Anti-Americanisms

PETER J. KATZENSTEIN AND

ROBERT O . KEOHANE

I *y^£RAB REACTIONS TO American support for Israel in its

^ X£ recent conflict with Hezbollah have put anti-
i-J Americanism in the headlines once again. Around the
/ m world, not just in the Middle East, when bad things hap-
%^^ \/ pen there is a widespread tendency to blame America for
its sins, either of commission or omission. When its Belgrade embassy is
bombed, Chinese people believe it was a deliberate act of the United States
government; terror plots by native British subjects are viewed as reflecting
British support for American policy; when AIDS devastates much of Africa,
the United States is faulted for not doing enough to stop it.

Peter J. Katzenstein is the Walter S. Carpenter Jr. professor of internation-

al studies at Cornell University. Robert O. Keohane is professor of inter-
national affairs at Princeton University. This article is adapted from Anti-
Americanisms in World Politics, edited by Peter J. Katzenstein and Robert
O. Keohane, forthcoming from Cornell University Press in 2007. Used by
permission of the publisher.

OCTOBER d^ NOVEMBER 2006 25 Policy Review 139

 Peter J. Katzenstein and Robert O. Keohane
These outbursts of anti-Americanism can be seen simply as a way of
protesting American foreign policy. Is "anti-Americanism" really just a com-
mon phrase for such opposition, or does it go deeper? If anti-American
expressions were simply ways to protest policies of the hegemonic power,
only the label would be new. Before World War i Americans reacted to
British hegemony by opposing "John Bull." Yet there is a widespread feeling
that anti-Americanism is more than simply opposition to what the United
States does, but extends to opposition to what the United States is — what it
stands for. Critiques of the United States often extend far beyond its foreign
policy: to its social and economic practices, including the public role of
women; to its social policies, including the death penalty; and to its popular
culture, including the flaunting of sex. Globalization is often seen as
Americanization and resented as such. Furthermore, in France, which has
had long-standing relations with the United States, anti-Americanism
extends to the decades before the founding of the American republic.
With several colleagues we recently completed a book, Anti-
Americanisms in World Politics,^ exploring these issues, and in this short
article we discuss four of its themes. First, we distinguish between anti-
Americanisms that are rooted in opinion or bias. Second, as our book's title
suggests, there are many varieties of anti-Americanism. The beginning of
wisdom is to recognize that what is called anti-Americanism varies, depend-
ing on who is reacting to America. In our book, we describe several different
types of anti-Americanism and indicate where each type is concentrated. The
variety of anti-Americanism helps us to see, third, the futility of grand expla-
nations for anti-Americanism. It is accounted for better as the result of par-
ticular sets of forces. Finally, the persistence of anti-Americanism, as well as
the great variety of forms that it takes, reflects what we call the polyvalence
of a complex and kaleidoscopic American society in which observers can
find whatever they don't like — from Protestantism to porn. The complexity
of anti-Americanism reflects the polyvalence of America itself.

Opinion and bias

TO OUR argument is a distinction between opinion and
bias. Some expressions of unfavorable attitudes merely reflect
opinion: unfavorable judgments about the United States or its
policies. Others, however, reflect bias: a predisposition to believe negative
reports about the United States and to discount positive ones. Bias implies a
distortion of information processing, while adverse opinion is consistent
with maintaining openness to new information that will change one's views.
The long-term consequences of bias for American foreign policy are much

^ Peter J. Katzenstein and Robert O. Keohane, eds., Anti-Americanisms in World Politics (Cornell
University Press, 2007).

