Islamism and Antisemitism. Preliminary Evidence on Their Relationship from Crossnational Opinion Data

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What do we really know about mass support for Islamism? And what is its connection to antisemitism? Our analysis of these questions is based on promax factor analytical studies based on openly available cross-national survey data. First, we analyze the determinants of what led representative global World Values Survey (WVS) global Muslim interview partners to reject to have a Jewish neighbor, which is the only available WVS item to measure antisemitism. We also identify the extent of relationships between antisemitism, the economic and social situation, religion data, and opinions on terrorism among global Muslim publics based on the global Pew Research Centre surveys. Finally, we re-evaluate Arab Barometer survey data on ‘moderate Islamism’ and its relationship to antisemitism. All our new quantitative evidence supports the hypothesis developed in this essay from the literature that Islamism is deeply connected to antisemitism. Our data also indicate that Muslim dissatisfaction and dissent with society, often mentioned as the drivers of Islamism, are in fact connected to Muslim secularism and a distance from Islamism. Channeling this dissent in secular left- and right-wing protest parties would be an important future task in the stabilization of Arab and Muslim democracies.

Keywords: antisemitism, Islamism, promax factor, World Values Survey.

Arno Tausch, is currently Honorary Associate Professor of Economics, Corvinus University, Budapest more