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April 29, 2005

From Keohane and Katzenstein: “Anti-Americanisms, not Anti-Americanism” *

Contribution from Peter J. Katzenstein , Walter S. Carpenter, Jr. Professor of International Studies, Cornell University and Robert O. Keohane, Professor of International Affairs, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University. In this letter, Katzenstein and Keohane answer the following question posed by WorldAndUS:

How can "Anti-Americanism" best be defined, operationalized, and used as a tool for analysis?

We have been working at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, Stanford, California, during this academic year on the topic of "anti-Americanism." Together with a group of scholars from various social science disciplines, we are completing a joint book on "the politics of Anti-Americanism," to be published in 2006. This book explores public opinion poll data on opinions toward the United States; examines Americanism in the United States and anti-Americanism in China, France, and the Middle East; and views anti-Americanism from the perspectives also of anthropology and social movement theory.

One of our major conclusions is that "anti-Americanism" serves as a label for several quite distinct phenomena, with different sources and implications for policy. We distinguish six sets of views, all of which might lead to "unfavorable" ratings of the United States in public opinion polls, and which therefore might well be coded as "anti-American":

1) Liberal Anti-Americanism. Liberals may share the values of "the American creed" but criticize the United States for not living up to these values. Whether these views should be called "Anti-American" at all is questionable.

2) Welfarist Anti-Americans. People in this category may be very critical of the United States for its lack of a highly protective welfare state, and for such policies as the death penalty. But on other dimensions -- for example, support for democracy and opposition to terrorism -- they may be quite pro-American.

3) Sovereign-Nationalist Anti-Americanism. Nationalists in a variety of countries are likely to resent the United States when it appears to threaten their sovereignty or other interests, but not to have strong negative views toward the United States at other times.

4) Radical Anti-Americanism. Marxist-Leninists (of which only relatively few remain) and radical Islamists have in common rejection of what they view as dominant American values and a desire to weaken the United States as an actor in world politics.

5) Cultural Elitist Anti-Americanism. In France and to some extent elsewhere, intellectuals have for many decades, or even centuries, rejected the United States as culturally dominated by commercialism and crude popular tastes.

6) Legacy Anti-Americanism. Legacy anti-Americanism stems from resentment of past wrongs done by the United States to another society. For instance, Mexicans still resent past military interventions by the United States and American seizure in the 19th century of large amounts of Mexican territory.

Whatever the merits of this particular typology, the general point should be clear. Anti-Americanism is an heterogeneous phenomenon. It has highly diverse roots. It should be expected, therefore, that different American practices and policies would stimulate different types of anti-Americanism, and that people holding different types of anti-American views would do so with different intensity. Liberal anti-Americans (if they can even be called "anti-American") are unlikely to engage in suicide bombing, while radical anti-Americans may under certain circumstances do so. Detailed analysis of anti-Americanism, as in our forthcoming book, will only be valuable if it begins from an understanding of anti-Americanism as heterogeneous.

* Copyright by Peter J. Katzenstein and Robert O. Keohane. Text: 492 words.