Explaining Islamophobia in Australia: partisanship, intergroup contact, and local context

ABSTRACT Recent events have placed a spotlight on Muslim-majority relations in Australia, yet research on majority-group Australians’ attitudes toward Muslims is scarce. Drawing on recent survey data augmented with local census data and a web-scraped listing of Australian mosques, and using the tools of multi-group confirmatory factor analysis (MGCFA) and multi-group structural equation modelling (MGSEM), this article seeks to explain Islamophobia in Australia. It finds that political party identification, contact with Muslims, and the local prevalence of Muslims all shape Islamophobic attitudes among majority-group Australians. Notably, the effects of intergroup contact and local context vary across different segments of the Australian electorate, with contact and context exerting greater effects among supporters of the Australian Labor Party compared to the Liberal Party–National Party coalition.