Muslim Politics and Governance of Islam: Interactions of Structure and Culture in Multireligious Europe

Muslim identity politics and the political recognition of religious plurality touch the heart of modern secular democracies. How should the state be sheltered from religion and to what extent should religion be protected by the state? The main data is interviews with Muslim religious leaders, and with actors that were involved in decision-making processes concerning governance of Islam in Norway. The major part of the project deals with the situastion in Norway. However, through cooperation with researchers from different countries, other perspectivces are included in the analysis. The research group consists of researchers from Norway, the Netherlands and the US. Our theoretical goal with studying these processes is to understand the intersection between what we call "culture" and "structure": What is the interaction between political and legal regulations concerning Islam, and what Muslim leaders and national policymakers think and do? Our practical goal is to perform research that can be of value to both Muslim minorities and policymakers in Europe, concerning the place of Islam in European societies.

Effektene av prosjektet er foreløpig begrenset fordi sentrale deler enda ikke er publisert, men vil bli levert inn til vurdering for PhD i slutten 2019, og offentliggjort i 2020. Det er imidlertid allerede publiserte noen arbeider i form av vitenskapelige artikler. De potensielle effektene av prosjektene er betydelige. Prosjektet inngår i en pågående debatt om religionens plass i det sekulære Norge. Gjennom å gå inn i skjæringsfeltet mellom statens behov for kontroll og menighetenes ønske om autonomi har prosjektet bidratt til å klargjøre viktige grenseoppganger i det sekulære Norge. Ikke minst er det betydningsfullt å identifisere tilsiktede og utilsiktede virkninger av dagens regime for offentlig støtte til menighetene. At forskere på prosjektet er synlige i media og på konferanser, er med på å bringe resultatene ut til offentligheten.

The project aims at exploring the relationship between structure and culture - structure here being defined as political and legal regulations concerning Islam, and culture being defined as socially embedded mental content among Muslim actors in Europe. W e want to study this through exploring the impact of governance of Islam on Muslim political thought, and the impact of Muslim action and initiatives on governance of Islam. We pursue this goal by undertaking an historically oriented, multidisciplinary and comparative case study of three countries: France, England and Norway. In each of the countries we will study the development in two fields: Muslim political thinking on the elite level, concerning how Muslim religious elites envision the integration of Islam and Muslims into secular democracies, and the development of national models for governance of Islam and Muslims. The research questions, mention under "objectives of the project", will be answered through three interrelated work packes: - The aim of WP1 is to map how Muslim religious leaders in England, Norway and France understand the relationship between Islam and politics, and whether different national models for governance of Islam seem to influence their opinion formation. . The main sou rce of data will be interviews with the involved actors, concerning their religio-political world views. - The aim of WP2 is to reverse the question in WP1, and ask how the regimes for governance of Islam in these countries are influenced by Muslim politi cal action or Muslim initiatives in the civil sphere. The main source of data will be interviews with actors that were involved in deciscion-making processes concerning governance of Islam. - The empirical topics to be investigated in WP1 and WP2 raise se veral ethical and normative questions - concerning human rights, minority rights and state rights, and how they relate to each other. This will be investigated from legal and normative perspectives in WP2.