Forum 21 [Research]

Peter Doerschler, Professor in Political
Science
Department of Political Science
Bloomsburg University
Bloomsburg, PA 17815, USA
pdoersch@bloomu.edu
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Pamela Irving Jackson, Professor in Sociology
Director of the Justice Studies Program
Department of Sociology
Rhode Island College
Providence, RI 02908, USA
pjackson@ric.edu
Do Muslims in Germany Really Fail to Integrate?
Muslim Integration and Trust in Public
Institutions¹
The Federal Republic of Germany, like many
states in Western Europe, has experienced a
wave of mass immigration in the post-war era.
The majority of these immigrants were citizens
of Turkey, Italy, the former Yugoslavia as well as
Spain, Portugal and Greece, and arrived under
the auspices of a federally sponsored guest
worker program designed to fill acute shortages in
the domestic labor market. Although Germany’s
recruitment program abruptly ended in 1973 in
the wake of global economic recession, family
unification continued over the next decade,
reuniting guest workers with spouses, children
and even extended families from the homeland.
Throughout the late 1980s and early 1990s
Germany’s liberal asylum laws also attracted
a wave of asylum seekers seeking refuge from
political turmoil in numerous countries including
the former Yugoslavia, Iraq and areas of the
former Soviet Union.
Data from the 2008 Mikrozensus, a 1%
sampling of Germany’s population conducted
by the Federal Statistics Office, show that
residents with a migrant background, including
first-generation migrants and their offspring,
now number close to 15.5 million or
approximately 19% of Germany’s population.
Totalling between 2.5 to 4.3 million, Muslims
constitute a sizable percentage of Germany’s
migrant population and between 3 to 5
percent of the total population.
The social, professional and political integration
of recent immigrants and their offspring has
become a central challenge facing policymakers
in Germany. For decades little distinction
was made in the integration of Muslims and
non-Muslims. The tragic events of 9/11 and
subsequent attacks in Madrid, London and
Amsterdam radically altered this view, leading to
assertions that Muslims had failed to integrate
due to an incompatibility between core tenets
of Islam and democracy. Critics argue that Islam
lacks many of the core values that underpin
modern democracy such as acceptance of the
separation of religious and secular authorities,
and protection of social pluralism and individual
civil liberties.
The underlying goal of our research is to
ascertain whether the conventional wisdom
regarding Muslims’ failed integration is
supported by empirical evidence. In this report
we examine specifically whether Muslims
exhibit the same degree of political trust as
non-Muslims. Political trust is a standard
indicator used widely in political science to
define the relationship between individuals
and the political system under which they live.
In this context, trust measures individuals’
confidence in the overall quality and efficacy
of the political system as well as in specific
political institutions (parties, parliament) and
elected officials.
Confidence in political authority underpins
legitimacy in democratic governance since citizens
trust government authorities to make decisions
in their collective best interest. A breakdown in
trust could ultimately affect citizens’ willingness
to voluntarily obey the organizational rules and
laws that form the basis of government authority.
In extreme cases, fractured trust can erode
democratic legitimacy and result in widespread
disillusionment or anti-democratic sentiment.
From this well-established body of research, we
distinguish among five dimensions of trust that
run from more diffuse, normative attitudes about
the community and democratic values to more
specific attitudes related to the performance of
government institutions and public officials.
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To test the relationship between Muslim
religious identification and political trust, we
conduct multivariate analyses using survey
data from the 2008 German General Social
Survey (ALLBUS). We use fourteen dependent
variables to represent different levels of trust.
These include three measures related to the
community level (connection to the
community, connection to the state and its
people and connection to the Federal
Republic); respondents’ evaluation of
democracy as an idea at the more diffuse
level of regime principles; a measure of
respondents’ satisfaction with democracy as
practiced in the FRG, which offers a more
output-oriented evaluation of the regime; and
nine separate measures corresponding to
respondents’ trust in specific political and
legal institutions, including the federal
government, local government, the parliament
(Bundestag),
the
Supreme
Court
(Bundesverfassungsgericht), political parties,
the judiciary, the police, the education system
and the health system.
For the sake of brevity, we present in Table
1 partial correlation coefficients for Muslim
identity while controlling for respondents’ social
capital (interpersonal trust and participation
in voluntary organizations) socioeconomic
status (education, place of birth, citizenship,
income, employment status and gender), postmaterial views, ideological position (left and
right extremes), partisan support for parties in
power (CDU, SPD), assessment of government
performance, interest in politics and amount of
television viewing. Starred coefficients indicate
a statistically significant relationship between
Muslim identification and the particular indicator
of political trust with positive coefficients
indicating that Muslims are generally more
trusting than non-Muslims.
Looking first at the community level, Muslims
and non-Muslims express the same degree of
connection to the wider community, the regional
state and its people and to Germany once other
factors are considered. Looking further down
the table, the analyses indicate that Muslims
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express significantly greater satisfaction with
German democracy than non-Muslims. This also
holds true for Germany’s health care system,
the Supreme Court and especially the judiciary.
In results not shown here, Muslims’ support for
democracy in Germany is not reduced when we
control for their level of religiosity.
