In this study, we set out to explain anti-Muslim attitudes in the Netherlands. Although the presence and immigration of Muslims have become widely discussed, there is little systematic evidence about the determinants underlying anti-Muslim attitudes. Using data from the Social and Cultural Developments in the Netherlands (SOCON) survey (2005, 2006), containing a more detailed measurement of anti-Muslim attitudes, we tested two contradictory mechanisms, derived from ethnic competition theory and intergroup contact theory. Results from hierarchical structural equation modelling indicate that the relative outgroup size induces both intergroup friendship contact as well as perceptions of ethnic threat. However, only the latter turned out to affect anti-Muslim attitudes directly. Moreover, our findings revealed that contact with colleagues belonging to ethnic minority groups reduces negative attitudes towards Muslims and mediates the effect of individuallevel determinants on anti-Muslim attitudes. The complementary nature of both ethnic competition theory and intergroup contact theory is illustrated by negative correlation between both mediating mechanisms, as well as the support for a curvilinear relationship between outgroup size and perceived ethnic threat.

Support for radical right parties has grown rapidly in many Western countries over the past few decades. In recent years, many studies have addressed the relationship between the presence of ethnic minorities in people's living environment and their support for a radical right party, but consensus is hard to find as to how ethnic minority density is related to support for the radical right, let alone why. In this contribution, we demonstrate that in The Netherlands, ethnic minority density is positively related to the likelihood to vote for the Party for Freedom. This is particularly the case when the size of the minority group exceeds 15 per cent of the total neighbourhood population. We could establish this relationship by using the Dutch 1Vandaag Opinion Panel data set, a unique large-scale, individual-level data set comprising 21,200 native Dutch respondents living in 3,068 different neighbourhoods. We enriched this data set with contextual information derived from Statistics Netherlands. The reason why ethnic minority density is linked to support for the radical right is that these residents see non-Western migrants as a threat for their neighbourhood. This is particularly true for residents who do not mingle with their non-coethnic neighbours.

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In this study we describe differences of the ethnic majorities' attitudes toward Muslims across Western countries. Using data from the Pew Global Attitudes Survey (2005), we were able to increase and test cross-cultural comparability of anti-Muslim attitudes. We constructed a single factor CFA model with three indicators, which was tested for scalar equivalence. Our results indicate that anti-Muslim attitudes differ significantly across the countries in our analysis. Germany and the Netherlands turned out to display relatively high levels of anti-Muslim attitudes, whereas these levels were relatively low in Great-Britain and the USA. We conclude our study with giving some post-hoc explanations for the differences found across countries. Keywords Anti-Muslim attitudes • Cross-cultural research • Measurement equivalence 1 Introduction and research questionPrevious research on out-group derogation in Western countries has been mainly focused on ethnic minorities, refugees or immigrants in general (e.g., Scheepers et al. 2002;Mclaren and Johnson 2007;Zick et al. 2008). Since a relatively large proportion of the ethnic minority population is Muslim (estimates range from 7 to 15 million Muslims in Europe) (Zolberg and Woon 1999;Fetzer and Soper 2003), it is rather remarkable that only a few studies

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