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This article provides an analysis of the concerns in relation to citizenship and multicultural reforms in Europe. It examines the implications for the social integration of Muslims, who seemingly face insurmountable constitutional hurdles notwithstanding liberal institutional attempts, in accommodating a religion that, judged by its global politicisation, may pose more a challenge to multicultural societies than to others. While shedding light on recent developments concerning a wide-ranging panorama of the socio-legal dynamics of integrating Muslim communities in Europe, the article provides an overview of the multicultural idea, focusing on how some European countries address multicultural claims swiftly while others lag behind, busy with more basic issues of immigrant assimilation and integration. It is argued that while attempts are being made to improve Muslim integration, the rising tide of Islamophobia (political and media-manufactured), anti-terrorism legislations and security policies serve to provide a multi-pronged attack on civil liberties and freedoms of Muslim groups. In the concluding section, there will be general remarks concerning the future of Muslims in Europe and the commendable and realisable aim of Muslims to construct an inclusive national identity and find partners who will, like them, be determined to approve what Western culture produces in terms of its positive contributions and resist its deleterious effects on the human, societal and environmental levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Documenting the extraordinary potency and reach of the European backlash against multiculturalism, this essay provides a new theoretical model for explaining it. Rather than focusing primarily on demographic and institutional facts about Islamic immigration – such as education, wealth, participation and mobility – the author proposes a cultural-sociological approach that focuses on meanings and emotions as core issues for civil societies. As the demographic presence of Islamic immigrants has intensified, the anti-civil construction of Islamic qualities has led European masses, leaders and intellectuals, not only from the right but from the centre and left, to demand homogenizing assimilation. Representing public practices of Islam as threatening European democracy, newly restrictive citizenship tests have emerged alongside growing xenophobic political parties and newly threatening neo-fascist violence. Initially brought to Europe for economic and political reasons, the question has now become whether the children and grandchildren of Islamic immigrants can be incorporated into European civil society. The conflict is not over whether immigrants should be incorporated but over the grounds for doing so. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports on a conference on intersectionality, held in Bangor, Wales, from June 28-29, 2012. Topics of discussion included the interplay of gender, race, and ethnicity in the socioeconomic and cultural experiences of migrants in Europe, multiculturalism, and the acculturation and assimilation of immigrants.

The article discusses key concepts related to post-immigration in Europe. Topics include the relevance of core integration processes, the implication of race, religion, and ethnicity to migration, and sociological and political aspects of immigration. Also mentioned the different types of integration, including assimilation, multiculturalism, and cosmopolitanism.

Doubts about the enterprise of cultural recognition have helped to fuel a backlash against the politics of multiculturalism in Europe during the last decade. Such doubts are well-founded. Charles Taylor's seminal discussion of the politics of recognition neglects serious difficulties that arise for the activity of recognition when the objective and subjective dimensions of cultural identity diverge. Narratives of cultural “passing” help to highlight these difficulties and demonstrate that recognition can sometimes contribute to identity-based oppression. However, this conclusion does not commit us to a politics of cultural indifference or assimilation: the rejection of recognition does not entail the rejection of perception in general. Iris Murdoch's notion of “attention” provides a corrective to our understanding of recognition and thereby supplies a potentially superior ethical and perceptual basis for European multiculturalism in the twenty-first century. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The oft-quoted phrase, ‘why can’t we just all get along?’ is a cynical reference to seemingly intractable conflicts of all kinds. Implied in the question is the idea that people stake out positions that can never be sufficiently modified to reach the goal of ‘getting along’. The impreciseness of definition and use of certain terms in discourse related to European ethnic minorities has resulted in a polarization of positions by academic researchers, policymakers and the general public. This concept explication addresses the multiple definitions and use of terms and shifts in policies in Europe and calls for renewed efforts to understand differing points of view. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

