Openings to the Inclusion of Muslim Minorities in Today’s Democracies (INCLUDE)
At the heart of contemporary politics in the old democracies in Europe and North America is a significant puzzle. How come the far right, advocating a nativist agenda particularly opposed to Muslims and Islam, is advancing at a time when public opinion research documents stability or decline in illiberal values in these populations at large? Current studies understandably focus on accounting for exclusion – opposition to Muslims, prejudice, islamophobia, and nativism. In the INCLUDE project, we expand the scope of inquiry beyond drivers of exclusion to investigate the openness of non-Muslim majorities to the inclusion of Muslim minorities. We ask, under what conditions—on what terms—are they open to inclusion? This research question brings conceptual and empirical attention to different aspects of public opinion and different segments within the public than are currently at the center of attention in research on intergroup attitudes and support for the far right. A major program of new data collection is needed to test the new hypotheses and implications raised. To manage the risks involved in taking research in a new direction, we propose to collect data in sequences of survey experiments in a few countries where we already have a solid base of knowledge to build upon—Norway, Germany, France, the UK, the Netherlands, and Sweden.
Terms of Agreement: The Challenge of Muslim Inclusion (TERMS)
TERMS is a research project that examines the willingness of the majority population to include Muslim minorities alongside demonization of Muslims, especially in online media. Is it possible that both openness to inclusion and anti-Muslim activism are features of our time? And if so, how can that be explained?
DIGSSCORE
Elisabeth Ivarsflaten is the principal investigator of the Digital Social Science Core Facility. DIGSSCORE is an infrastructure for digital social science data collection at the University of Bergen, an advanced facility for digital social science and multi-disciplinary research. It extends and professionalises the successful internet-panel which was established at the University of Bergen in 2013, The Norwegian Citizen Panel (Norsk medborgerpanel), and adds an on-site social science digital research lab, the Citizen Lab (Medborgerlaben). Since 2020, the infrastructure has expanded with the Norwegian Panel of Public Administrators and the Norwegian Panel of Elected Representatives.
Since its establishment in 2016, more than 70 affiliated researchers from five different faculties at the University of Bergen have benefited from the DIGSSCORE facilities, and also institutions outside of UiB, particularly NORCE, uses DIGSSCORE to collect data on opinion and attitudes in Norway. Data are also accessible to use for all research and education purposes at Sikt - Norwegian Agency for Shared Services in Education and Research.
Elisabeth Ivarsflaten
Department of Government
Digital Social Science Core Facility
University of Bergen
Rosenbersgate 35, 5015 Bergen
email: elisabeth.ivarsflaten@uib.no
url: ivarsflaten.w.uib.no
phone: +47 55 58 24 60
mobile: +47 45 67 16 63
post: Postboks 7802, 5020 Bergen
