Eren Tatari

Muslims and Minority Politics in Great Britain

Abstract This paper reviews the history of immigration and demographics of British Muslims and analyzes the relevant characteristics that influence their political representation in the country. Such factors include immigration patterns, demographic characteristics of Muslim groups and coalition versus group competition trends, political mobilization patterns, the politics of race, and the dynamics of party–minority relations. The paper also provides original data on elected Muslims in British local and national government and examines the electoral power, political identity, social behavior, civic and political participation, and representation of Muslims in the larger British community.

Strategic Intersectionality and Political Representation: Female Muslim Councilors in London

This article addresses questions of how race/ethnicity, gender, and religion influence political representation. We use original interview data to test a strategic intersectionality theory developed by Fraga and colleagues (2005) in the case of female Muslim councilors in London, the United Kingdom. The original strategic intersectionality theory proposes that women are more effective advocates for ethnic group interests due to their unique capacity to leverage three primary resources: a substantive policy focus, multiple identity advantage, and gender inclusive advantage. We modify the thesis by analyzing religion as an additional identity marker and further disaggregating the three primary sources of leverage. We use the modified thesis to test whether female Muslim councilors of three London boroughs are more effective advocates for Muslim interests than their non-Muslim colleagues. We find mixed evidence for the presence of the three sources of leverage associated with strategic intersectionality, resulting in a more complex theorizing of this phenomenon than that found in prior research. This study offers a new contribution to the operationalization of intersectionality and the literature on intersectionality and political representation.

Review Article: Muslims in the West1

In light of the recent events in Europe, research on the social, economic, and political dynamics of Muslim minorities living in Western Europe has proliferated substantially. Initially, research in this field concentrated almost solely on immigration factors, demographics of immigrants and immigration policies of European states. Scholars have then started to investigate the social and economic problems faced by immigrants, which gradually gave way to a discourse on problems of integration as it became more and more clear that immigrants were not returning to their countries of origin. This trend of research has produced an abundance of literature essentializing Islam or immigrant Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, Vol. 26, No. 3, December 2006