Facing Janus: Local Government, Muslim Leadership and Mosque Regulation in Europe

Abstract

This dissertation investigates variation in state-mosque relations at the subnational level in Europe. I make two interventions in the literature on the state regulation of mosque-communities the West. First, I examine the behavior of state officials and mosque leaders in tandem, explaining how each set of actors responds to the other. Second, I focus in particular on Muslim elites, an understudied cast of political actors, demonstrating their dual roles as community representatives and state interlocutors.

In a contentious political environment, I argue that mosque leaders act to protect the reputation of their institutions before the general public. The best strategy for doing so, however, depends on the partisanship of local officials and how national policies are implemented subnationally. These practices can be categorized along a spectrum from cooperative to combative, reflecting how state actors present and enforce regulations to appeal to their core voters.

In cooperative contexts, typically led by left-wing officials, mosque leaders engage with regulatory frameworks, viewing the state as a source of legitimacy and reputational protection. In combative contexts, associated with right-wing partisans, mosque leaders avoid the state in order to minimize the risk of public criticism from state officials who may frame mosques as dangerous or untrustworthy.

I test this theory in the Belgian regions of Brussels, Wallonia and Flanders, and the Swiss cantons of Vaud and Zurich. In both Belgium and Switzerland, I study the policy of formal state recognition for religious institutions. Analyzing the same policy across all cases highlights how state officials diverge in its implementation and how religious elites respond within a shared institutional framework. I adopt a mixed-methods approach, combining medium-N analysis of mosque recognition data, semi-structured interviews with officials and religious elites, and qualitative case studies.

Ultimately, this dissertation explains why state-mosque relations take different forms across - and within - subnational contexts. These variations are shaped by the partisanship of state actors and their corresponding regulatory environments, as well as by mosque leaders’ strategies to protect the reputation of their institutions. These insights have broader implications for understanding how Muslim institutions navigate public visibility, how local politics mediate national policies, and how securitization shapes the political behavior of state and non-state actors in Europe.