Muslims in Great Britain: the impact of mosque attendance on political behaviour and civic engagement

ABSTRACT

Is mosque attendance associated with withdrawal from civic and political life and the endorsement of politically motivated violence (PMV)? We draw from a large multi-ethnic survey in the U.K. to answer this research question. Our analysis is unique in that we compare Muslims to Christians to show that mosques, just like churches, can enhance the civic and political participation of their adherents. Drawing from scholarship on religious institutions, social capital, and social identity, we claim and empirically show that mosque attendance is associated with increased electoral and non-electoral political participation, higher levels of civic engagement, and the rejection of PMV. Our findings not only advance the current scholarly understanding of the attitudes and behaviours of Muslims in the West, but also have important policy implications in that they help dispel stereotypical and sensationalist accounts of Mosques and their adherents in the post-Brexit U.K.

KEYWORDS:

• Mosque attendance
• Muslims
• religious institutions
• political behaviour
• civic engagement

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the editors and anonymous reviewers at JEMS for their helpful feedback. A special thanks is also extended to Hannah Walker, Matt Barreto, Ben Bagozzi, Muqtedar Khan, and a number of other colleagues who provided valuable insights.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 The survey yielded a high response rate of 58%, and the estimated coverage levels for each ethnic group is also very high – between 85% and 90%.

2 Nearly all of the respondents completed the survey in English as interviewers were instructed to ask to speak to an English speaker within the household, where possible. In cases in which respondents faced language barriers, interviewers had translation cards at their disposal in multiple of languages.

3 For more detailed information about the unique characteristics of each group, and the similarities and differences that they have, refer to Heath et al.'s (2013) study, The Political Integration of Ethnic Minorities in Britain.

4 For all the non-electoral measures, participants were asked to report participation over the last 12 months.

5 The last three controls are important because those who have a positive orientation towards the British democracy and have a high sense of civic duty may not only feel inclined to participate in a range of political activities, but also community activities, including religious-based activities.

6 Overall, researchers must be very careful when comparing simulated effect sizes across two models with different populations and sample sizes.

7 Alternatively, we included all the other control variables (e.g. political interest) and found that the relationship between worship attendance and civic engagement does not change. Additional model specifications are available upon request.

8 Qur'anic authoritativeness is the belief that the Qur'an is divinely inspired word of God.

9 In the PMV models, we decided to group the non-Muslim respondents together and compare them to Muslims only because concerns over intolerance and radicalisation have often been levied against Islam rather than any other religion (see Acevedo and Chaudhary 2015 for a summary). We also deem this analytical strategy appropriate because prior research has demonstrated that despite tremendous diversity between EMBES participants, there are relatively minor attitudinal differences across the different groups (Heath et al. 2013; Sanders et al. 2014). Indeed, the forthcoming results reveal more commonalities than differences as it pertains to opinions towards PMV.