In general, our findings offer no support for
the widespread view that Muslims have failed
to integrate in German society. Though
Muslims may lag behind on some objective
indicators such as unemployment rates and
income, these inequalities have not appeared
to sour their outlook on democracy or various
democratic institutions relative to nonMuslims. While it is difficult to pinpoint the
exact reasons behind these results, we offer
two possible explanations. First, over the past
few decades citizenries in many Western
European states, including Germany, have
experienced declining levels of political trust.
This erosion of trust has been more narrowly
focused on evaluations of government institutions
and officials; commitment to core principles of
democracy and democratic regimes has generally
remained strong. The erosion of trust is based
largely on several perceived shortcomings of
democracy, including stagnation brought on by
divided government, poor performance, corruption
and personal scandals as well as greater
economic uncertainty in a more interdependent
global economy. While it is likely that many
Muslim residents also fit this trend, more recent
immigrants may not carry the same degree of
institutional history as “native” Germans with
which to negatively critique the functioning of
democracy and its various institutions.
Furthermore, we argue that if one considers
the range of push-pull factors that have driven
immigration to Germany in the post-war era,
then it is likely that a majority of immigrants
have seen improvements in their general
standard of living and overall well-being. On
the economic front, many immigrants escaped
extreme poverty and massive unemployment in
prime sending countries like Turkey to take on
Table 1. Comparing Political Trust among Muslims and non-Muslims
Muslim ID N
connection to community .049 1279
connection to state and its people .029 1280
connection to Federal Republic .039 1278
connection index .050 1276
.044 1264
.069* 1281
Political Community
Regime Principles
evaluation of democracy as idea Regime Norms
satisfaction with democracy in FRG
Regime Institutions
education system .032 1187
health system .059* 1279
supreme court .071* 1206
federal government .017 1276
parliament .056* 1266
local government .013 1275
political parties .036 1272
judiciary .096** 1268
police .038 1277
political institutions index .088** 1186
**p<.01, *p<.05, two-tailed test
Note: As explained in the text, the following variables are controlled: social trust, participation in
voluntary institutions, age, gender, income, citizenship, level of post-materialism, employment
status, education, ideology, support for parties in power, interest in politics, amount of television
viewing and evaluation of government performance.
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admittedly difficult yet often stable employment
in Germany’s booming economy.
On the political front, Germany has long served
as a prime destination for refugees, asylum
seekers and other migrants escaping persecution
from repressive regimes. Kurds from Turkey and
citizens of the former Yugoslavia are two prime
examples. While many of these immigrants are
sure to have experienced hardship and myriad
forms of discrimination in Germany, Germany’s
democratic institutional setting and prosperous
economy may still compare favourably to the
homeland experiences. This may be especially
true of those holding German citizenship, which
guarantees individuals a set of inalienable basic
rights and liberties.
While much work still needs to be done to
develop a more complete picture of Muslims’
integration in Germany and Europe, this study
provides firm evidence on the basis of one
important dimension of political integration—
individuals’ trust in the political system—that
Muslims are in fact integrating well into German
society and are not a threat to democracy.
Terrorists operating on the margins of German
society may use radical Islamist ideology to justify
attacks on democracy, but those identifying as
Muslim in Germany, regardless of their level of
religiosity, are supportive of democracy and the
institutions of the state. These results raise new
questions about integration; only the subject of
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concern appears to be the large population of
non-Muslims, the vast majority of whom would
also self-identify as ethnic Germans, rather than
Muslims. Significantly lower levels of political
trust among non-Muslims may negatively affect
their views of government and, more specifically,
its efforts to respond to Germany’s Muslim
population.
Scepticism and distrust of government may
actually undermine important programs
designed to bridge real value and cultural
differences, which remain a source of
ignorance
that
fuels
prejudice
and
discrimination. To fully succeed, integration
policies must therefore target all members of
society.
Note
1 This article is based on the paper titled
“Immigrant Integration and Trust in
Public Institutions: Lessons from GSOEP
and ALLBUS” presented at the XVII ISA
(International Sociological Association)
World Congress of Sociology “Sociology
on the Move” from 11 to 17 July 2010 in
Gothenburg, Sweden. The entire research
paper can be requested from the authors:
pdoersch@bloomu.edu; pjackson@ric.
edu
FR
Intégration des musulmans en Allemagne : un échec réel ?
Intégration et confiance dans les institutions publiques
Peter Doerschler, professeur en sciences politique
Faculté des sciences politiques
Université de Bloomsburg
Bloomsburg, PA 17815, USA
pdoersch@bloomu.edu
Pamela Irving Jackson, professeur en sociologie
Directrice du programme d’études sur la justice
Faculté de sociologie
Collège Rhode Island
Providence, RI 02908, USA
pjackson@ric.edu
Comme beaucoup de pays d’Europe occidentale,
la République fédérale d’Allemagne a connu une
vague d’immigration de masse dans la période
d’après-guerre. Les données du Mikrozensus
(microrecensement) de 2008, mené sur un
échantillon de 1 % de la population allemande
par le Bureau fédéral des statistiques, révèle que
les résidents issus de l’immigration, y compris
les migrants de la première génération et leur
descendance, représentent aujourd’hui pas loin
de 15,5 millions de la population allemande, soit
environ 19 %. Comptant pour 2,5 à 4,3 millions
les musulmans constituent un pourcentage non
négligeable de la population allemande d’origine
migrante et entre 3 à 5 % de la population totale.
