Comparing Integration of Muslims in Europe: The Cases of the Netherlands and Sweden

The Middle East has seen increased violence and revolutions in recent years, producing a surge of millions of refugees, many of whom made their way to Europe. In addition to fueling far-right populist parties, this phenomenon has challenged existing norms of religious freedom, toleration, and churchstate relations in Europe. I was eager to see how different countries handled this new Muslim minority. I chose to compare the response of both Sweden and the Netherlands. Unlike Eastern Europe, the Netherlands and Sweden share a long history of democracy and religious tolerance. However, Sweden differed from the Netherlands in that until 2000 the Lutheran church was the established church, whereas the Netherlands is characterized by “principled pluralism” of Protestant, Catholic, and a large non-religious sector of society. My findings indicate that, despite having less experience with Muslim immigrants, Sweden has done a much better job. The country refrained from passing laws that restricted religious practice by Muslims and mobilized the substantial infrastructure of the Swedish church to integrate new Muslim immigrants, whereas the Netherlands has restricted certain Muslim practices and the churches have lacked the resources in civil society to support integration