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Muslim Political Participation in Post Secular Sweden
Abstract
For a long time Sweden has had a homogeneous religious landscape. The last thirty years, however, a substantial shift towards heterogeneity has occurred. At the same time, the idea of secularism – not merely a separation of state and religion, but also the idea that people (should) become less religious – has held a strong appeal. If this is a view popularly held in society; how does that affect religious people? My previous fieldwork, including data from a survey carried out among Sweden’s Young Muslims (the largest Muslim youth organization in Sweden) suggest that some Muslim youngsters feel inclined to withdraw from political participation because they see their views differing from the views of their peers in the same age-range. On that basis, this paper puts forth the following question: Do Muslim youth in Sweden feel that framing claims at political participation in religious wording makes such claims illegitimate? Differently put: To what extent is the access to political participation dependent on framing your claims in a “politically acceptable” diction? If religious wording has impact on perceived legitimacy, the follow-up question is what the consequence of this is: Will it translate into forms of political participation such as activism or other engagement in forms of politics that are outside of party politics, or is it possible that they are inclined to withdraw from anything deemed political? The paper will discuss how themes of post secularity, framing, legitimacy and political participation, can be explored further in focus group interviews. Here, comparative data is essential to see how other young Swedes perceive the legitimacy of their claims and their change at participation. The paper will then discuss how such a comparative study of the politico-religious landscape can be analyzed by drawing on concepts of American political philosopher William E. Connolly in order to further the analysis. In his work, Connolly writes broadly about possibilities of re-imagining political culture, and has in that writing put forth the concepts contestability, overlapping minorities, agonistic democracy, resonance-machines, and micropolitics. However, it is the contention of this paper to show that not only can these concepts be used in these broad terms. They can also be utilized as analytical tools to shed light on interview (and potentially other empirical) data about young people’s subjective perception of access to political participation, in party politics or elsewhere.
Discipline
Religious Studies/Theology
Geographic Area
Europe
Sub Area
None