Matthias Kortmann

Islamic Umbrella Organizations and Contemporary Political Discourse on Islam in Germany: Self-Portrayals and Strategies of Interaction

The political discourse on Islam in Germany has intensified in the twenty-first century, with the result that Islamic umbrella organizations have increasingly been involved in political processes. This paper describes how these organizations have responded to this change in the discourse and to their new role as points of contact for political actors. Their self-concepts and interaction strategies are analyzed from an innovative theoretical perspective, using a combination of approaches of organizational sociology which focus on legitimacy concerns and concepts of political science which help to assess the influence of the political environments both within and outside Germany. This research perspective enables us to understand the various tensions facing Muslim organizations in Germany—a country which has only recently “discovered” its religious pluralism and is still struggling to accommodate its “newcomers”. Based on over 19 interviews with representatives of Islamic umbrella organizations, the changing public debates are critically analyzed from the perspective of these organizations.

Sicherheitsfragen in der deutschen Islampolitik

Anfang November 2011 wurde bekannt, dass eine rechtsextreme terroristische Vereinigung namens „Nationalsozialistischer Untergrund“ (NSU) in Deutschland fur eine Mordserie mit mindestens elf Opfern verantwortlich ist. Neun Opfer dieser rechtsextremistischen Anschlage waren Gewerbetreibende mit turkischem bzw. in einem Fall mit griechischem Migrationshintergrund. Die Morde und dazu einige Sprengstoff- und Brandanschlage wurden zwischen 2000 bis 2007 verubt, galten aber bis 2011 als ungeklarte Falle.

Organisations islamiques en Europe et aux États-Unis : les perspectives interdisciplinaires et ascendantes

This article utilizes an analytical framework that examines the differences in the organizational forms and strategies of Islamic organizations with reference to both internal and external factors affecting the organization, such as internal organizational characteristics and national and transnational political opportunity structures. This perspective is applied to review the empirical results of recent secondary studies from a cross-national and transatlantic perspective. In particular, this paper centres around a meta-analysis of research findings collected in the volume Islamic organizations in Europe and the USA: A multidisciplinary perspective, edited by Kortmann and Rosenow-Williams (2013), which presents new empirical research on Islamic organizations in the USA, Germany, France, the Netherlands, the UK, the Baltic States, Poland, Spain, Belgium and Switzerland.

Conclusion: Similarities and Differences of Islamic Organizations in Europe and the USA

This volume has given some insight into the extraordinary variety of forms, strategies, and practices of organization Muslims use to participate in the political arena and to exercise their faith in non-Muslim contexts. Islamic organizations have been shown to face the challenge of having to operate in heterogeneous local, national, and even transnational organizational environments which involve a variety of sometimes contradictory effects and expectations which, in turn, elicit various responses from the organizations. These observations are based on empirical studies on the organizational level of Muslim life in non-Muslim countries which combine different theoretical frameworks with empirical data on various geographical levels to answer the overarching research question that has guided this volume: To what extent do (trans)national organizational environments and changing public discourses on Islam affect aspects of Islamic organizations and their members, such as their forms of organization, strategies, and practices?

Multidisciplinary Research on Islamic Organizations: Heterogeneous Organizational Forms, Strategies, and Practices

As of 2010, there were 43.49 million Muslims living in the 50 nationstates associated with the European continent, and 2.77 million in the USA (PEW, 2012). Since the beginning of the century, questions surrounding the integration of Muslims into society and the inclusion of their organizations in the structures of state-church relations in non-Muslim countries have been widely debated by academics and politicians both in Europe and in the USA. This issue has led to numerous studies which apply a top-down perspective focusing on the way states deal with Muslim minorities and their organizations against the background of different national regimes of religious governance and religious diversity (e.g., Bramadat and Koenig, 2009; Cesari, 2009; Nielsen et al., 2012).

Countering Integration Pessimists: New Differentiation for the Integration Debates

In this article Leo and Jan Lucassen’s analysis in Winnaars en verliezers [Winners and losers] of 500 years of immigration to the Netherlands is reviewed with regard to possible conclusions for the neighbouring country, Germany. Particularly since the recent migration history in both countries has been very similar, the authors’ disentanglement of complex migration politics and their differentiated assessment of integration processes in the Netherlands are also useful for the occasionally pessimistic German migration and integration debate. The authors show that prevailing negativist views on the integration of migrants can be countered successfully with more sophisticated analyses of the integration of different migrant groups into different societal realms. Furthermore, their examination of the – predominantly positive – integration history of earlier centuries helps to put current short-term problems into perspective. Nevertheless their analysis has some methodological shortcomings as sometimes (negative) quantitative results are contrasted with (positive) qualitative outcomes. Finally, policy conclusions would have been preferable, for example regarding the question of what can be learned from integration processes in previous centuries for integration problems of today.

Wie definieren islamische Dachverbände Integration

Das zivilgesellschaftliche Engagement von Migranten1 wird in der politischen und wissenschafdichen Debatte nach wie vor insbesondere unter integrationspolitischen Erwägungen betrachtet. Im Zentrum steht dabei die Fragestellung, inwiefern und unter welchen Voraussetzungen Migrantenselbstorganisationen (MSO) in der Lage sind, die Integration ihrer Mitglieder bzw. Klientel in die Aufnahmegesellschaften zu fördern. In der Debatte fällt jedoch nicht nur auf, dass die Definition dessen, was unter einer erfolgreichen Integration zu verstehen ist, umstritten ist. Das Integrationsverständnis der Migranten selbst bleibt zudem innerhalb der Diskussion weitestgehend unberücksichtigt.