At the start of the project, the PI, Elisabeth Ivarsflaten, Professor at the University of Bergen, published the monograph, The Struggle for Inclusion: Muslim Minorities and the Democratic Ethos co-authored Paul M. Sniderman, Professor at Stanford University. The book lays out a new conceptual framework for the study of inclusive politics and argues for the need to take research in a new direction. The book was under contract with Chicago University Press prior to the start of the INCLUDE-project, and it was published just as the INCLUDE-project started (2022). The book ends by stating that, "It is time to turn from a narrow concentration on those within the majority public who are bent on exclusion to the much larger number who are open to inclusion. How far are they willing to go? Where do they draw the line? Andy why do they draw it there and not elsewhere?" (Ivarsflaten and Sniderman 2022: p. 151). The book thus sets the conceptual stage for the INCLUDE-project. Making the book and the project known to the scholarly community has been important in the initial phase of the INCLUDE-project. This was done by giving invited talks, guest lectures, and keynote speeches to academic audiences across Europe and the U.S. through book reviews and participation in critical dialogues, and in participation in general audience and stake-holder events, such as a Podcast interview with Democracy Paradox.
While making known the general ideas underpinning the INCLUDE project, the PI successfully recruited the four early career project team members. The 2 Ph D candidates (Ingrid K. Faleide and Soran H. Dahl) and the first postdoctoral candidate (Lise L. Bjånesøy) joined the project in the spring 2022. Recruitment of the final postdoctoral research fellow (Marta R. Eidheim) succeeded in the Fall of 2023.
Sequential data collection and experimental studies started as planned already in the fall 2021 and have been carried out twice annually as planned. Initially, the PI collected data with international peers and as the early career team joined, they have also joined the data collection efforts. The data collected has been analyzed and presented to peers at both internal and international meetings and conferences.
Three articles are already published based on the material collected so far and one of them in a top-tier journal (the British Journal of Political Science). 6 additional article manuscripts containing important scientific discoveries are in advanced stages of preparation or under review with highly reputable top-tier journals.
One important headline result so far with direct policy implications concerns handshaking controversies (Ivarsflaten, Elisabeth, Marc Helbling, Richard Traunmüller, and Paul M. Sniderman, 2024, "Value Conflicts Revisited: Muslims, Gender Equality, and Gestures of Respect," British Journal of Political Science). In the last decades we have seen a number of controversies over handshaking in European democracies that involve Muslims. Many Muslims are happy to shake hands, but some observant Muslims believe it is wrong to touch members of the opposite sex who are not relatives. The question is how handshake refusals should be handled in liberal democracies. Abstractly formulated, the logic of conflict over gender and handshaking is strict. The traditionally observant Muslim is asked to do what their convictions condemn as wrong, shaking the hands of a member of the opposite sex. The non-Muslim majority is asked to accept what many of them condemn as wrong, treating women differently and worse. When confronted with this conflict, public authorities in Europe have often insisted on conformity with the handshaking practice. In this study, we find through experimental studies that introducing a substitute gesture of respect—putting the hand on the heart—is a viable alternative solution.
The results of the handshaking article have been communicated to academic audiences, policy-makers and stakeholders both nationally and internationally, including at a meeting with stakeholders in the EU in Brussels. The project has issued a policy brief which specifically recommends that public authorities in Europe should not insist on handshaking. They should instead insist on gestures to signal respect. Alternative gestures of respect, such as touching the heart, should be allowed.