26 Policy Review
 Anti-Americanisms
greater than the consequences of opinion.
The distinction between opinion and bias has implications for policy, and
particularly for the debate between left and right on its significance. Indeed,
our findings suggest that the positions on anti-Americanism of both left and
right are internally inconsistent. Broadly speaking, the American left focuses
on opinion rather than bias — opposition, in the left's view largely justified,
to American foreign policy. The left also frequently suggests that anti-
Americanism poses a serious long-term problem for U.S. diplomacy. Yet
insofar as anti-Americanism reflects ephemeral opinion, why should it have
long-lasting effects? Policy changes would remove the basis for criticism and
solve the problem. Conversely, the American right argues that anti-
Americanism reflects a deep bias against the United States: People who hate
freedom hate us for what we are. Yet the right also tends to argue that anti-
Americanism can be ignored: If the United States follows effective policies,
views will follow. But the essence of bias is the rejection of information
inconsistent with one's prior view: Biased people do not change their views
in response to new information. Hence, if bias is the problem, it poses a
major long-term problem for the United States. Both left and right need to
rethink their positions.
The view we take in the volume is that much of what is called anti-
Americanism, especially outside of the Middle East, indeed is largely opin-
ion. As such, it is volatile and would diminish in response to different poli-
cies, as it has in the past. The left is correct on this score, while the right
overestimates resentment toward American power and hatred of American
values. If the right were correct, anti-Americanism would have been high at
the beginning of the new millennium. To the contrary, zoo2 Pew polls show
that outside the Middle East and Argentina, pluralities in every country
polled were favorably disposed toward the United States. Yet with respect to
the consequences of anti-American views, the right seems to be on stronger
ground. It is difficult to identify big problems for American foreign policy
created by anti-Americanism as such, as opposed to American policy. This
should perhaps not be surprising, since prior to the Iraq war public opinion
toward the United States was largely favorable. The right is therefore broad-
ly on target in its claim that much anti-Americanism — reflecting criticisms
of what the United States does rather than what it is — does not pose seri-
ous short-term problems for American foreign policy. However, if opinion
were to harden into bias, as may be occurring in the Middle East, the conse-
quences for the United States would be much more severe.

Anti-Americanisms

P INCE WE ARE interested in attitudes that go beyond negative opin-

ions of American foreign policy, we define anti-Americanism as a
psychological tendency to hold negative views of the United States

OCTOBER & NOVEMBER 2006 27

 Peter J. Katzenstein and Robert O. Keohane
and of American society in general. Such negative views, which can be more
or less intense, can be classified into four major types of anti-Americanism,
based on the identities and values of the observers. Erom least to most
intense, we designate these types of anti-Americanism as liberal, social, sov-
ereign-nationalist, and radical. Other forms of anti-Americanism are more
historically specific. We discuss them under a separate rubric.
Liberal anti-Americanism. Liberals often criticize the United States bitter-
ly for not living up to its own ideals. A country dedicated to democracy and
self-determination supported dictatorships around the world during the
Cold War and continued to do so in the Middle East after the Cold War had
ended. The war against terrorism has led the United States to begin support-
ing a variety of otherwise unattractive, even repug-
No liberal nant, regimes and political practices. On economic
issues, the United States claims to favor freedom of
anti-American trade but protects its own agriculture from competi-
ever detonated *^^°" stemming from developing countries and seeks
, , . extensive patent and copyright protection for
a bomb against American drug firms and owners of intellectual
Americans or property. Such behavior opens the United States to
iilnnyipA nvi charges of hypocrisy from people who share its pro-
u iL^ii'ri'K^KA' 14-ri' f 1 * 1 1 1 1
fessed ideals but lament its actions.
attack on the Liberal anti-Americanism is prevalent in the liber-
United States ^^ societies of advanced industrialized countries,
especially those colonized or influenced by Great
Britain. No liberal anti-American ever detonated a
bomb against Americans or planned an attack on the United States. The
potential impact of hberal anti-Americanism would be not to generate
attacks on the United States but to reduce support for American policy. The
more the United States is seen as a self-interested power parading under the
banners of democracy and human rights rather than as a true proponent of
those values, the less willing other liberals may be to defend it with words or
deeds.
Since liberal anti-Americanism feeds on perceptions of hypocrisy, a less
hypocritical set of United States policies could presumably reduce it.
Hypocrisy, however, is inherent in the situation of a superpower that pro-
fesses universalistic ideals. It afflicted the Soviet Union even more than the
United States. Furthermore, a prominent feature of pluralist democracy is
that its leaders find it necessary to claim that they are acting consistently
with democratic ideals while they have to respond to groups seeking to pur-
sue their own self-interests, usually narrowly defined. When the interests of
politically strong groups imply policies that do not reflect democratic ideals,
the ideals are typically compromised. Hypocrisy routinely results. It is criti-
cized not only in liberal but also in nonliberal states: for instance, Chinese
public discourse overwhelmingly associates the United States with adherence
to a double standard in its foreign policy in general and in its conduct of the

