In the European Union we trust: European Muslim attitudes toward the European Union

Abstract:

Recent research has indicated that Arab Muslims are skeptical of Western institutions such as the European Union. Do European Muslims hold comparable attitudes toward the European Union?

In this article we develop a two-step argument based on a transfer of satisfaction logic. We build on both American politics literature on immigrant trust in the host country's national political actors and on European Union literature assuming a transfer of trust from the national to the international level.

Our expectation is that European Muslims should be more favorable toward the domestic political actors and, as a result, toward the European Union than their Christian and agnostic counter-parts. Our empirical evidence suggests the plausibility of the transfer of satisfaction argument while other factors seem to be of minor influence.