When Interest Doesn’t Turn into Action: Discrimination, Group Identification, and Muslim Political Engagement in the Post-9/11 Era

Abstract

This article examines the effect of exposure to post-9/11 stigmatization on various types of Muslim political engagement, using a mixed-methods approach that combines propensity score matching analysis of data from the Muslims in the American Public Square (MAPS) survey administered immediately after 9/11 with experimental data of the U.S. Muslim population. I find that increased discrimination results in increased political interest but has a neutral or dampening effect on political participation. I use experimental data to argue that group identification acts as a partial mediator in this relationship, especially in accounting for the increase in political interest in response to discrimination.