Joel S. Fetzer Papers, 1983-2017

Printable guide [HTML]

Summary

Abstract:
The collection includes research materials that Joel Fetzer used to write four of his books: Muslims and the State in Britain, France and Germany (2004), Luxembourg as an Immigration Success Story: The Grand Duchy in Pan-European Perspective (2011), Confucianism, Democratization, and Human Rights in Taiwan (2013), and Open Borders and International Migration Policy: The Effects of Unrestricted Immigration in the United States, France, and Ireland (2015). Items include interview notes, audiocassettes and compact discs of interviews, correspondence, and printed reference materials.
Extent:
6.14 Linear Feet (8 boxes)
Language:
Materials are in German, French, English, Spanish, Mandarin, Taiwanese, and Luxembourgish.
Preferred citation:

[Box/folder# or item name], Joel S. Fetzer papers, Collection no. 0003, Special Collections and University Archives, University Libraries, Pepperdine University.

Background

Scope and content:

The collection includes research materials that Joel Fetzer used to write three of his books: Muslims and the State in Britain, France and Germany (2004), Luxembourg as an Immigration Success Story: The Grand Duchy in Pan-European Perspective (2011), Confucianism, Democratization, and Human Rights in Taiwan (2013), and Open Borders and International Migration Policy: The Effects of Unrestricted Immigration in the United States, France, and Ireland (2015).

Research materials come from Fetzer's travels through Germany, France, and England in 2001, Luxembourg in 2008, and Taiwan. The collection contains audiocassettes or compact discs of interviews and handwritten notes from these interviews; promotional and informational pamphlets for countries visited; newspaper clippings; scholarly and governmental articles; and correspondence between Fetzer, religious leaders, and government officials.

Biographical / historical:

Joel S. Fetzer was born on November 13, 1965, in Jacksonville, Florida. After his father, a Naval intelligence officer, was transferred to the Pentagon in Washington DC in 1970, Fetzer spent most of his childhood in the nearby suburb of Woodbridge, Virginia. He studied abroad at the Universities of Paris (France) and Manheim (Germany), then graduated summa cum laude from Cornell University with a Bachelor of Arts in Government and English in 1988. By 1996, he had received a Master of Arts, Master of Philosophy, and Ph.D. in Political Science from Yale University. While at Yale, he was awarded the Ebert Dissertation Fellowship from the Friedrich Ebert Foundation of Bonn, Germany, and the Peace Scholar Fellowship from the United States Institute of Peace.

From 1996 to 1997, Fetzer worked as a visiting faculty member at Pepperdine University; the next year (1997 to 1998) he did his postdoctoral research at the University of Southern California. He subsequently became an assistant professor at Central Michigan University from 1998 to 2000, and a visiting scholar at the University of Osnabrück (Germany) in the spring of 2001. In 2001 he returned to Pepperdine University as a Professor in Social Science and Associate Professor in Political Science. His courses at Pepperdine focus on East Asia, immigration, comparative European politics, American people and politics, and urban development. His career has included additional research grants and fellowships from the German Marshall Fund of the United States, the American Political Science Association, the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion, and the Gilder Lehman Institute of American History/Columbia University Library.

Dr. Joel S. Fetzer is the author of numerous publications on comparative immigration politics and on religion and political behavior. His trips to Germany, France, and England in 2001, Luxembourg in 2008, and Taiwan provided source material for multiple books.

In 2000, he wrote Public Attitudes toward Immigration in the United States, France, and Germany. He co-authored a book with J. Christopher Soper in 2004 titled Muslims and the State in Britain, France and Germany. The book explores each state's response to Muslims' religious demands in the areas of accommodation of religious practices and teaching in public schools, the provision of state funding for Islamic schools, and the regulation of mosque building. Their work relies on historical and contemporary secondary literature, interviews with religious and political leaders, and the authors' analysis of national public opinion survey data, some of which was commissioned for their book.

His research from Luxembourg prompted him to write Luxembourg as an Immigration Success Story: The Grand Duchy in Pan-European Perspective in 2011. The book examines Luxembourg's successful management of its immigration policy. The book draws on personal interviews with Luxembourg's government officials, immigration scholars, immigrants, and human-rights activists. Fetzer documents integration of the foreign-born and compares Luxembourg's situation with that of other European Union countries to discuss explanations of the success of its immigration policies.

He also co-authored a book with J. Christopher Soper, titled Confucianism, Democratization, and Human Rights in Taiwan, in 2012. The purpose of this book is to integrate the philosophical and political ideologies of Confucianism and Democracy and to explain that it is possible for them to coexist in the political sphere of Asian countries such as Taiwan.

Acquisition information:
The collection was donated by Joel Fetzer in three parts. The Germany, France, and England materials were donated in 2008, the Luxembourg materials were donated on August 8, 2011, the Taiwanese and Mandarin materials were donated on January 2, 2013, and the materials on open borders were donated in 2017.
Arrangement:

Original order and original series designation was maintained with the collection. Current folder titles are essentially the same as the original folder titles, but the formatting has been standardized for ease of reading. Names of interviewees and locations of interviews have been added where missing in the original folder titles. The collection is organized in the following series: Series 1. Muslims and the State in Britain, France and Germany ; Series 2. Luxembourg as an Immigration Success Story: The Grand Duchy in Pan-European Perspective ; Series 3. Confucianism Democratization and Human Rights in Taiwan., and Series 4: Open Borders and International Migration Policy: The Effects of Unrestricted Immigration in the United States, France, and Ireland.

Physical location:
Pepperdine University. Special Collections and University Archives.
Rules or conventions:
Describing Archives: A Content Standard

Access and use

Restrictions:

Advance notice required for access.

Terms of access:

Permission to publish, quote, or reproduce must be secured from the repository and the copyright holder.

In the case of interviewees with pseudonyms, researchers may listen to the interview and quote the individual by pseudonym only, until after Joel Fetzer's death.

Preferred citation:

[Box/folder# or item name], Joel S. Fetzer papers, Collection no. 0003, Special Collections and University Archives, University Libraries, Pepperdine University.

Location of this collection:
24255 Pacific Coast Highway
Malibu, CA 90263-4786, US
Contact:
(310) 506-4323
specialcollections@pepperdine.edu
Website