Unequal Recognition: State–Religion Regimes and the Institutional Incorporation of Alevi and Sunni Organisations in Austria and Germany

Why do religious organisations emerging from the same country-of-origin migration field come to occupy different positions in European systems of public recognition? This article addresses that question by comparing Alevi organisations and Diyanet-linked Sunni organisations in Austria and Germany from 2000 to July 2026. It develops a nested documentary comparison of Austria and three German Länder—North Rhine-Westphalia, Hesse, and Hamburg—drawing on legislation, constitutional and administrative-court decisions, ministerial materials, and state–religion agreements. Rather than treating recognition as a binary legal status, the article approaches it as a multidimensional institutional relationship. It distinguishes organisational legibility from institutional acceptability and shows how transnational infrastructure can function both as a resource and as a source of regulatory exposure. Diyanet-linked organisations benefit from clerical capacity, organisational coordination, and cross-border support, yet these same ties may invite host-state scrutiny of autonomy and foreign-state influence. Alevi organisations are less exposed to that autonomy test, but they face a different challenge: public authorities must translate contested Alevi self-understandings into workable legal categories without adjudicating theology. The comparison further shows that recognition is temporally structured. Legal systems may impose demanding conditions at the point of cooperation, while courts can limit later attempts to alter established arrangements without a sufficient legal and evidentiary basis. Unequal incorporation is therefore best explained through the interaction of receiving-state recognition architectures, organisational form, transnational linkage, and religious self-definition, rather than through demographic size or organisational resources alone.