Public Attitudes toward Immigration in the United States, France, and Germany

This book explores the causes of public opposition to immigration in three industrialized Western countries.

Joel S. Fetzer (Author)

9780521786799, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 4 September 2000

272 pages, 12 b/w illus. 19 tables
23 x 15.3 x 1.8 cm, 0.374 kg

"This concise, clearly written, well-documented study, fortified by numerous charts and a useful glossary and laced with good sense and erudition, should reach an audience beyond the scholarly world." Choice March 2001

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 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.

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.

Subject Areas: Political economy [KCP]