Economic downturns plus terror shocks let anti-Muslim politics capture liberal states.

Evidence

FORTRESS EUROPE Unsettled by its inability to integrate its Muslim populations and impatient with the Muslims’ refusal to assimilate, Europe dispenses with its relatively recent experience with liberalism. Global economic downturn and acts of jihadist terror provoke Europeans to embrace a highly xenophobic style of politics. European politics comes to be dominated by anti-Muslim ideologues, who adopt a program of organized hostility to Muslims and to already-established Muslim populations in Europe. The practical manifestations of the new reaction in Europe vary between some combination of isolation and draconian police controls at the least extreme end of a spectrum; to mass expulsion at the most extreme. Factors leading to this outcome include growth in alarm at the socio-economic problems associated with the Muslim populations; a break down of the ideology of multiculturalism and political taboos; and incidents of terrorism as mobilizing shock events. — Michael A. Reynolds and Thomas D. Grant, The Future of Europe and Its Muslims, 58

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the moral-panic and ‘crisis bigotry’ material already collected on how shocks license state scapegoating of out-groups.
• SEED: Essay angle:自由主义 is a fair-weather commitment — trace how quickly ‘relatively recent experience with liberalism’ is jettisoned once integration fatigue sets in.