Incorporating Muslim migrants in western nation states – a comparison of the United Kingdom, France, and Germany

This article analyses how nation states respond to religious diversity produced by migration. Drawing on research results from a comparative macro-sociological study on the incorporation of Muslims in the United Kingdom, France, and Germany, it is argued that both the claims of recognition and the modes of symbolic and organizational incorporation are shaped by varying institutional arrangements of political organization, collective identity, and religion. Yet recent convergences in the development of multicultural forms of incorporation and the inclusion of religion as a legitimate category of identity in the public sphere suggest that these institutional arrangements are equally transformed under the influence of transnational discourses of human rights.