Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/161040 
Year of Publication: 
2016
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 10417
Publisher: 
Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
This paper studies electoral effects of exposure to religious minorities in the context of Muslim communities in Germany. Using unique data on mosques' construction and election results across municipalities over the period 1980-2013, we find that the presence of a mosque increases political extremism. To establish causality, we exploit arguably exogenous variation in the distance of the election date to the month of Ramadan, when Muslim communities become more visible to the general public. Our findings show that vote shares for both right- and left-wing extremist parties become larger when the election date is closer to Ramadan. We additionally show that the change in minority salience also increases the likelihood of politically motivated crimes against Muslims.
Subjects: 
minority salience
Muslims
voting
conflict
JEL: 
D72
D74
J15
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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