ABSTRACT
Over the past decade and a half, the concept of Islamophobia has received an increasing amount of public attention. Islamophobia has been defined as a set of closed attitudes toward Islam as a religion or toward Muslims as adherents of the Islamic faith (Runnymede Trust 1997). Yet – much like its cognates sexism, racism, and homophobia – the word Islamophobia is often entangled in symbolic political struggles that lack analytical clarity. On the one hand, antiracist NGOs and liberal scholars use the term to mobilize sentiment against prejudice (Runnymede Trust 1997; Geisser 2003). On the other hand, skeptics of various stripes challenge the usefulness of the term and claim that anti-Muslim attitudes and actions are rare (Malik 2005; Joppke 2009b; see also Oborne and Jones 2008: 14). Unfortunately, these discussions often contain too little concrete evidence to permit an assessment of the level and nature of Islamophobia in a given society. In this chapter, we respond to this problem by examining survey evidence to address the crucial question of just how much Islamophobia exists in Great Britain and how it has evolved over time. For the purposes of this chapter, we define Islamophobia as undifferentiated negative attitudes or emotions concerning Islam or Muslims. 1
