A Perceived Clash of Civilizations?: Comparing Civilizationalist Views between Majority Members and Muslim Minority Members in Belgium.

In Western European societies, public discourse surrounding multiculturalism is increasingly taking on a civilizational tone, characterized by the notion of a fundamental divide between the West and Islam. This narrative often produces distorted and essentialized images of both, leading members of the majority and Muslim minority group to take up increasingly hostile positions towards each other. Consequently, it becomes crucial to study how such narratives resonate among both groups. This paper argues that the adoption of "civilizationalist views"—the belief in the inherent incompatibility of Islam and the West—emerges similarly among majority and minority members as a response to experiences of social resentment. These views challenge the political status quo by offering a coherent ingroup identity and identifying a distinct, antagonistic outgroup, thus providing ontological security to those who feel culturally or politically marginalized by the liberal order. The goal of this paper is twofold. First, this paper will provide an extensive theorization on how experiences of social resentment can form a breeding ground for a civilizational interpretation of intergroup relations. Identifying civilizational narratives as “counter-hegemonial” to liberal democratic efforts to uphold cultural diversity, we hypothesize that these should especially resonate among those who experience political disenchantment, anger and anxiety towards the political status quo. Second, we empirically test if social resentment can form a common explanation for civilizationalist beliefs among both populations. To measure this, this study provides a novel, comparable measurement that directly assesses the extent to which both majority members and Muslim minority members believe in a fundamental clash between the West and Islam. Specifically, we will focus on comparing native Belgians to Belgians of Turkish and Moroccan descent.