28 Policy Review
 Anti-Americanisms
war on terror specifically.
Hypocrisy in American foreign policy is not so much the result of the ethi-
cal failings of American leaders as a byproduct of the role played by the
United States in world politics and of democratic politics at home. It will
not, therefore, be eradicated. As long as political hypocrisy persists, abun-
dant material will be available for liberal anti-Americanism.
Social anti-Americanism. Since democracy comes in many stripes, we are
wrong to mistake the American tree for the democratic forest. Many democ-
ratic societies do not share the peculiar combination of respect for individual
liberty, reliance on personal responsibility, and distrust of government char-
acteristic of the United States. People in other democratic societies may
therefore react negatively to America's political insti-
tutions and its social and political arrangements that There will be
rely heavily on market processes. They favor deeper nhundant
state involvement in social programs than is politi-
cally feasible or socially acceptable in the United material for
States. Social democratic welfare states in liberal anti-
Scandinavia, Christian democratic welfare states on
the European continent, and developmental industri- Americanism
al states in Asia, such as Japan, are prime examples ^5 long as
of democracies w h o s e institutions a n d practices con- , . I f ]
trast i n m a n y w a y s with those o fthe United States. ^
Social anti-Americanism is based on value con- hypOCrisy.
flicts that reflect relevant differences in many spheres
of life that are touching on "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." The
injustice embedded in American policies that favor the rich over the poor is
often decried. The sting is different here than for liberals who resent
American hypocrisy. Genuine value conflicts exist on issues such as the
death penalty, the desirability of generous social protections, preference for
multilateral approaches over unilateral ones, and the sanctity of internation-
al treaties. Still, these value conflicts are smaller than those with radical anti-
Americanism, since social anti-Americanism shares in core American values.
Sovereign-nationalist anti-Americanism. A third form of anti-
Americanism focuses not on correcting domestic market outcomes but on
political power. Sovereign nationalists focus on two values: the importance
of not losing control over the terms by which polities are inserted in world
politics and the inherent importance and value of collective national identi-
ties. These identities often embody values that are at odds with America's.
State sovereignty thus becomes a shield against unwanted intrusions from
America.
The emphasis placed by different sovereign nationalists can vary in three
ways. Eirst, it can be on nationalism: on collective national identities that
offer a source of positive identification. National identity is one of the most
important political values in contemporary world politics, and there is little
evidence suggesting that this is about to change. Such identities create the

OCTOBER & NOVEMBER 2006 29

 Peter J. Katzenstein and Robert O. Keohane
potential for anti-Americanism, both when they are strong (since they pro-
vide positive countervalues) and when they are weak (since anti-
Americanism can become a substitute for the absence of positive values).
Second, sovereign nationalists can emphasize sovereignty. In the many
parts of Asia, the Middle East, and Africa where state sovereignty came only
after hard-fought wars of national liberation, sovereignty is a much-cher-
ished good that is to be defended. And in Latin America, with its very differ-
ent history, the unquestioned preeminence of the U.S. has reinforced the per-
ceived value of sovereignty. Anti-Americanism rooted in sovereignty is less
common in Europe than in other parts of the world for one simple reason:
European politics over the past half-century has been devoted to a common
f, . . project — the partial pooling of sovereignty in an
Sovereignty is ^^^^^^^ European polity.
cherished A third variant of sovereign-nationalist anti-
VM flir\co *^/ivtc Americanism appears where people see their states
in Tfjose "parTS . < r- i • • \ r-
as potential great powers. Such societies may define
of the world their own situations partly in opposition to domi-
where it came ^^^^ states. Some Germans came to strongly dislike
Britain before World War i as blocking what they
only after believed was Germany's rightful "place in the sun."
hard-fought ^^^ British-German rivalry before the Eirst World
J. . . War was particularly striking in view of the similari-
wars of nationai ^^^^ between these highly industrialized and partially
liberation. democratic societies and the fact that their royal
families were related by blood ties. Their political
rivalry was systemic, pitting the dominant naval power of the nineteenth
century against a rapidly rising land power. Rivalry bred animosity rather
than vice versa.
Sovereign-nationalist anti-Americanism resonates well in polities that
have strong state traditions. Encroachments on state sovereignty are particu-
larly resented when the state has the capacity and a tradition of directing
domestic affairs. This is true in particular of the states of East Asia. The
issues of "respect" and saving "face" in international politics can make anti-
Americanism especially virulent, since they stir nationalist passions in a way
that social anti-Americanism rarely does.
China is particularly interesting for this category, since all three elements
of sovereign-nationalist anti-Americanism are present there. The Chinese
elites and public are highly nationalistic and very sensitive to threats to
Chinese sovereignty. Eurthermore, China is already a great power and has
aspirations to become more powerful. Yet it is still weaker than the United
States. Hence, the superior military capacity of the United States and its
expressed willingness to use that capacity (for instance, against an attack by
China on Taiwan) create latent anti-Americanism. When the United States
attacks China (as it did with the bombing of the Chinese embassy in
Belgrade in 1999) or seems to threaten it (as in the episode of the EC-3 spy

