At a time when immigration and ethnic issues are hotly disputed across Europe, and challenged by minorities and xenophobes, this collection presents substantive cross-national analysis on the qualities of contentious politics. It offers conceptual approaches to migration and "ethnic relations" politics; it provides empirical analyses based on a method of systematic cross-national comparison; and, it addresses the emergence of the transnational level of political authority, its implications for national and sub-national politics, and how it is challenged by social movements.

From international press coverage of the French government's attempt to prevent Muslims from wearing headscarves to terrorist attacks in Madrid and the United States, questions of cultural identity and pluralism are at the center of the world's most urgent events and debates. Presenting an unprecedented wealth of empirical research garnered during ten years of a cross-cultural project, Contested Citizenship addresses these fundamental issues by comparing collective actions by migrants, xenophobes, and antiracists in Germany, Britain, France, the Netherlands, and Switzerland....

From international press coverage of the French government's attempt to prevent Muslims from wearing headscarves to terrorist attacks in Madrid and the United States, questions of cultural identity and pluralism are at the center of the world's most urgent events and debates. Presenting an unprecedented wealth of empirical research garnered during ten years of a cross-cultural project, Contested Citizenship addresses these fundamental issues by comparing collective actions by migrants, xenophobes, and antiracists in Germany, Britain, France, the Netherlands, and Switzerland....

This book investigates an important source of the European Union s recent legitimacy problems. It shows how European integration is debated in mass media, and how this affects democratic inclusiveness. Advancing integration implies a shift in power between governments, parliaments, and civil society. Behind debates over Europe s democratic deficit is a deeper concern: whether democratic politics can perform effectively under conditions of Europeanization and globalization. This study is based on a wealth of unique data from seven European countries, combining newspaper content analyses, an...