Synopses & Reviews
Public Attitudes Toward Immigration in the United States, France, and Germany explores the causes of public opposition to immigration and support for anti-immigrant political movements in the three industrialized Western countries. Combining sophisticated modeling of recent public-opinion data with analysis of the past 110 years of these nations' immigration history, the book evaluates the effects of cultural marginality, economic self-interest, and contact with immigrants. Though analysis partly confirms each of these three explanations, the author concludes that being a cultural outsider usually drives immigration-related attitudes more than economics or contact do.
Review
"Immigration serves as a lightning rod for populist politics in many liberal democracies and nativism has been rising in Europe and the United States. Yet there is a vast gap in our knowledge of public attitudes toward immigration. By carefully weighing economic and cultural explanations for anti-immigrant attitudes and behavior, Joel Fetzer's book goes a long way towards filling this gap. Anyone who wants to understand the politics of immigration should read this book." Professor James F. Hollifield, Southern Methodist University"Joel S. Fetzer analyses causes, correlations and differences of xenophobic attitudes and anti-immigrant movements in the history of the three most important immigration countries in the Atlantic economy. His book offers chances of learning from the past in order to face challenges of the present." Klaus J. Bade, University of Osnabrueck, Germany"This book is a very concise and insightful comparison of anti-immigrant and nativist feelings in the three countries. Starting from theories of racial relations and of nativism (the French "preference nationale"), he first conducts an historical analysis of immigration flows, nativists feelings and economy since the 1880s in the three countries. Then owing to a quantitative analysis referring to several opinion polls and field researches, he analyses the root causes of anti-immigrant feelings in the 1980s in the three countries among several criteria: poverty, cultural marginality and? perception of cultural threat, belonging to manual or high employment, contacts with immigrants; there is convergence of variables but their weight differ in the three countries according to the cultural context in which they take place, including memory, education and religion." Catherine de Wenden, CNRS (CERI) Paris"Anti-immigrant attitudes are made of the same basic fabric in the United States, in France and in Germany, in spite of their large differences in culture, history and immigration patterns. The decisive factor is resentment against cultural outsiders. Such is the main conclusion of Joel D.Fetzer's study, based on an impressive collection of comparative survey data, and time-series going back to the end of the XIXth century. Even the most set against multivariate analysis will be convinced by the closeness and the accuracy of his demonstration. A well timed book, when immigration is becoming a prominent issue in all Western democracies." Nonna Mayer, CEVIPOF (Centre for Studies of French Political Life), Paris
Synopsis
This study explores the causes of public opposition to immigration and support for anti-immigrant political movements in the three industrialized Western countries. Combining sophisticated modeling of recent public-opinion data with analysis of the last 110 years of these nations' immigration history, the book evaluates the effects of cultural marginality, economic self-interest, and contact with immigrants. Though analysis partly confirms each of these three explanations, the author concludes that being a cultural outsider usually drives immigration-related attitudes more than economics or contact do.
Table of Contents
1. Marginality, economic self-interest, and contact; Part I. Historical Analysis: 2. History of attitudes toward immigration in the United States; 3. History of attitudes toward immigration in France; 4. History of attitudes toward immigration in Germany; Part II. Quantitative Analysis: 5. Over-time opposition to immigration and support for nativist political movements; 6. Recent attitudes toward immigration in the United States; 7. Recent attitudes toward immigration in France; 8. Recent attitudes toward immigration in Germany; 9. Culture, nationality, and the future of nativism.