30 Policy Review
 Anti-Americanisms
plane in 2001), explicit anti-Americanism appears quickly.
Radical anti-Americanism. We characterize a fourth form of anti-
Americanism as radical. It is built around the belief that America's identity,
as reflected in the internal economic and political power relations and insti-
tutional practices of the United States, ensures that its actions will be hostile
to the furtherance of good values, practices, and institutions elsewhere in the
world. For progress toward a better world to take place, the American econ-
omy and society will have to be transformed, either from within or from
without.
Radical anti-Americanism was characteristic of Marxist-Leninist states
such as the Soviet Union until its last few years and is still defining Cuba and
North Korea today. When Marxist revolutionary
zeal was great, radical anti-Americanism was associ- The perceived
ated with violent revolution against U.S.-sponsored -i yy.^y. friUp
regimes, if not the United States itself. Its Marxist-
Leninist adherents are now so weak, however, that it various forms,
is mostly confined to the realm of rhetoric. Eor the from eaualitV
United States to satisfy adherents of this brand of
radical anti-Americanism, it would need to change / ^ ^ WOmen tO
the nature of its political-economic system. belief in the
The most extreme form of contemporary radical . . r
anti-Americanism holds that Western values are so Superiority Of
abhorrent that people holding them should be Christianity.
destroyed. The United States is the leading state of
the West and therefore the central source of evil. This perceived evil may
take various forms, from equality for women, to public displays of the
human body, to belief in the superiority of Christianity. Eor those holding
extreme versions of Occidentalist ideas, the central conclusion is that the
West, and the United States in particular, are so incorrigibly bad that they
must be destroyed. And since the people who live in these societies have
renounced the path of righteousness and truth, they must be attacked and
exterminated.
Religiously inspired and secular radical anti-Americanism argue for the
weakening, destruction, or transformation of the political and economic
institutions of the United States. The distinctive mark of both strands of
anti-Americanism is the demand for revolutionary changes in the nature of
American society.
It should be clear that these four different types of anti-Americanism are
not simply variants of the same schema, emotions, or set of norms with only
slight variations at the margin. On the contrary, adherents of different types
of anti-Americanism can express antithetical attitudes. Radical Muslims
oppose a popular culture that commercializes sex and portrays women as
liberated from the control of men and are also critical of secular liberal val-
ues. Social and Christian democratic Europeans, by contrast, may love
American popular culture but criticize the United States for the death penal-

OcTOBER & NOVEMBER 2006 31

 Peter J. Katzenstein and Robert O. Keohane
ty and for not living up to secular values they share vi^ith liberals. Liberal
anti-Americanism exists because its proponents regard the United States as
failing to live up to its professed values — vi^hich are entirely opposed to
those of religious radicals and are largely embraced by liberals. Secular radi-
cal anti-Americans may oppose the American embrace of capitalism but
may accept scientific rationalism, gender egalitarianism, and secularism —
as Marxists have done. Anti-Americanism can be fostered by Islamic funda-
mentalism, idealistic liberalism, or Marxism. And it can be embraced by
people who, not accepting any of these sets of beliefs, fear the practices or
deplore the policies of the United States.

