Terrified: How Anti-Muslim Fringe Organizations Became Mainstream

183 Pages·2014·2.12 MB·English

by  Christopher Bail

TERRIFIED
TERRIFIED
How Anti-Muslim Fringe Organizations Became Mainstream
CHRISTOPHER BAIL
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS
PRINCETON AND OXFORD
Copyright © 2015 by Princeton University Press
Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540
In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, 6 Oxford Street, Woodstock, Oxfordshire OX20 1TW
press.princeton.edu
All Rights Reserved
ISBN 978-0-691-15942-3
Library of Congress Control Number: 2014947502
British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available
This book has been composed in Franklin Gothic and Charis
Printed on acid-free paper ∞
Printed in the United States of America
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
CONTENTS
List of Illustrations ix
List of Tables xi
Acknowledgments xiii
Acronyms xvii
CHAPTER 1 1
The Cultural Environment of Collective Behavior 1
How Civil Society Organizations Create Cultural Change 5
The Argument 9
Studying Cultural Change with Big Data 11
Outline of the Book 12
CHAPTER 2 17
From the Slave Trade to the September 11th Attacks 17
Civil Society Organizations and Islam in Early American History 19
The Middle East Conflict 20
The Emergence of the Mainstream 23
The Foundation of the Fringe 28
CHAPTER 3 33
The September 11th Attacks and the Rise of Anti-Muslim Fringe Organizations 33
Shaping Shared Understandings of Islam in the Media 37
Making the News 38
Why Fringe Organizations Fascinate 39
Studying the Evolution of Shared Understandings of Islam in the Mass Media 42
Islam in the American Media, 2001–3 43
The Fearful Fringe 46
CHAPTER 4 53
The Rip Tide: Mainstream Muslim Organizations Respond 53
Condemning Terrorism 54
Condemning the Fringe 58
Splintering within the Mainstream 61
CHAPTER 5 67
Fringe Benefits: How Anti-Muslim Organizations Became Mainstream 67
Fringe Networks 68
From the Fringe to the Mainstream 72
How Fringe Organizations Became Authorities about Islam 76
CHAPTER 6 87
The Return of the Repressed in the Policy Process 87
Casting Mainstream Muslim Organizations as Radicals 89
Marginalizing Mainstream Muslims from the Policy Process 95
Barack Hussein Obama: The 2008 Election 97
Local Politics and the Growth of Anti-Shariʾah Legislation 99
Training Counterterrorism Agents 104
CHAPTER 7 109
Civil Society Organizations and Public Understandings of Islam 109
The Struggle to Shape American Public Attitudes toward Islam 110
Using Big Data to Study How Civil Society Organizations Shape Public
114
Understandings of Islam
Anti-Mosque Activity 121
CHAPTER 8 131
The Evolution of Cultural Environments 131
Lost in Translation 133
Lessons Learned 134
The Evolution of Cultural Environments 139
METHODOLOGICAL APPENDIX 141
Sampling Civil Society Organizations and Press Releases 141
Mapping Cultural Environments 145
Measuring Social Psychological Processes 148
Tracing the Evolution of Culture Using Plagiarism Detection Software 149
Alternative Explanations of Cultural Change 151
In-Depth Interviews 156
Notes 159
References 189
Index 213
ILLUSTRATIONS
1. Civil society organizations vying to influence shared understandings of Islam in
the U.S. media, 2001–3 44
2. Media influence of mainstream Muslim organizations, 2001–3 59
3. Evolution of the cultural environment inhabited by civil society organizations
competing to shape shared understandings of Islam, in the U.S. media, 2001–
8 71
4. Contributions (in millions of U.S. dollars) to seven fringe organizations, 2001–
11 75
5. Percentage of Americans expressing unfavorable views of Islam in twenty-five
polls conducted between 2001 and 2011 113
6. Percentage of tweets about civil society organizations with positive sentiment,
2010–12 121
7. Anti-mosque activity in the United States, 2005–12 123
8. Number of Muslim American terrorism suspects or perpetrators, in U.S. court
cases, 2001–12 129
9. Cultural environment inhabited by civil society organizations competing to
shape shared understandings of Islam, 2001–3 147
TABLES
1. Anti-Shariʾah Bills Introduced in State Legislatures, 2010–12 103
2. Characteristics of Facebook Audiences of Twelve Civil Society
Organizations 117
3. Regression Models That Assess Alternative Explanations of Cultural
Change 152–153
4. Sampling Strategy for In-Depth Qualitative Interviews 157
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
THIS IS A BOOK ABOUT HOW CIVIL SOCIETY ORGANIZATIONS shape the evolution of public
discourse about social problems after major crises such as the September 11th
attacks. One of my principal arguments is that civil society organizations achieve
most influence upon public discourse when the evolutionary forces that made them
powerful become invisible. If this book influences how people think about the
evolution of public discourse, it will be thanks to the many colleagues,
universities, funding agencies, family, and friends who helped make this work
possible.
This book was first conceived underground—between the labyrinthine walls of
Harvard’s Pusey Library. My self-imposed exile was part of an artless attempt to
impress my mentor, Michèle Lamont, by reading every social science manuscript
within sight. With characteristic brilliance and good charm, Michèle soon
convinced me that the most important discoveries are made above ground, in the
wondrously messy world of empirical observation and—perish the thought—
interaction with other social scientists. I soon found myself enjoying eclectic
conversations with Orlando Patterson, whose encyclopedic wit nurtured my
burgeoning interest in public discourse about Islam. William Julius Wilson’s
legendary enthusiasm emboldened me to attempt a wholly unreasonable
dissertation—in both scope and substance. I was therefore fortunate to convince
Jocelyn Viterna to serve on my dissertation committee; she helped me focus my
broad interests within the literature on collective behavior with generous
enthusiasm and acumen. Yet it was Mary Waters who helped me realize the
metamorphosis of my dissertation into this book, and the near total
transformation that such efforts require.
As is perhaps common, my education in graduate school stretched far beyond
my dissertation committee—and so too the family of people who inspired this
book. I was particularly fortunate to learn from Jason Beckfield, Neil Gross, and
the inimitable Stan Lieberson. I also enjoyed the wisdom and collegiality of Mary
Brinton, Frank Dobbin, Peter Hall, Sandy Jencks, Tamara Kay, Gary King, Peter
Marsden, Rob Sampson, and Chris Winship. I am likewise very grateful that
Andreas Wimmer’s sojourn within Harvard’s sociology department coincided with
my time there, since he remains one of my most trusted critics to this day. This
book also benefitted from conversations with many other graduate students at
Harvard: among many others, Cybelle Fox, Marco Gonzalez, David Harding,
Simone Ispa-Landa, Kevin Lewis, Mark Pachucki, Lauren Rivera, Wendy Roth, Pat
Sharkey, Graziella Silva, Cat Turco, and Natasha Warikoo.