, which actors are involved and what results the processes produce. The methodological basis of the project is a content analysis of parliament documents as well as press releases, position papers, interviews and the websites of the involved actors. Furthermore, the study accounts for the media coverage of concerned decision-making processes.