Historically specific anti-Americanisms

w o OTHER FORMS of anti-Americanism, which do not fit within
our general typology, are both historically sensitive and particular-
istic: elitist anti-Americanism and legacy anti-Americanism.
Elitist anti-Americanism arises in countries in which the elite has a long
history of looking down on American culture. In France, for example, dis-
cussions of anti-Americanism date back to the eighteenth century, when
some European writers held that everything in the Americas was
degenerate.^ The climate was enervating; plants and animals did not grow to
the same size; people were uncouth. In France and in much of Western
Europe, the tradition of disparaging America has continued ever since.
Americans are often seen as uncultured materialists seeking individual per-
sonal advancement without concern for the arts, music, or other finer things
of life. Or they are viewed as excessively religious and therefore insufficiently
rational. French intellectuals are the European epicenter of anti-
Americanism, and some of their disdain spills over to the public. However,
as our book shows, French anti-Americanism is largely an elite phenome-
non. Indeed, polls of the French public between the 1960s and 2002 indi-
cated majority pro-Americanism in France, with favorable ratings that were
only somewhat lower than levels observed elsewhere in Europe.
Legacy anti-Americanism stems from resentment of past wrongs commit-
ted by the United States toward another society. Mexican anti-Americanism
is prompted by the experiences of U.S. military attack and various forms of
imperialism during the past 200 years. The Iranian revolution of 1979 and
the subsequent hostage crisis were fueled by memories of American interven-
tion in Iranian politics in the 1950s, and Iranian hostility to the United
States now reflects the hostile relations between the countries during the rev-
olution and hostage crisis. Between the late 1960s and the end of the twen-
tieth century, the highest levels of anti-Americanism recorded in Western

2 Philippe Rogeii The American Enemy: The History of French Anti-Americanism (University of Chicago
Press, 2005).

32 Policy Review
 Anti-Americanisms
Europe were found in Spain and especially Greece — both countries that
had experienced civil wars; in the case of Spain the United States supported
for decades a repressive dictator. Legacy anti-Americanism can be explosive,
but it is not unalterable. As the Philippines and Vietnam — both highly pro-
American countries today — show, history can ameliorate or reverse nega-
tive views of the United States as well as reinforce them.

The futility of grand explanations

ANTI-AMERICANISM IS explained as the result of some mas-
ter set of forces — for example, of hegemony or globalization. The
United States is hated because it is "Mr. Big" or because of its
neoliberalism. However, all of these broad explanations founder on the vari-
ety of anti-Americanisms.
Consider first the "Mr. Big" hypothesis. Since the end of the Cold War,
the United States has been by far the most powerful state in the world, with-
out any serious rivals. The collapse of the Soviet bloc means that countries
formerly requiring American protection from the Soviet Union no longer
need such support, so their publics feel free to be more critical. In this view,
it is no accident that American political power is at its zenith while
American standing is at its nadir. Resentment at the negative effects of oth-
ers' exercise of power is hardly surprising. Yet this explanation runs up
against some inconvenient facts. If it were correct, anti-Americanism would
have increased sharply during the 1990s; but we have seen that outside the
Middle East, the United States was almost universally popular as late as
2002. The Mr. Big hypothesis could help account for certain forms of liber-
al and sovereign-nationalist anti-Americanism: Liberals criticize the United
States for hypocrisy (and sometimes for being too reluctant to intervene to
right wrongs), while sovereign nationalists fear the imposition of American
power on their own societies. But it could hardly account for social, radical,
elitist, or legacy anti-Americanism, each of which reacts to features of
American society, or its behavior in the past, that are quite distinct from
contemporary hegemony.
A second overarching explanation focuses on globalization backlash. The
expansion of capitalism — often labeled globalization — generates what
Joseph Schumpeter called "creative destruction." Those who are adversely
affected can be expected to resist such change. In Benjamin Barber's clever
phrase, the spread of American practices and popular culture creates
"McWorld," which is widely resented even by people who find some aspects
of it very attractive.^ The anti-Americanism generated by McWorld is diffuse
and widely distributed in world politics. But some societies most affected by

^ Benjamin Barber, Jihad vs. McWorld {Crown, 1995).

