century. Geneva, in particular, has played a major role as a hub for meeting, organizing and gaining access to relevant international political actors, such as the League of Nations and later the UN. After the Second World War, this community increasingly included Islamic activists from groups such as the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, who had fled persecution in their home countries. Over the years, Switzerland dealt with a diversifying and growing range of Islamist actors, which had either established a presence in Switzerland or affected Swiss interests abroad. Besides the Brotherhood, these actors included post-revolutionary Iran and its proxies, North African Islamists and, at last, Jihadists.

This research project investigates the approaches and strategies of the authorities in dealing with the emergence of political Islam in Switzerland. The time horizon of the study extends from the arrival of Islamic activists in the 1950s to the 2000s when political Islam or Islamism became a central issue of Swiss domestic and foreign policy, which also stirred lively public debates. It is based on a comprehensive study of records in Swiss archives, which have become accessible in recent years but have remained unexamined by scholars so far.

The focus of the project is on political Islam and not on violent extremism, which only became dominant in the perception of political Islam after September 11, 2001. In order to analyze government policies, the project draws on theories of institutional learning as well as securitization theory, which provides a framework to analyze how political issues are increasingly framed as matters of security. In this vein, many scholars argue that since 9/11, a "securitization of Islam" has been taking place, where Muslims have become to be perceived primarily as a threat to security.

The project, however, highlights that there were considerable differences of opinion between various branches of government in choosing the right approach towards political Islam, which are not sufficiently reflected in the existing literature. The security services took a more critical stance towards political Islam and political activities by foreigners in general. The foreign policy experts in the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs, on the other hand, favoured engagement over confrontation with political Islam and claimed primacy in dealing with it. Thus, they diplomatized the issue rather than securitizing it, allowing it Switzerland to increase its international profile as a mediator with direct access to the conflict parties.