About Article

A growing body of evidence documents that Islamophobia is a significant social issue in the UK. This evidence also reveals an empirical link to “Islamist” terrorism, revealing a nexus between security and the social emergence of prejudice. Drawing on critical approaches to security and applying them to the case of the UK in 2017, this article explores this nexus conceptually and empirically. To do so, it examines the discourses of various governance institutions (including the media, the political elite, and security professionals) as they respond to “Islamist” terrorist events. It argues that these governance institutions individually and collectively – and often unwittingly – stigmatised and securitised “Muslim” identity. The structural emergence (i.e., the institutionalisation) of Islamophobia in the UK, this article contends, can largely be understood through these processes. This article therefore offers an illustration of some of the logics of how prejudice is embedded in societal structures, which has normative implications for how these processes might be successfully contested.