OCTOBER & NOVEMBER ZOO6 33

 Peter J. Katzenstein and Robert O. Keohane
economic globalization — such as India — are among the most pro-
American. Even among the Chinese, whose reactions to the United States are
decidedly mixed, America's wealth and its role in globalization are not
objects of distrust or resentment as much as of envy and emulation. In terms
of our typology, only social anti-Americanism and some forms of sovereign-
nationalist anti-Americanism could be generated by the role of the United
States in economic globalization — not the liberal, radical, elitist, or legacy
forms.
A third argument ascribes anti-Americanism to cultural and religious
identities that are antithetical to the values being generated and exported by
American culture — from Christianity to the commercialization of sex. The
globalization of the media has made sexual images not only available to but
also unavoidable for people around the world. One reaction is admiration
and emulation, captured by Joseph Nye's concept of soft power. But another
reaction is antipathy and resistance. The products of secular mass culture are
a source of international value conflict. They bring images of sexual freedom
and decadence, female emancipation, and equality among the sexes into the
homes of patriarchal and authoritarian communities, Muslim and otherwise.
For others, it is American religiosity, not its sex-oriented commercialized cul-
ture, that generates negative reactions. Like the other arguments, the cultural
identity argument has some resonance, but only for certain audiences. It may
provide an explanation of some aspects of social, radical, and elitist anti-
Americanism, but does not explain the liberal, sovereign-nationalist, or lega-
cy varieties.
Each of the grand explanations probably contains at least a grain of truth,
but none constitutes a general explanation of anti-Americanism.

The polyvalence of American society

SYMBOLS ARE polyvalent. They embody a variety of
values with different meanings to different people and indeed
even to the same individual. Elites and ordinary folks abroad are
deeply ambivalent about the United States. Visitors, such as Bernard-Henri
Levy, are impressed, repelled, and fascinated in about equal measure. Levy
dislikes what he calls America's "obesity" — in shopping malls, churches,
and automobiles — and its marginalization of the poor; but he is impressed
by its openness, vitality, and patriotism.'' As David Laitin has noted, the
World Trade Center was a symbol not only of capitalism and America but
of New York's cosmopolitan culture, so often scorned by middle America.
The Statue of Liberty symbolizes not only America and its conception of
freedom. A gift of France, it has become an American symbol of welcome to

'* Bernard-Henri Levy, American Vertigo: Traveling America in the Footsteps of Tocqueville (Random
House, zoo6).

34 Policy Review
 Anti-Americanisms
the world's "huddled masses" that expresses a basic belief in America as a
land of unlimited opportunity.
The United States has a vigorous and expressive popular culture, which is
enormously appealing both to Americans and to many people elsewhere in
the world. This popular culture is quite hedonistic, oriented toward material
possessions and sensual pleasure. At the same time, however, the U.S. is
today much more religious than most other societies. One important root of
America's polyvalence is the tension between these two characteristics.
Furthermore, both American popular culture and American religious prac-
tices are subject to rapid change, expanding further the varieties of expres-
sion in the society and continually opening new options. The dynamism and
heterogeneity of American society create a vast set of
choices: of values, institutions, and practices. Like the United
America's openness to the rest of the world is K! t'
reflected in its food and popular culture. The '
American fast-food industry has imported its prod- Hollywood is
ucts from France (fries), Cermany (hamburgers and (pQffj jfi America
frankfurters) and Italy (pizza). What it added was
brilliant marketing and efficient distribution. In ^ ^ " Of the
many ways the same is true also for the American world. And SO
movie industry, especially in the past two decades.
Hollywood is a brand name held by Americans and ^^ America
non-Americans alike. In the 1990s only three of the itself.
seven major Hollywood studios were controlled by
U.S. corporations. Many of Hollywood's most celebrated directors and
actors are non-American. And many of Hollywood's movies about America,
both admiring and critical, are made by non-Americans. Like the United
Nations, Hollywood is both in America and of the world. And so is America
itself — a product of the rest of the world as well as of its own internal char-
acteristics.
"Americanization," therefore, does not describe a simple extension of
American products and processes to other parts of the world. On the con-
trary, it refers to the selective appropriation of American symbols and values
by individuals and groups in other societies — symbols and values that may
well have had their origins elsewhere. Americanization thus is a profoundly
interactive process between America and all parts of the world. And, we
argue here, it is deeply intertwined with anti-American views. The interac-
tions that generate Americanization may involve markets, informal net-
works, or the exercise of corporate or governmental power — often in vari-
ous combinations. They reflect and reinforce the polyvalent nature of
American society, as expressed in the activities of Americans, who freely
export and import products and practices. But they also reflect the varia-
tions in attitudes and interests of people in other societies, seeking to use,
resist, and recast symbols that are associated vi^ith the United States. Similar
patterns of interaction generate pro-Americanism and anti-Americanism,

