Book Description

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.