Which peer‑reviewed studies examine support for political domination or violent extremism among Muslim populations and what do they find?
Executive summary
A body of peer‑reviewed research—ranging from large‑N cross‑national surveys to experimental psychology—examines attitudes among Muslim populations toward political violence and domination and consistently finds complexity: measurable sympathy for political violence exists in some contexts and among some subgroups, but it is neither uniform nor explained solely by religion itself [1] [2] [3]. Multiple papers stress that social context, discrimination, ideology, and psychological processes (not “Islam” per se) predict support for violent or dominationist attitudes [4] [5] [6].
1. Large‑N comparative surveys: religion correlates, not determinism
Cross‑national survey analyses show that Muslims are not monolithic in attitudes toward political violence; religion interacts with country context and individual religiosity, and active religious membership sometimes correlates with increased willingness to endorse political violence—but this correlation is also present for Christians in the same datasets, undermining claims of a unique Islam–violence linkage (Adamczyk & LaFree) [1]. Broad survey work using Pew data across dozens of Muslim‑majority countries documents wide heterogeneity in support for violent practices (from near‑zero in some places to substantial minorities in others), with education and religiosity exerting divergent effects across countries [2].
2. Discrimination, grievance, and radicalization: correlation with support for extremism
Several peer‑reviewed studies find a positive association between perceived or actual anti‑Muslim discrimination and indicators of radicalization or support for violent extremism, although the quantitative evidence is mixed and sensitive to measurement choices; group‑level perceived discrimination appears especially prone to politicization and links to violent attitudes in some analyses [4]. Cross‑country and group‑level literature connecting minority discrimination to political violence is invoked repeatedly, and newer work models how government‑level religious discrimination predicts intergroup societal violence in Western democracies [6].
3. The role of Islamist ideology and organizational framing
Research that separates ordinary believers from activist fringes finds Islamist ideology and organization matter: Islamist groups can frame grievances into action frames that legitimize violence for a minority, and studies using European survey data show that ideological commitments associated with radical Islamist framings predict greater justification of terrorism compared with ordinary religious belief alone [3]. Scholarship cautions that extremist organizations’ ideological work—not faith broadly defined—is the key mobilizing force for violent action [3] [7].
4. Psychological mechanisms: threat, need for closure, and causal tests
Experimental and preregistered work has begun to test causal psychological pathways: a multi‑study program published in PNAS shows that perceived cultural threat increases need for cognitive closure (a black‑and‑white cognitive style), which in turn raises violent‑extremist outcomes in samples including Muslim majority and minority populations—providing causal evidence for a pathway from perceived intergroup threat to extremist attitudes [5] [8]. That work implies interventions addressing threat perception and openness to ambiguity could reduce vulnerability to extremist narratives [5].
5. Heterogeneity, gender, and sociopolitical context matter
Across the literature, country‑level factors (dominant religion, state repression, economic development), gendered dynamics (masculinity and remasculinization narratives examined in newer work), and local political grievances shape who expresses support for political domination or violence; meta‑analyses and reviews emphasize that tens of millions of Muslims worldwide hold diverse views and that most communities actively reject violence, even while small fractions may be susceptible under specific conditions [2] [7] [9].
6. What the literature does and does not show—policy implications and limits
Peer‑reviewed studies collectively reject a simplistic “Islam causes extremism” narrative and instead trace multiple interacting causes—discrimination and grievances, Islamist organizational framing, local sociopolitical conditions, and individual cognitive dispositions—that produce elevated support for political violence in some contexts [1] [4] [3] [5]. Caveats: survey measures of “support” do not equate to perpetration, social desirability and sampling biases complicate inferences, and many papers explicitly note limitations in causal generalization across regions and subgroups [1] [4] [2].