OCTOBER & NOVEMBER 2006 35

 Peter J. Katzenstein and Robert O. Keohane
since both pro- and anti-Americanism provide an idiom to debate American
and local concerns. Anti- and pro-Americanism have as much to do with the
conceptual lenses through which individuals living in very different societies
view America as with America itself. In our volume, Iain Johnston and Dani
Stockmann report that when residents of Beijing in 1999 were asked simply
to compare on an identity-difference scale their perceptions of Americans
with their views of Chinese, they placed them very far apart. But when, in
the following year^ Japanese, the antithesis of the Chinese, were added to the
comparison, respondents reduced the perceived identity difference between
Americans and Chinese. In other parts of the world, bilateral perceptions of
regional enemies can also displace, to some extent, negative evaluations of
the United States. For instance, in sharp contrast to the European continent,
the British press and public continue to view Germany and Germans primar-
ily through the lens of German militarism, Nazi Germany, and World War
II.
Because there is so much in America to dislike as well as to admire, poly-
valence makes anti-Americanism persistent. American society is both
extremely secular and deeply religious. This is played out in the tensions
between blue "metro" and red "retro" America and the strong overtones of
self-righteousness and moralism this conflict helps generate. If a society veers
toward secularism, as much of Europe has, American religiosity is likely to
become salient — odd, disturbing, and, due to American power, vaguely
threatening. How can a people who believe more strongly in the Virgin Birth
than in the theory of evolution be trusted to lead an alliance of liberal soci-
eties? If a society adopts more fervently Islamic religious doctrine and prac-
tices, as has occurred throughout much of the Islamic world during the past
quarter-century, the prominence of women in American society and the vul-
garity and emphasis on sexuality that pervades much of American popular
culture are likely to evoke loathing, even fear. Thus, anti-Americanism is
closely linked to the polyvalence of American society.
In 1 9 4 1 Henry Luce wrote a prescient article on "the American
Century." The American Century — at least its first 65 years — created
enormous changes, some sought by the United States and others unsought
and unanticipated. Resentment and anti-Americanism were among the
undesired results of American power and engagement with the world. Our
own cacophony projects itself onto others and can be amplified as it rever-
berates, via other societies, around the world.
Perhaps the most puzzling thing about anti-Americanism is that we
Americans seem to care so much about it. Americans want to know about
anti-Americanism: to understand ourselves better and, perhaps above all, to
be reassured. This is one of our enduring traits. Americans' reaction to anti-
Americanism in the twenty-first century thus is not very different from what
Alexis de Tocqueville encountered in 1835:

The Americans, in their intercourse with strangers, appear impa-

36 Policy Review
 Anti-Americanisms
tient of the smallest censure and insatiable of praise. . . . They
unceasingly harass you to extort praise, and if you resist their
entreaties they fall to praising themselves. It would seem as if,
doubting their own merit, they wished to have it constantly exhib-
ited before their eyes.^

Perhaps we care because we lack self-confidence, because we are uncer-

tain whether to be proud of our role in the world or dismayed by it. Like
people in many other societies, we look outside, as if into a mirror, in order
to see our own reflections with a better perspective than we can provide on
our own. Anti-Americanism is important for what it tells us about United
States foreign policy and America's impact on the world. It is also important
for what it tells us about ourselves.

•^ Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (18351,1965 edition, 252.

OCTOBER & NOVEMBER 2006 37