Following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Islamophobia exploded across ‘the West,’ but particularly in Europe. While Muslims were suffering attacks across Europe, the experience of Muslims in Latin America was markedly different, with almost no perceptible rise in Islamophobia. In the roughly 10 year period between the attacks of September 11, and the start of the Syrian civil war, why did Islamophobia rise in ‘the West,’ but not in Latin America? This article attempts to answer this question through an analysis of the civilizational identities of both regions, in particular the countries of Denmark and Argentina. While the core of Denmark’s identity is being part of the ‘the West,’ which was ‘at war’ with the Muslim world during this period, Argentina defines its identity in opposition to Western countries like Britain and the U.S., leaving it outside ‘the West,’ and Islam not seen as a threat.

The field of migration studies has long suffered from a weak theoretical base upon which to ground its work. This article proposes a new theoretical approach -network analysis of international migration systems -to serve as a unifying theory for the study of migration. This new approach seeks to combine the best elements of the compatible approaches of network theory and the migration systems.. This will also allow scholars to engage in theoretically informed concept formation and variable identification, allowing for an interdisciplinary cumulation of knowledge, thereby allowing scholars to predict future migration flows and assist in making meaningful migration policy.