The Mosque Next Door
How the Visibility of Mosques Influences Support for the Far-Right and Anti-Immigration Policies
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 6333317 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Chiara Valli (0000-0002-7347-0957), Timothy B Gravelle (0000-0002-7091-206X), Alessandro Nai (0000-0001-7303-2693), Mike Medeiros (0000-0001-7359-272X), Céline Murri, Beatrice Eugster (0000-0002-5272-7119) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Publication date | 2025-04-04 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Political Behavior (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0190-9320 • E-ISSN: 1573-6687 |
| Publisher | Springer Science and Business Media LLC (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1007/s11109-025-10021-x |
| OpenAlex | W4409185928 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 62 |
As racial-ethnic and religious minorities have grown in Western societies, so too has the electoral success of nativist and far-right political parties. These parties commonly mobilize against Muslim minority groups, often targeting Islamic symbols such as mosques. This raises a key question: does the presence of mosques in local communities influence citizens’ vote choice? To answer this question, we analyze aggregate voting patterns in Swiss municipalities between 2007 and 2023. This includes data on voting returns from five elections and six anti-immigration popular initiatives. We augment these data with original spatial data that locates mosques in Switzerland, categorizing them as either a visible or non-visible feature of the built environment. Using coarsened exact matching (CEM), we estimate the causal effect of prominent, visible mosques on citizens’ voting patterns. Results indicate that a visible mosque in a municipality increases support for the far-right by approximately 3% points across elections. Similarly, a visible mosque increases support for popular initiatives targeting Muslims and other migrants by 3–5% points. By contrast, non-visible mosques have no significant effects on voting in popular initiatives or far-right party support. These findings highlight how politically salient features of the built environment shape voting patterns
Advertising · Business · Far right · Geography · Immigration · Meteorology · Political science · Politics · Visibility · Education and Islamic Studies · Islamic Studies and History · Law · Terrorism, Counterterrorism, and Political Violence
Causal Inference
Counterfactuals and Causal Inference
Multilevel Analysis
Backlash
Exposure to Muslims in Media and Support for Public Policies Harming Muslims
The Effects of Anti-Immigrant Right-Wing Populist Ads on Implicit and Explicit Attitudes
Hierarchical linear models
Toward a Theory of Minority Group Relations
Negative Stereotypical Portrayals of Muslims in Right-Wing Populist Campaigns
Media, Religion and Conflict
The Role of Threats in the Racial Attitudes of Blacks and Whites
Prejudice towards Muslims in The Netherlands
Old-Fashioned Racism, Contemporary Islamophobia, and the Isolation of Muslim Americans in the Age of Trump
The End of Framing as we Know it … and the Future of Media Effects
Islam als Bedrohung
Media representation of Muslims and Islam from 2000 to 2015
Western Views Toward Muslims
Varieties of Populist Attitudes and Their Link to Islamophobia in Switzerland
The public visibility of Islam and European politics of resentment
Intergroup contact with migrants is linked to support for migrants through attitudes, especially in people who are politically right wing
Anti-Muslim prejudice in Europe
Living under threat
Neighbourhood Ethnic Diversity and Orientations Toward Muslims in Britain
Revisiting Lepanto
Shifting borders
Mosque Conflicts in European Cities
Who Fears What? Explaining Far-Right-Wing Preference in Europe by Distinguishing Perceived Cultural and Economic Ethnic Threats
Bands of Others”? Attitudes toward Muslims in Contemporary American Society
Swiss Municipal Data Merger Tool
Party Identification, Contact, Contexts, and Public Attitudes toward Illegal Immigration
Imagined Immigration
Group Size versus Change? Assessing Americans’ Perception of Local Immigration
From Stigmatized Immigrants to Radical Right Voting
Voting “Against Islamization”? How Anti‐Islamic Right‐Wing, Populist Political Campaign Ads Influence Explicit and Implicit Attitudes Toward Muslims as Well as Voting Preferences
Waking Up the Golden Dawn
Hate, amplified? Social media news consumption and support for anti-Muslim policies
Looking for twins
The Mosque Nearby
Friends, Neighbours, Townspeople and Parties
Explaining Islamophobia in Australia
Electoral Effects of Biased Media
Placebo Tests for Causal Inference
Anti-Immigrant Sentiment, Policy Preferences and Populist Party Voting in Australia
Islamophobia and Threat Perceptions
The Promise, Practicalities, and Perils of Virtually Auditing Neighborhoods Using Google Street View
In the Shadow of the Tower
A country without minarets
Explaining the rise of anti-immigrant parties
Different groups, different threats
The Mevlana Mosque in Berlin-Kreuzberg
More diversity, less tolerance? The effect of type of cultural diversity on the erosion of tolerance in Swiss municipalities
Reconciling the contact and threat hypotheses
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1 |
| Citation span | 2025 - 2025 (1) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |