In Outsiders at Home: The Politics of American Islamophia, Nazita Lajevardi asks three important questions. To what extent do Muslim Americans face discrimination from legislators, the media, and the general public? How do Muslims view themselves as a group within the US sociopolitical context? And what would it take to reduce discrimination against Muslims? Lajevardi argues that 9/11 and its aftermath led to a dramatic shift in attitudes toward Muslims. Using text analysis, she shows how media outlets and political elites began to talk about Muslims more often in public discourse and with more negative frames, which in turn contributed to more negative assessments of Muslims among the US public. Using a field experiment, she shows that these negative views also result in lower-quality representation by political elites, and with survey data she demonstrates that Muslim Americans are keenly aware of their “exclusion from the American polity” (p. 7).
In America through Foreign Eyes, Jorge Castañeda draws from his experiences as a foreign minister and his time in the United States to present an outsider’s view of America. He takes up questions that other foreign writers have asked, such as whether American “exceptionalism” still exists or whether America’s heyday is more in the rearview mirror. He also explores topics such as the role of the United States in having the world’s first middle class, the status of representative democracy, the role of race and religion, and how the United States has approached various issues from drug policy and immigration to mass incarceration. In each case, Castañeda provides a thoughtful, nuanced discussion. He not only points out areas in which the United States has been exemplary but also some important contradictions. Although he argues that the position of the United States in the world has diminished somewhat, especially in the eyes of others, he ends with a note of optimism for the ability of American civilization to continue to flourish by making the choice to better adapt to a changing, more interconnected world than did prior civilizations.
In many respects, Outsiders at Home and America through Foreign Eyes are studies in contrasts. For one, the primary focus of each book is quite different. Lajevardi’s work considers how Muslim Americans are treated as outsiders within the US context. More specifically, she presents a rich account of how the status of Muslim Americans shifted over time. She details how Muslim Americans coming from the Middle East were granted the category of whiteness and faced less discrimination than other minoritized groups prior to 9/11. However, the events of 9/11 changed this status almost overnight. Suddenly, Muslim Americans were increasingly the object of news coverage, linked to the threat of terrorism, and treated as outsiders whose rights could be limited in the name of security concerns. Castañeda, in contrast, examines how outsiders view the United States and how those perceptions have shifted over the course of history across a range of domains. Throughout the book, he is in conversation with other foreigners who have written about America at different points in US history, such as Tocqueville.
The books are also dramatically different in terms of their theoretical framework and approach. Lajevardi draws from work in public opinion and race and ethnic politics to trace the process through which attitudes toward Muslims came to be more negative in the US context. She discusses how the events of 9/11 created a condition of threat that was linked in the public mind to Muslims, largely given the increase in negative portrayals of Muslims in the media, as well as in communications by legislators and elites. Drawing from work in public opinion and political communication, she argues that this negative communication should in turn lead to more negative views of Muslims among the mass public. As members of a group now treated as outsiders, Lajevardi also expects them to receive lower-quality representation and to be aware of this status. In developing his arguments, Castañeda draws from a combination of personal experience as a diplomat from Mexico in which he interacted with high-level political elites in the United States, his own experiences of living in the United States, his extensive knowledge of history, and his reading of various literatures. His intent is not to develop and present testable hypotheses; rather, he reflects on how the United States has been perceived by others over time, and how it is viewed today.
It should come as no surprise that the empirical approach in both books is starkly different. Lajevardi draws from a wide range of multimethod approaches to test her arguments, including original surveys, survey and field experiments, and text analysis. For example, she develops a novel measurement of Muslim resentment and carefully validates it with public opinion data. She shows the powerful effects of Muslim resentment on outcomes such as support for Donald Trump, feeling thermometers toward Muslims, stereotypes of Muslims, and policies that affect Muslims across 10 surveys. She uses conjoint experiments to show bias toward Muslim candidates for political office among the public; audit experiments demonstrate the lower quality of representation for Muslim Americans among political elites. Lajevardi also conducts a comprehensive text analysis of media coverage of Muslims from 1992 to 2016 to show how coverage has changed over time across three media outlets; she follows this analysis with survey experiments to show how this negative coverage leads to greater Muslim resentment and support for discriminatory policies.
Castañeda’s work is a series of reflections on the United States and its people across multiple dimensions, but through the eyes of one individual. As he notes in the introduction, “This book does not pretend to be a scholarly work, but rather an impressionistic, analytical and intuitive review of what I have learned over more than fifty years of direct contact” (p. 4). For example, in his second chapter, he presents his impressions of the important role the United States played in having the world’s first middle class. He develops this argument in conversation with the work of other foreigners to write about the United States and compares it to nations in Europe, where class differences were historically much greater. Although he recognizes the development of a middle class as a major achievement in early US history, he does not ignore the fact that this only applied to whites. He also traces the growing inequality that has emerged in the United States over time and notes the challenges it poses for the United States, which does not have as robust a social safety net as that of many European countries.
Given these theoretical and empirical approaches, the books also speak to somewhat different, though overlapping, audiences. Lajevardi’s work is primarily geared toward an academic audience in political science and would be an excellent fit for graduate seminars, especially those in race and ethnic politics. However, the book is also written in a way to be accessible for an undergraduate audience. Because Castañeda’s work does not seek to make an original research contribution, it is geared more toward a general audience that might be interested in understanding the United States and its history through a distinct perspective. It would, however, also be a good fit for undergraduate classes.
For all of their differences, the two books also share some similarities. Both are beautifully written and engaging, and the sheer scope of each book is expansive. Outsiders at Home is the most extensive treatment to date of public perceptions of Muslims as held by various actors in the US political system, including the media, elites, and the mass public. It is also one of the few studies to explore how Muslims react to their treatment in the United States. The book is a must read not only for anyone who studies race and ethnic politics, but also for those interested in understanding American politics over the last several decades. America through Foreign Eyes is also impressive in the breadth and depth of topics it covers. In each chapter, it is clear that Castañeda’s impressions have been formed over a long stretch of time and are based on deep engagement with each issue. It is also an important read for the current political moment, given the changing position of the United States in the world.
Both books also open the door to future questions. For example, one of the many troubling findings in Lajevardi’s work is that positive presentations of Muslims in media coverage do not improve attitudes toward the group. This raises the question of what types of interventions might counter the effects of negative communications about Muslims in the press and among elites. Does the lower-quality representation of Muslims by state legislators also occur at the national level? Under what conditions might legislators be more responsive to Muslim American communities? Lajevardi also suggests important directions for future work, especially with respect to examining comparisons across groups, additional representational outcomes, and further probing why there were such big shifts in attitudes about Muslims. Castañeda’s work also leads us to consider what the future holds for the United States over time. Will it ever decide to provide more of a social safety net to address rising income inequality and restore its historic place in having the world’s first middle class? Will the United States continue to be a leader with respect to mass culture and technological innovation? Will it ever solve issues around immigration, or will policy continue to reflect a contradictory mix of laws on the books with little incentive for enforcement? These are just some of the crucial questions raised by these two important books.
