Anti-Americanisms in World Politics

by Robert O. Keohane

Book Overview

Anti-Americanism has been the subject of much commentary but little serious research. In response, Peter J. Katzenstein and Robert O. Keohane have assembled a distinguished group of experts, including historians, polling-data analysts, political scientists, anthropologists, and sociologists, to explore anti-Americanism in depth, using both qualitative and quantitative methods. The result is a book that probes deeply a central aspect of world politics...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0801473519
• ISBN13: 9780801473517
• Release Date: November 2006
• Publisher: Cornell University Press
• Length: 368 Pages
• Weight: 1.15 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.1" x 9.2"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

Good but it should talk about power and American hegemony

Anti-Americanisms in World Politics an edited volume by Peter J. Katzenstein and Robert O. Keohane is an excellent contribution to the debate on global anti-American attitudes. Despite the breadth and depth of this work, it fails to consider American hegemony and military power as a cause of anti-American sentiment. In framing the work, the authors distinguish between "what the United States is" and "what the United States does" but this general dichotomy does not account for the effects of American hard power preeminence. By its very nature, power is threatening to other nations regardless of its form as either an untapped or actualized asset of statecraft. Although the authors suggest that "sovereign-nationalist Anti-Americanism" is one of the four causes for anti-American attitudes, the authors frame this hostility primarily as a challenge to national identity rather than a manifestation of hard power or security competition. Although this identity-based framework is plausible, it is not sufficient to explain foreign responses to American power. In chapter 4 of the work Chiozza conducts an empirical study of the causes for anti-Americanism and finds that U.S. troop presence is not a significant factor contributing to negative attitudes towards the United States. Although this lack of significant correlation could be interpreted as evidence that American military power does not provoke anti-Americanism, such a conclusion is not warranted. In the absence of a positive finding, the opposite conclusion that troop levels do not matter is equally plausible. Unlike armies of the past, the American military does not necessarily need to have a "boots on the ground" footprint to exercise its power. Power projection and long-range strike capabilities make such traditional metrics irrelevant and unrepresentative for American power and may heighten foreign resentment of American power disparity. Clearly, a more finely honed quantitative study of this phenomenon that accounts for factors such as proximity to the United States, alliance patters, recent wars, types of forces, size and quality of the host nation's armed forces, and the duration of troop deployments is needed to quantify such a proposition. Until such a model is perfected, responses to power are still an intriguing and parsimonious independent variable to describe and predict anti-Americanism. Such a prediction that power and power disparities are a driving force behind anti-American attitudes is consistent with both realist predictions and historical models. As realists predict, power creates uncertainties and insecurities and ultimately threatens the existence of states. Assuming this level of intense security competition, it is only reasonable to expect anti-Americanism as a response to U.S. power. This model is supported by historical examples such as Rome, Ancient China, and Imperial Britain where weaker powers have reviled the predominant power and influence of stronger states. Althou

The types of Anti-Americanism

The central idea of this book is that there is not one all encompassing type of anti- Americanism but rather a number of different kinds, each of which has its own causes and dangers. Neil Gross in the 'Boston Globe' summarizes the four major types of Anti- Americanisms presented in this book as follows: "The first, liberal anti-Americanism, appears in democracies like France or England. Here opposition to American policies often involves the charge that the United States is being hypocritical by not living up to its professed values and ideals -- values its critics share. When Europeans express outrage over the treatment of prisoners by US military personnel in Guantanamo Bay, or in secret detention centers abroad, these are examples of liberal anti-Americanism. How can a country that says it stands for freedom condone such obvious abuses of human rights? The second strain, social anti-Americanism, comes from critics of the United States who are staunch supporters of the social welfare state, and thus oppose American economic policy because it promotes laissez-faire ideals and erodes welfare state protections. Social anti-Americanism is at play when Bolivian President Evo Morales, for example, rails against American-led globalization on the grounds that, among other things, it exposes people to the vicissitudes of the market. More dangerous, according to the editors, are the two remaining strains. Sovereign-nationalist anti-Americanism, which may be found in parts of Latin America and Asia, involves opposition to American geopolitical and cultural dominance on the grounds that they are threats to national identity and strategic interests, as can be seen in Chinese saber-rattling over Taiwan. Radical anti-Americanism, meanwhile, of the kind typically associated with Islamic fundamentalism, holds, according to Katzenstein and Keohane, that "America's identity" must be "transformed, either from within or without." Each of these types of Anti- Americanism is considered within the context of a different society. The experts that Katzenstein and Keohane include are as follows:John Bowen, Washington University in St. Louis Giacomo Chiozza, University of California, Berkeley Pierangelo Isernia, University of Siena Alastair Iain Johnston, Harvard University Peter J. Katzenstein, Cornell University David M. Kennedy, Stanford UniversityRobert O. Keohane, Princeton University Marc Lynch, Williams College Doug McAdam, Stanford University Sophie Meunier, Princeton University Daniela Stockmann, University of Michigan The inclusion of such a rich variety of scholars covering so many different areas helps provide a general overall sense of the varieties of Anti- Americanism. Their work also enables a dispelling of the illusion that Anti-Americanism is a new phenomenom and not one with its own long and varied history. However it seems to me that the fourth type of Anti-Americanism the kind which aims at erasing American social and cultural identity, and which