Labor Market Outcomes for Middle Eastern Immigrants in the Aftermath of the September 11th Attacks

Media reports all over the USA reported that a wave of Islamophobia had gripped the USA after the September 11, 2001 attacks. It seemed as though the American population were blaming not the radicals but the Middle Easterners and the Muslims in general for the inhumane act. Some reports even suggested a new sort of McCarthyism in the USA but this time against the Middle Eastern populace. This paper investigates whether such discrimination transformed itself in the US labor market by conducting an econometric analysis, taking Becker’s taste for discrimination theory as its theoretical basis. It first analyzes whether there was a significant change in wage differentials between Middle Eastern population groups compared to native Americans pre and post 2001. Secondly, it accomplishes a regional analysis to see whether the populations from certain Middle Eastern regions were discriminated more than other regions. Lastly, the paper examines other labor market outcomes such as labor force participation rates and unemployment rates, to determine whether discrimination was present in other avenues and to provide an all encompassing picture of Middle Eastern immigrants in the US labor market before and after the attack of September 11th

How the use of language shapes which Islamic groupsWesterners support

The US faces a complicated foreign policy environment in the Middle East, with a number of Muslim groups and actors involved, some seeing US support, some working in opposition. In new research, Mujtaba Isani and Daniel Silverman examine how Islamic cues influence the opinion of those in the West towards such groups. They find that such cues – for example, Shari’a law being a policy goal – do matter, and that the degree to which is heavily influenced by citizens’ partisanship

Conspiracy Theory Beliefs and Political Trust: The Moderating Role of Political Communication

A plentitude of research has analyzed citizens' belief in conspiracy theories and its individual‐level correlates. Yet, the effects of (political) context factors on the causes and effects of individual belief in conspiracy theories are still neglected. However, such context should be especially relevant when it comes to the impact of one’s belief in conspiracy theories on one's political preference. In this article, we argue that the communication of governmental actors exerts a moderating influence on the link leading from a belief in conspiracy theories to political attitudes. In a nutshell, the belief in conspiracy theories should make citizens less likely to distrust their government - and the political system in general - in contexts where these theories are shared or at least publicly represented by governmental actors. Using two original data sets with data from Germany, Poland, and Jordan (Study 1) and data from Germany, Poland, Sweden, and France (Study 2), we test our argument based on an overall sample of about 10,000 cases. Our results indicate that higher degrees of generic conspiracy theories beliefs are associated with higher levels of political distrust across countries. Yet, confirming our argument, such an effect takes place less strongly in those countries in which governmental actors use conspiracy theories as a political communication strategy