ABSTRACT
This chapter shows that the utility of looking at minority political incorporation in a comparative manner. When reconstructive coalitions cannot occur, then transformations in minority standing may depend more on other factors, such as the minority group's power resources, the degree of assimilation with fragments of majority group, or institutional opportunities. The chapter considers how this perspective may illuminate the incorporation of other ethnic, racial, and religious minorities. In addition, it considers how minority incorporation is related to political development and questions of religious freedom. Given the ways in which Catholic political incorporation has been dependent on unique contextual conditions, this may make the claim that Catholic political incorporation can speak to other instances of minority political incorporation less plausible. The global discourse of the War on Terror has cast suspicion on Muslims, but that alone should not determine Muslims' political incorporation. Muslim political incorporation into Western Europe resembles Catholic political incorporation into the United States in another respect.