L’objectif sous-jacent de cette recherche est de
vérifier si l’opinion répandue au sujet de l’échec
de l’intégration des musulmans est étayée par
des preuves empiriques. Dans ce rapport, nous
examinons spécifiquement si les musulmans
manifestent le même degré de confiance politique
que les non-musulmans. La confiance politique est
en effet un indicateur standard utilisé largement
en sciences politiques pour définir la relation entre
les individus et le système politique en place. Dans
ce contexte, il s’agit d’évaluer la confiance des
individus dans la qualité et l’efficacité globales du
système politique, ses institutions politiques (partis,
parlement) et les représentants élus.
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DE
Integrieren sich Muslime in Deutschland wirklich nicht?
Integration von Muslimen und Vertrauen in öffentliche Institutionen
Peter Doerschler, Professor für Politikwissenschaft
Politikwissenschaftliche Fakultät
Universität Bloomsburg
Bloomsburg, PA 17815, USA
pdoersch@bloomu.edu
Pamela Irving Jackson, Professorin für Soziologie
Direktorin des Justizwissenschaftlichen Progamms
Soziologische Fakultät
Rhode Island College
Providence, RI 02908, USA
pjackson@ric.edu
Die Bundesrepublik Deutschland hat wie viele andere
Staaten in Westeuropa in der Nachkriegszeit eine
Masseneinwanderungswelle erlebt. Daten aus dem
Mikrozensus 2008, einer vom Bundesamt für Statistik
erhobenen Stichprobe von 1% der Bevölkerung in
Deutschland, zeigen, dass die Zahl der Einwohner
mit Migrationshintergrund einschließlich der ersten
Einwanderergeneration und ihrer Kinder jetzt fast
15,5 Millionen oder einen Anteil von etwa 19%
an der Bevölkerung Deutschlands erreicht hat. Mit
einer Gesamtzahl von 2,5 bis 4,3 Millionen machen
Muslime einen beträchtlichen Prozentsatz aller
Migranten in Deutschland beziehungsweise 3 bis 5%
der Gesamtbevölkerung aus.
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Das eigentliche Ziel der Forschungsarbeit besteht
in der Klärung der Frage, ob die gängige Meinung
zur fehlgeschlagenen Integration der Muslime
durch empirische Nachweise gestützt wird. In
diesem Artikel untersuchen wir insbesondere, ob
Muslime im gleichen Maße Politikvertrauen zeigen
wie Nicht-Muslime. Politikvertrauen ist in der
Politikwissenschaft ein häufig eingesetzter Indikator,
um das Verhältnis von Einzelpersonen zum politischen
System zu definieren, in dem sie leben. In diesem
Zusammenhang ist Vertrauen die Messgröße für
das Zutrauen des Einzelnen in die generelle Qualität
und Wirksamkeit des politischen Systems sowie
in spezielle politische Institutionen (Parteien, das
Parlament) und gewählte Mandatsträger.
RU
Мусульмане в Германии так и не смогли интегрироваться?
Интеграция мусульман и доверие к общественным институтам
Петр Доершлер (Peter Doerschler), профессор политических наук
Кафедра политических наук
Блумсбергский университет
Bloomsburg, PA 17815, USA
pdoersch@bloomu.edu
Памела Ирвинг Джексон (Pamela Irving Jackson), профессор социологии
Директор программ исследования правосудия
Кафедра социологии
Колледж Род-Айленд/Rhode Island College
Providence, RI 02908, USA
pjackson@ric.edu
Федеративная Республика Германия, как
и многие государства в Западной Европе,
пережила волну массовой иммиграции
вскоре после окончания войны. По
данным исследования Mikrozensus – 2008
(с выборочной репрезентативностью 1
процент населения Германии), проведенного
Управлением федеральной статистики,
численность жителей из числа мигрантов,
включая первое поколение мигрантов и их
потомков, в настоящее время приближается
к 15,5 миллионам, что составляет около 19
процентов общей численности населения
Германии. Мусульмане составляют
значительную часть населения Германии из
числа мигрантов, насчитывая от 2,5 до 4,3
миллионов, что составляет 3 - 5 процентов
общей численности населения.
Основной целью исследования является
выяснение, поддерживается ли
эмпирическими данными общепринятое
мнение, что мусульмане не смогли
интегрироваться. В данном отчете мы
специально рассматриваем, имеют ли
мусульмане такую же степень политического
доверия, как немусульмане. Политическое
доверие является стандартным показателем,
который широко используется в политической
науке для определения отношения между
людьми и существующей политической
системой. В этом контексте доверие измеряет
уверенность индивидов в общем качестве
и эффективности политической системы, а
также в конкретных политических институтах
(партии, парламент) и выборных должностных
лицах.
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