Islamophobia: Xenophobia or Religious Intolerance?

Attitudes towards Muslim immigrants have become a widely researched topic in the second half of the 2010s. A crucial shortcoming of most of the existing studies is however that they refer to theories aimed at understanding resentment towards immigrants in general without developing more specific arguments to understand opposition towards Muslim immigrants in particular. It is therefore not possible to know whether and to what extent these immigrants are disliked on the basis of their ethnicity, religion or religiosity. In none of these studies do we learn anything about anti-religious sentiments as the degree of religiosity is not varied and only attitudes towards persons who are both foreign and religious have been included. We also like to know to what extent attitudes are influenced by how the state regulates religious matters. To investigate our research topic we use original data from a representative online experimental survey that has been fielded in the summer 2015 in Great Britain. The experimental design is based on a factorial analysis that manipulates the ethnicity of the person (Nigeria, Bulgaria, Britain), the religion (Muslim, Christian) and religiosity (non-religious, devote, radical). The dependent variables measure the general feelings towards these groups and to what extent respondents agree that they should get welfare benefits, political rights and be allowed to hold public rallies and demonstrations for a better recognition of their interests. To investigate the last aspect we also manipulate state policies (whether they allow or prohibit these activities).