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In the new millennium there has been a shift away from multiculturalism and the politics of difference towards integration, assimilation and a gradual 'thickening' of political belonging. The alleged weaknesses of the multicultural model and advantages of thicker, communitarian notions of community are highlighted in recent discourses on migrant incorporation and increasingly reflected in citizenship and migration policies across European countries. In this paper I critically examine citizenship reform and civic integration policies in the United Kingdom and argue that the fashionable language of integration represents a politically dated and normatively deficient approach to ethnic diversity. I furnish the basic tenets of an alternative pluralist mode of inclusion based on respectful symbiosis and the 'letting be' of groups of migrant origin, and examine the conditions for such a model's empirical implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article analyzes the concept of diversity, focusing on its use in the context of social and cultural changes. The relationship between assimilation, multiculturalism, and diversity is discussed, in terms of historical developments in European immigration patterns and government policies. The related topic of transnationalism is also addressed. Various uses of the term 'diversity' are critiqued, and the implications of diversity in terms of society, organizations, and individuals are discussed. Examples involving European labor markets are cited.

This article analyzes the most influential weltanschauungen at play in the politics of immigration in Europe. I categorize relevant value judgments into what I, following Theodore Lowi, call "public philosophies." I highlight three competing public philosophies in the politics of immigration in Europe: 1) liberalism; 2) nationalism; and 3) postmodernism. Liberalism prescribes universal rights protecting the autonomy of the individual, as well as rational and democratic procedures (rules of the game) to govern the pluralism that inevitably results in free societies. Against liberalism, nationalism stresses community and cultural homogeneity in addition to a political structure designed to protect both. Rejecting both liberalism and nationalism, postmodernism posits insurmountable relativism and irreducible cultural heterogeneity accompanied by ultimately irrepressible political antagonism. I examine the three outlooks through a case study of the headscarf debate. The article concludes with consideration of how normative ideas combine with other factors to influence policymaking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay examines a paradox: while the British state has done more than other European states to accommodate the claims of Muslim minorities, recent polls have shown British Muslims to be more disaffected and alienated than other Muslims in Europe. This raises the question of the limits of integration policy, which is obvious but rarely posed. I argue that, more than reflecting an adverse reality, the neologism 'Islamophobia' has functioned as a symbolic device of the British state to recognise the Muslim minority. However, the policy focus on Islamophobia had two negative consequences: first, it deflected from the real causes of disadvantage; secondly, it fuelled the quest for 'respect and recognition' that stands to be disappointed in a liberal state. I take the latter to be the main limit of integration policy as revealed by the British case. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay reports on the presence of Muslims and the religion Islam in Europe and its effects on religion and culture. Two models have shaped Western European countries' immigration policies when the bulk of incoming immigrants stay in Europe, the multiculturalism and assimilationism. Multiculturalism fails because of culturalism, while assimilationism fails because it initially ignored the religious dimension of immigrants' identities. Islam is the mirror for Europe in looking at its own identity, but it doe not offer new culture or new values.

The article focuses on the social integration of the disadvantaged and vulnerable social groups such as the poor and indigenous people. In contrary to social inclusion, it defines social exclusion as a social process deemed of being shut out from any of the social, economic, political or cultural system that establish an individual's integration into society. On the part of migrants and indigenous peoples, it notes that the need of social integration is somewhat problematic. In Europe, it says that there were ongoing debates concerning the social integration of migrants and indigenous people due to security threats following the evenements of 2001 in the U.S. Another factor that hinders the successful implementation of social integration among countries in Europe is multiculturalism.

Intercultural dialogue was introduced at the European level through policy documents of the Council of Europe and the European Commission in the 2000s. This article explores the ways in which intercultural dialogue is developed as a model to handle cultural diversity in different areas. Furthermore it discusses whether intercultural dialogue can be perceived as an alternative model to the previous integration policies marked by assimilationism and multiculturalism. A comparison is carried out of the ways in which the policies of both European organizations represent cultural diversity as a problem, their narratives concerning the need for intercultural dialogue as well as its definition. While the Council of Europe offers a concrete model, especially regarding integration, the Commission moves between the intertwined fields of culture, integration and interaction, but in doing so it fails to present an alternative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]